Loading ...According to a 2011 tally by the Government’s civil service commissioner’s office, 12.5 percent of Israel’s doctors in the public health system are Arab, as are 11.3 percent of nurses. A 2015 study by Tel Aviv University indicated that Arabs account for 35 percent of all pharmacists.
“I am greeted with a lot of respect,” says Dr. Mahmoud Abou Salwook, an endocrinologist from the Arab village of Kafr Qassem who treats diabetes patients in the ultra-Orthodox Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak. He has worked for nine years in clinics in Jewish neighborhoods.
Anti-Arab remarks from Jewish patients are rare, Dr. Abou Salwook says. “It’s an exception. They usually come from people who are uneducated and closed-minded,” he says. “I get a lot of nice feedback – I hear what patients tell the secretaries.”
About Salwook’s career path illustrates a growing trend among Israel’s Arab citizens and an employment shift that’s been under way for the past decade in clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies in Jewish communities throughout Israel.