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Prof. Avi Almozlino <\/p>\n
(Photo: Eclipse Media)<\/p>\n
For more than 40 years, Almozlino has been an Israeli doctor in the United States. Throughout those years, he considered returning to Israel, and the longing was difficult, but in the end he chose to settle in the U.S. He also volunteers as co-chair of the Israeli American Council, which brings together Israeli communities across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not angry at Israeli doctors who come to America; it\u2019s a personal choice. For some people, it works,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to stay in Israel and be angry all the time \u2014 I don\u2019t think you\u2019d function. I don\u2019t encourage it and I don\u2019t facilitate it, but those who already do it, I try to help if they\u2019re here. We need to be inclusive of those who are already here, regardless of how they arrived. Someone who decided Israel wasn\u2019t right for them and wants to be part of the community \u2014 I will certainly include and help them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you encourage them?
\n\u201cI don\u2019t encourage it, because it isn\u2019t easy. Life led my wife and me to the U.S. From a Zionist perspective, actively immigrating here as an act of protest, especially if you\u2019re a senior, well-established doctor in Israel, is not the right move in my opinion. On a personal level, coming to the U.S. and starting over is hard. The system is different, the language is different \u2014 even the medical language is different. The mentality is different, too. I came here at 28; that made it easier. For someone more mature, the transition is much harder. I know people who came later in life, struggled, and some even returned.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, Prof. Almozlino never worked as a physician in Israel beyond his internship. His entire career was built in the U.S. \u201cWe wanted to return. Twice I was practically on the plane back to Israel. I was in contact with hospitals in Israel, Sheba and Ichilov. They told me, \u2018Come back \u2014 it will be fine.\u2019 People warned me about the words \u2018it will be fine.\u2019 I wanted solid facts, which no one could give me, so we stayed one step short of boarding. That was in my late 30s.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n 5 View gallery <\/p>\n Prof. Avi Almozlino and his wife, Naomi, with journalist Douglas Murray <\/p>\n (Photo: Noam Galai)<\/p>\n For years, he and his wife spent weekends going to yard sales. \u201cWe bought things we thought would be suitable when we returned to Israel. We stored them away and they gathered dust, until we realized we probably weren\u2019t going back, and then we sold them at our own yard sale.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you miss Israel? Does it weigh on you that you didn\u2019t manage to return? <\/p>\n 5 View gallery <\/p>\n Almozlino, 70, was born and raised in Tel Aviv and has a distant family connection to Shoshana Arbeli-Almozlino, who served as Israel\u2019s health minister in the 1980s. He grew up two blocks from David Ben-Gurion\u2019s home and, as a child, would see him and be excited like all the neighborhood kids. \u201cThey would always bring Ben-Gurion boxes of chocolates, and Paula would take them and hand them out to the neighborhood children so he wouldn\u2019t eat them,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n He developed an interest in life sciences in high school and studied in a biology track. He enlisted in the Golani Brigade, but after a herniated disc became a researcher at the induction center. After the army, he studied medicine at Tel Aviv University and completed his internship at Beilinson Hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of my internship I was newly married. My wife, Naomi, is an architect and a Technion graduate. The stars aligned. She received a scholarship for a master\u2019s degree at Harvard, and I was accepted into a neurology residency at a Boston hospital, one of the best in the world. We decided we wanted to experience the world for a few years. We thought it would last four or five years \u2014 and we never went back.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael has excellent medicine and outstanding doctors. I\u2019ve always said I am a product of Israel\u2019s medical education,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I arrived in Boston at 28, my English wasn\u2019t great, my manners weren\u2019t exactly American, and I entered a residency program with top U.S. medical school graduates, many from Harvard. What saved me was the medical education I received in Israel. Maybe their English was better, but my medicine was just as good, if not better.\u201d<\/p>\n Almozlino has a son and a daughter, Adam and Julie. His eldest son, Adam, 38, immigrated to Israel. \u201cIn December 2020, at the height of COVID, when everyone was isolated, my son, a data scientist, went to Israel for three months, settled in Tel Aviv and fell in love with it. He met a woman, got married a year and a half ago, and has since founded a startup.\u201d<\/p>\n What did you think of his move? Were you jealous? News, images and voices from the October 7 massacre quickly reached across the ocean and caught Prof. Almozlino in the middle of a workday. \u201cIt was a very difficult day. I was shocked, like everyone else. That day and in the days that followed, I felt like someone with severe attention issues, because you\u2019re constantly focused on what\u2019s happening in Israel. I was shaken.\u201d<\/p>\n Did you lose friends after October 7?![\"\u05e4\u05e8\u05d5\u05e4'](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/H1ZZcrtX8Wg_0_0_1280_720_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Prof.")
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\n\u201cYes, there\u2019s longing, but I allow myself to travel to Israel twice a year. In the early years it was harder because I worked intensely to build my professional standing. Today I make up for it with trips to Israel, ties with Israeli friends and involvement in the IAC.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHonestly, no. In the early years, yes, and it pushed me toward wanting to return, but it\u2019s a good question I haven\u2019t really thought about. The fact that my son lives there may ease my conscience a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\u05e4\u05e8\u05d5\u05e4'](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SkW9rt78bx_0_162_1280_721_0_x-large.jpg\" "\\"Photo:")
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\n\u201cI don\u2019t know if jealous is the right word. I was truly happy for him. There\u2019s something about Israel that\u2019s hard to find elsewhere. It felt like closing a circle. I think I\u2019m a Zionist in every fiber of my being, and what better expression of the Zionist idea than having your firstborn make aliyah and fulfill the Zionist dream?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIn the first days there was full empathy and sympathy, Jewish and non-Jewish. At first, Israel was clearly seen as the victim. People constantly checked that my family was OK. They didn\u2019t even know what the Gaza border region was. As time went on and Israel responded, that faded and the empathy disappeared. Some colleagues \u2014 mostly Jewish \u2014 and close friends who are naturally pro-Israel stayed with us. No one accused me of genocide, but people stopped wanting to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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