Every day patients enter Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center not knowing if they’ll live a life that remotely resembles what they once had. The life they had before the accident. Before the attack. Before the trauma. We give people the opportunity to reclaim their lives. Now, you can be a part of that gift too…

Help a wounded, amputee IDF soldier walk again.
Help a holocaust survivor reclaim his speech after a stroke.
Help a child post brain surgery to smile once again.

These are the kind of life-changing moments you can be a part of. Will you join us?

The Challenge

From injured IDF soldiers to Holocaust survivors, young children and Israeli Arabs, the people we treat are as diverse as Israel itself. Our goal with this campaign is to help increase mobility for our patients. We urgently need 18 new Tilt-in-Space wheelchairs for our patients, each of which costs $6,000. Our physicians also need a Driving Simulator System to test patients’ motor and cognitive abilities. The wheelchairs will help them reclaim motion, and the driving simulator will help get these people back on the road and back to their lives.

Both of these tools are just one step closer to a semblance of normal life. However, we need your help to purchase these items. During normal, pre-pandemic times, we usually host a fundraising event for the medical center to achieve its funding goals. However, this year we won’t be able to, thus we’ve brought our fundraiser online, and we sincerely hope you’ll join us on our mission!

Tilt-in-Space Wheelchair

Patient using driving simulator

Who We Are

Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center is the only rehabilitation medical center in Israel and the largest, leading center in the entire middle east. The main building was inaugurated in 1973 following the Yom Kippur War. During this time the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Department was established to serve soldiers wounded in military operations, and victims of accidents. Cooperation between the IDF and Loewenstein is very close and has continued for many years.

Through advanced rehabilitation technology, we have treated those who have suffered from spine and spinal cord injury, brain, strokes, and orthopedic impairment of the limbs, following
amputation, fracture, or joint replacement. Our patients come from all walks of life and from all insurers across the country and around the world. We are proud to provide high-class treatments to Israeli Arabs and their children as well as IDF soldiers, Holocaust survivors and others from abroad. Because of the tradition, knowledge, and accumulated experience we have, senior doctors and therapists in Israel and worldwide undergo rehabilitation training at Loewenstein.

Our mission is to extend the life of our patients and improve its quality by realizing the rehabilitation potential and achieving the best possible results through rehabilitation programs custom-tailored for each patient. Through a human-first approach, we have developed the diagnostic tools and therapies that change the lives of our patients.

Doctor visit patients

Children’s Rehab dept. patio

Why Support Us?

During this pandemic, many of us have felt the challenge of being confined to a singular space. The lack of freedom to go anywhere we choose can feel suffocating. Our mental health can deteriorate, and our hope for a better future feels further out of our grasp. However, this lifestyle of quarantine and social distancing is a temporary one for most of us. That is not the case for most of our patients. Instead, they live this challenging existence every day. Many of them suffer without the ability to go where they need to go on their own. But you can help us give them back their freedom of mobility.

Lokomat robotic system for walking exercise

The Soldiers of Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center

Help us give back to those who risked everything to protect Israel and the Jewish people. We do everything that we can to make them feel comfortable and hopeful that a better future lies ahead for them. Soldiers admitted to Loewenstein Medical Center receive the best rehabilitation treatment in Israel and among the best in the world. The personalized rehabilitation process and the most advanced rehabilitation technologies in the world are part of what gives these soldiers a new chance.

When a soldier first enters the medical center, they are appointed a staff member to act as their “soldier representative”. This person serves to familiarize them with the medical center, address their questions, and provide joint meetings with the soldiers’ families, commanders, and medical center staff. We want to make sure that this center isn’t just another medical center, but a place that provides a community of people rooting each other on towards a common goal. After Operation Protective Edge, we connected the soldiers who were in our care through a WhatsApp group. This allowed them to keep in touch with those that were going through a similar challenge. We also invited the soldiers to attend shows for free and were transported by organized transportation on behalf of the medical center. It can do wonders to the rehabilitation of a person when you maintain a human touch, provide entertainment, and thus a sense of hope and belonging.

