Rabin Medical Center

Beilinson Hospital was inaugurated in 1936 as the "Hospital of Judea and Sharon," intended to serve pioneers in towns throughout those regions.[4] Workers in what the institution's history describes as central Palestine collectively donated two days' wages toward its establishment.[4] The hospital was later named for Dr. Moshe Beilinson, one of its founders — a physician who headed Kupat Holim's supervisory committee and also served as publisher and editor of the newspaper Davar.[4] From its original 70 beds, Beilinson grew into a tertiary medical center with more than 1,000 beds.[4] The Dina School of Nursing was established alongside the hospital in 1936 and today offers accredited academic nursing programs leading to BA and MA degrees.[4]

Hasharon Hospital was founded in 1942 as medical-service needs in the region expanded.[4] It began as a surgical satellite branch of Beilinson — a one-story unit called Beilinson II — led by surgeons from the parent hospital under Prof. N. Feller.[4] The branch was eventually renamed Hasharon Hospital and, in 1982, became Golda-Hasharon Hospital in honor of Golda Meir, then chair of the Kupat Holim board.[4] Over its history, Hasharon grew from 28 to 400 beds.[4]

In January 1996, six weeks after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Beilinson and Hasharon merged to form Rabin Medical Center, named in his memory.[3] The two campuses sit approximately two kilometers apart in Petah Tikva.[5] A 2004 plan by Clalit concentrated inpatient care at Beilinson and outpatient clinics, day-care services — including dialysis, invasive tests, and ambulatory surgery — at Hasharon, with the aim of eliminating duplicated services, improving access to technology, and saving a projected NIS 40 million annually.[5] The National Library of Israel's Union List identifies a separate library at the Golda Campus–Hasharon, located at 7 Keren Kayemet Le-Israel Street, Petah Tikva.[6]

In September 2026, a rebranding exercise temporarily removed Yitzhak Rabin's name from the hospitals' logo. The change drew public criticism, and hospital management reversed it, stating that the licensed name Rabin Medical Center had not changed.[3]

Beilinson's history is marked by a series of medical landmarks, many of them national firsts. The hospital established Israel's first blood bank in 1938, performed the country's first living-related donor kidney transplant in 1964, and carried out Israel's first heart transplant in 1968 — just one year after the first such procedure worldwide.[4] It also established the country's first heart institute in 1970 and its first neonatal intensive care unit in 1975, and was Israel's first hospital to have a dermatology department, a nephrology institute, and a dialysis unit.[4]

Subsequent decades brought further pioneering procedures. Beilinson performed Israel's first artificial-heart implantation in 1995.[4] After the merger that created Rabin Medical Center, the combined center carried out what is described as the country's first liver-lobe transplant from a living-related donor in 1996 and the first successful kidney cross-transplantation — between an Arab and a Jewish patient — in 1998.[4] A brain-blood-vessel catheterization technique replacing open-brain surgery was introduced in 1999, the first robot-assisted cardiothoracic operation was conducted in 2001, and Israel's first small-intestine transplant took place at Beilinson in 2014.[4]

The Rogoff Welcome Research Center, established in the 1970s, became the nucleus of the Felsenstein Medical Research Center, which today comprises 50 research laboratories.[4] Work originating at Beilinson and the research institute includes identifying a gene responsible for a form of familial hereditary rickets, developing an antidote to viper venom, and creating the Sharplan laser for gynecologic and plastic surgery.[4] A 2023 report described the hospital's innovation program as generating roughly 40 new projects per year, drawing on Clalit's large database of medical files and imaging — MRI, CT, and ultrasound — and supported by an innovation team physically embedded within the hospital.[7]

Beilinson physicians played a foundational role in Israeli medical education as well. They helped initiate the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, and Prof. Andre DeVries — former head of Beilinson's Department of Internal Medicine D and hospital director — served as the school's first dean.[1] Both Beilinson and Hasharon hospitals have received international accreditation for quality and safety of care from Joint Commission International (JCI).[1]

Rabin Medical Center is classified as one of Israel's seven tertiary general-hospital centers, with the combined Beilinson and Hasharon complex holding approximately 1,300 beds.[2] Clalit identifies Beilinson as one of the country's six Level 1 trauma centers.[8]

The Jusidman Center for Emergency Medicine and Trauma at Beilinson is a 5,000-square-meter underground emergency department serving approximately 150,000 patients a year.[8] Being situated underground provides a protected environment against missile attacks, and its parking area below can be converted into a protected treatment area during emergencies.[8] The trauma unit within the department treats around 2,500 patients annually.[8] Emergency-department visit data from 2018 to 2020 recorded successive annual totals of 102,500, 102,700, and 91,100 visits at the Rabin–Beilinson campus.[9]

The neurosurgery department, established in 1948, performs more than 1,000 adult surgical procedures and approximately 400 pediatric cases each year.[10] It operates 30 beds, including a six-bed intensive care unit, and treats brain and pituitary conditions, benign and malignant tumors, spinal conditions, and vascular conditions of the brain, including endovascular treatment.[10]

The Davidoff Center for the Treatment and Research of Cancer, founded at Beilinson in 2005, combines oncology, hemato-oncology, and supportive care with cancer prevention and research.[11] JNS reported in 2023 that the center treats one in seven Israeli patients with cancer.[12] Clalit lists more than 60 physicians and 120 nurses among its staff.[11] In 2023, a $25 million gift from Drs. Susan and Henry Samueli, combined with a $9 million contribution from Clalit Health Services, was announced to establish the Samueli Integrative Cancer Pioneering Institute alongside the Davidoff Center, which JNS described as Israel's first dedicated cancer hospital.[12] The planned institute was to bring together behavioral-science, cancer, data-science, and artificial-intelligence experts with the Davidoff clinical team, drawing on Clalit's cancer-patient database to develop a comprehensive cancer "data lake."[12]

Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, which opened on the Beilinson campus in 1991, was formed from the pediatric departments of Beilinson and Hasharon Hospitals and was made possible by a contribution from the Schneider Family.[4] Clalit describes it as the largest and most advanced children's hospital in the Middle East.[4]

Beilinson's transplant service is described as Israel's largest and leading organ-transplant program, performing transplants of the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, pancreas, intestine, and cornea around the clock.[13] The service brings together transplant surgeons, physicians, intensive-care doctors, anesthesiologists, operating-room nurses, and laboratory teams.[13] In 2017, 520 patients received organ transplants from deceased and living donors across Israel — at the time the highest annual total recorded in the country — while 1,138 patients remained on national waiting lists, including 840 awaiting kidneys, 110 livers, 74 hearts, and 102 lungs.[13] Transplant coordinator Rachel Michovitz, with more than 20 years in the role, has described receiving donation calls on Yom Kippur during Kol Nidre prayer.[13] A 2019 profile noted that organ transplantation remained one of Beilinson's principal fields of activity, alongside cardiothoracic surgery, cancer treatment, and a dedicated women's hospital.[14]

Beilinson has served Israeli civilians and military personnel through successive conflicts dating to the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939, treating casualties regardless of background — Jews, Arabs, Israelis, and foreigners alike.[4] During the 1967 Six-Day War, Rabin Medical Campus was among the main Israeli hospitals prepared to receive war casualties, with beds, operating and laboratory facilities, and equipment readied underground, and casualty teams working around the clock.[15] Helicopters assisted in rapid transport of the wounded to hospitals during the conflict.[15] The hospital was also among the first institutions to assist radiation victims following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, and it treated waves of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia while sending medical teams abroad to countries in distress.[4]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Beilinson converted two underground parking levels into a hospital ward in approximately two months, at a construction cost of NIS 36 million.[16] The resulting facility included four intensive-care departments for severely ill and ventilated COVID-19 patients, 206 beds, 200 ventilation stations, 20 dialysis stations, four remote-monitoring centers, and more than 100 staff members.[16] The infrastructure was designed to allow rapid activation as a protected hospital in future emergencies.[16]

Following the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, Beilinson activated its fortified underground hospital, which occupies two floors of the underground car park and covers 5,000 square meters.[17] The facility held 200 beds and included a general intensive-care unit, three internal-medicine wards, and a dialysis unit.[17] By late October 2023, the hospital had treated more than 160 wounded civilians and soldiers.[17] President Isaac Herzog described the facility as having been opened especially for the war.[17] A later report on hospital preparedness quoted Rabin Medical Center director Dr. Lena Koren-Feldman stating that the underground hospital had been expanded to 350 beds, with an additional 150 to 200 fully fortified beds in the inpatient tower, bringing the total number of beds protected according to Health Ministry protocols to 800.[18] She also said the hospital maintained diesel fuel and water supplies sufficient for three months of independent operation.[18]

In November 2023, the center established a dedicated Returning Hostages Unit on the sixth floor of Beilinson Hospital.[19] The 21-suite unit combines acute medical care, rehabilitation, psychological services, and family support, with individualized plans involving physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychiatry, and relevant medical specialists.[19] In October 2025, nearly two years after the unit's establishment, JNS reported that it remained operational and ready to receive returning hostages.[19]

In April 2024, Beilinson launched Beilinson NEXT, a virtual hospital offering remote medical services to residents throughout Israel.[20] With a referral and Form 17, services were available to members of all Israeli health funds without additional charge.[20] Specialties offered included oncology, genetics, ophthalmology, dermatology, neurology, obstetrics, and kidney transplantation, as well as clinical nutrition, physiotherapy, and speech rehabilitation.[20] The platform also provided home hospitalization, home fetal ultrasound reviewed by a Beilinson center operating around the clock, and remote monitoring for patients with heart failure via a dedicated sensor.[20] A 2024 report noted that demand for virtual medical services had increased by approximately 25% since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.[21]

In the Health Ministry's 2021 hospital quality index, Rabin Medical Center and Sheba Medical Center tied for first place, assessed on criteria including diagnosis time, waiting periods, and personal patient treatment.[22] The hospital's director, Dr. Eitan Wertheim, noted at the time that Beilinson was the only Israeli hospital to have placed first three consecutive times and to have led in all the ministry's reviews that year.[22]

In August 2025, Anat and Dr. Shmuel Harlap announced a major donation to Rabin Medical Center–Beilinson Hospital for the construction of a planned Heart and Brain Center, to be called the Tower of Hope. Ynet reported the gift as NIS 600 million and described it as the largest donation in the history of Israel's health sector, while JNS reported its value as $180 million.[23][24] The planned facility is 15 floors and approximately 70,000 square meters, with a target opening in early 2027.[23][24] It is intended to add 300 inpatient and intensive-care beds and house eight specialized departments covering cardiology, neurosurgery, neurology, and cardiothoracic surgery, including a stroke command center and specialized cardiac and neurological care services, as well as transplant units, surgical suites, and AI-assisted diagnostic systems.[23][24]

Leah Rabin, wife of the assassinated prime minister in whose memory the medical center is named, died at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva on November 12, 2000, aged 72, following a battle with cancer.[25] She had suffered a mild heart attack days before her death, which came just one week after Israel marked the fifth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.[25]

Andre de Vries (1911–1996) was a distinguished physician and hematologist at Beilinson Hospital and served as the founding dean of the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.[26][1] Dr. Boaz Tadmor has served as Director of Research and Development for Rabin Medical Center, encompassing both Beilinson and Hasharon Hospitals.[27]