{"id":457611,"date":"2026-05-24T12:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/457611\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T12:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T12:34:11","slug":"first-female-druze-doctor-shares-revolutionary-story-with-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/457611\/","title":{"rendered":"First female Druze doctor shares revolutionary story with ‘Post’"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Dr. Nadia Khir decided to leave her traditional Druze<\/a> village to study medicine in 1985, she set out on an unprecedented path, becoming Israel\u2019s first female Druze physician and unknowingly blazing a trail that countless women have followed since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to do something revolutionary,\u201d she told The Jerusalem Post in an interview, after receiving a reward of special recognition for her contributions to the advancement of Druze women from philanthropist Miriam Adelson.<\/p>\n

Khir\u2019s revolutionary legacy did not come easily, as her decision to leave the village of Julis and pursue an unconventional path was initially met with resistance from her community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very, very, very traditional community,\u201d she told the Post.<\/p>\n

In Khir\u2019s community, women and girls were not allowed to leave their villages to study.<\/p>\n

\"FromFrom left: Dr. Khir, Dr. Ashur, and Miriam Adelson on stage. (credit: Liron Moldovan & Oren Ben Hakoon)Khir spoke with male relative to convince her family<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a mentality that we should keep our women safe in the village, because Druze all over history felt threatened,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Restricted by societal pressure to stay in the village, Khir had to convince her family to allow her to pursue her dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted my brother\u2019s permission, but I was afraid to talk to him. I did not have the courage,\u201d she told the Post. Instead, she sought out a male relative who had left the village to study at the University of Haifa to speak to her brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him, please ask my brother if he would let me go and learn medicine. He talked to my brother and said to him, don\u2019t worry, I will be near her,\u201d Khir recalled, adding that the relative managed to convince her brother.<\/p>\n

Convincing her religious mother was more difficult, she stated. \u201cIt was difficult to come and say, \u2018Mom, I\u2019m going to learn medicine,\u2019 because it was forbidden.\u201d<\/p>\n

With support from her brother, Khir finally won the approval of her family.<\/p>\n

In 1986, she applied and was accepted to the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology<\/a>, one of Israel\u2019s top universities.<\/p>\n

While medical school welcomed her ambition, she still needed the acceptance of her community. Pursuing such an unconventional path carried the potential that Khir\u2019s family would be punished by the village for her choices.<\/p>\n

Khir specifically feared that her mother would be banned from the local khilwa, the Druze house of prayer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone has broken the rules, they do not let them get into this holy place,\u201d she explained. \u201cLet\u2019s say I break the rules. I\u2019m not religious, so they punish my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a chance encounter one day, she met Sheikh Faraj Fadoul, one of her village\u2019s religious heads, and took the opportunity to ask for his advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle,\u201d Khir said, addressing Fadoul as family, as members of her tight-knit Druze community often do. \u201cI want to study medicine. I know that my mother will be punished. What should I do? I have been accepted to the Technion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fadoul pondered the issue for a moment before directly telling Khir to \u201cjust go and learn,\u201d ensuring that her mother would not be punished for the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe found the solution for me. Without this, I could not be a doctor,\u201d she asserted. \u201cThe promise that he made to me was real. He did not punish my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Week after week, her mother was continually welcomed to the khilwa, and she began her studies at the Technion, confronted by cultural differences that set her apart from her classmates.<\/p>\n

Khir had received the majority of her education up until university in Arabic. While she studied Hebrew and English in school, the level of vocabulary used in medical school was unfamiliar to her.<\/p>\n

But Khir\u2019s dedication to raising her family\u2019s economic status and helping people kept her motivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter six years, I made the practical [clinical] year, the seventh year, and then became the first Druze woman doctor in Israel,\u201d she beamed.<\/p>\n

For her clinical year of medical school, Khir specifically chose a hospital located in an area near her village that allowed her to interact with and treat Druze patients.<\/p>\n

While patients were often surprised to see a female Druze doctor<\/a> when Khir first began practicing medicine, her treatment opened some patients\u2019 minds. She showed them that Druze women did not have to sacrifice their ambition for the safety of their villages. Druze women in Israel could safely pursue education and build successful careers while uplifting their community.<\/p>\n

Khir recounted that eventually, even those in the religious community who were originally skeptical of her decisions sought out her care. \u201cWhen I became a doctor, the religious society was the first to come and have medical help from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Education for Druze women ‘entirely transformed’<\/p>\n

IN THE four decades since Khir\u2019s first day of medical school, the experience for Druze women seeking education has entirely transformed.<\/p>\n

Khir\u2019s own daughters have followed in her footsteps, with one in the process of completing medical school and two pursuing degrees in engineering.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the hardships she overcame, Khir told the Post that her daughters faced significantly fewer obstacles, \u201cnot from society, not from their economic status, [and] not from having anyone who should give them permission to go and study.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of them, every Druze woman nowadays… who wants to study at university, they can go, and they can study, and no one says anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khir said that she feels proud and satisfied watching young Druze women work toward their goals today, the tangible effect of the social change she helped enact.<\/p>\n

Now, having her contributions to the advancement of Druze women recognized by Adelson, Khir expressed deep gratitude for Adelson\u2019s advocacy for the release of all hostages previously held by Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n

She added that the recognition feels like more than personal praise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis recognition is for the Druze community,\u201d she stated. \u201cThis is for the Druze society<\/a>, who have sacrificed a lot of soldiers over the last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Dr. Nadia Khir decided to leave her traditional Druze village to study medicine in 1985, she set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[971,13811,163,85,46,31947,43],"class_list":["post-457611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-doctor","tag-druze","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israels-druze-community","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}