These soldiers that enter our medical center are not just another number on a list of patients. They have given so much of themselves to Israel, and we make sure that they are not forgotten about. We have had the privilege of honoring them and we know that their time spent with us changed our world as much as it changed theirs.

PM Benjamin Netanyahu honoring IDF wounded soldiers

Holocaust Survivors at Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center

After all the trauma that Holocaust survivors have been through, we want to make sure that their recovery journey at Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center is seamless. Each survivor receives a unique treatment that accommodates their physical, mental, and emotional condition. They are supported by a social worker and by the staff that ensures their treatment is both top notch and comfortable for them. Many of these survivors are quite lonely, and we offer them a place to connect with others as they go through the rehabilitation process. Once again, just like all of our patients, we welcome them into our care with warmth and compassion.

Doctor’s care

How You Will Help

The Tilt-in-Space Wheelchair

Your support will help us provide 18 of these life-changing Tilt-in-Space wheelchairs to our patients. This type of wheelchair is suitable for passive patients, who suffer from a lack of control of the back and neck muscles, and are unable to move the chair by themselves or to change their position in the chair independently and at will. The chair is a therapeutic device that enables comfortable and safe sitting, thanks to its unique features. Most of our patients use the chair for a long period of time causing irreparable wear and tear. Thus, we need to get more chairs, and we need your help to do it!

The Driving Simulator: STISIM Drive M300WS-OT Desktop System

This driving simulator allows the doctors at Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center to assess whether the patient is ready to start driving again. When behind the wheel, a lack of proper cognitive or physical abilities can increase the risk of injuring themselves and those around them. We want to make sure that we can give people this basic freedom of driving again without endangering their lives or the lives of others. The simulator helps us test various motor and cognitive abilities, such as attention, reaction speed and accuracy, and basic coordination in a life-like driving experience.

Testimonials

Today is a very good day for us, a day of liberation, the day our new life begins.
When we arrived your unit we were broken, both physically as well as mentally. Everyone
around Yaron was heartbroken. Seeing this tall, handsome young man lying in bed so helpless. And you, with your serious look, examined Yaron, diagnosed and identified the potential to significantly improve his life.
In his worst condition, you made him push his limits, see himself in your kind eyes and open up and face new challenges.
There is no doubt that by giving Yaron the right tools, empathy and hope, he will always strive for more. He always left your room with a big smile on his face.
You always knew how to touch him, both physically and emotionally and he is enjoying the
results.
We all owe you so much. There are not enough words to describe our gratitude. We just want to say – Thank you. Now – only the sky is the limit
You will always have a warm place in our hearts.

Yaron T. and family

Featured in the News

Lowenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center teamed up with the Weizmann Institute to produce breakthrough research. Read more here: Israel scientists develop ‘sniff test’ that predicts consciousness recovery

“The majority of Clalit and state-owned general hospitals here have JCI accreditation today or are in the final stages of being accredited. Clalit’s Beit Loewenstein Rehabilitation Center in Ra’anana has also received the JCI goldseal.”

From a letter of commendation of the late Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Yitzhak Rabin:
“When they [the soldiers] come to the hospital, they are very upset, frustrated, and anxious because of their difficult situation. In their hearts and in the hearts of those dear to them, there is hope that here, at Loewenstein Hospital, they will receive the medical assistance that they need. Most of them are released singing the praises of the devoted care provided by doctors, nurses, and the multidisciplinary team. Everyone works night and day as best they can to restore them to full functioning and allow them to return to their previous lives.”

From a speech by the late Israeli President, Prime Minister, and Minister of Defense, Shimon Peres:
“It is impossible to understand the State of Israel, or at least the secrets of the State of Israel, without a deep understanding of the operation of several entities, which are of paramount importance in our lives. Beit Loewenstein is among those, having managed to save people who were practically sentenced to death.”

Nursing care

Questions?

Contact Tova Englard, Fundraising Campaign Director by selecting the “Contact Organizer” button at the top of our campaign.