Yitzhak Kreiss Reportedly to Serve as Acting Health Ministry Director-General

Professor Yitzhak Kreiss, director of Sheba Medical Center, will reportedly serve temporarily as Health Ministry director-general at Health Minister Haim Katz’s request. Under the arrangement reported on November 9, Kreiss will continue running Sheba alongside the ministry role. Outgoing director-general Moshe Bar Siman-Tov is expected to finish at the end of the month. The reported selection follows Bar Siman-Tov’s November 3 announcement that he would leave in the coming weeks. The Health Ministry said he had served about nine years across two terms and would organize an orderly handover and a period of overlap with his successor. In that November 3 statement, Bar Siman-Tov said, “I am ending my tenure knowing that Israel’s health system is strong, professional and prepared for every challenge.” The ministry described his tenure as encompassing the national response to COVID-19 and the Swords of Iron war, including treatment of thousands of casualties and wounded people, the reception of returning hostages and the maintenance of health services during emergencies. The ministry also credited him with advancing the national mental-health plan addressing national trauma and strengthening medical infrastructure and services in the periphery. It said he was expected to join Columbia University in New York as a research fellow in the coming months, studying health systems’ responses to national trauma with a focus on Israel’s recent experience.