Rebuilding Lives, Labs, and Hope at BGU
Rebuilding Lives, Labs, and Hope at BGU
December 29, 2025
Prof. Reli Hershkovitz, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at BGU
The Jerusalem Post— As 2026 approaches, Israel’s focus must shift from survival to rebuilding – not just infrastructure, but institutions that define our future. For the medical community in the Negev, that work cannot wait, Dean of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s (BGU) Faculty of Health Sciences, Prof. Reli Hershkovitz, wrote in a recent op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. She goes on to explain the extensive damage to BGU following the Iranian missile attacks earlier this year and how the Beer-Sheva spirit lives on in the students at the Joyce and Irving Medical School at BGU:
Earlier this year, I stood in what used to be our research laboratories. Six were completely destroyed by Iranian missiles, and nine others sustained significant damage. Decades of research that could have saved lives were gone in seconds. Around me lay shattered equipment, collapsed ceilings, and years of carefully gathered samples reduced to debris.
I grew up here. I am a product of this city and of the Goldman Medical School, where I trained. What we call the Beersheba Spirit is not just a slogan. It is a philosophy about how medicine should be taught and practiced. The past two years have tested us beyond imagination. We lost students. Faculty members lost family members. Nearly two-thirds of our students were called up to reserve duty. The rest volunteered in hospitals, cared for the wounded, and helped hold together an overstretched healthcare system.
On June 19, missiles hit Soroka Medical Center and our campus. When I first assessed the damage, one question kept returning: how do you come back from something like this?
The answer was to act immediately. Within hours, we moved classes online. Students completed their exams. We began rebuilding the next day in temporary labs and makeshift classrooms, doing whatever it took. Patients still needed doctors, and students had earned the right to become them. That is the Beer-Sheva Spirit, refusing to let missiles determine your future.
Rebuilding now is not only about restoring damaged buildings. It is about ensuring that Israel’s healthcare system, particularly in the south, remains strong, adaptive, and humane. The Negev is home to more than a million residents. Soroka Medical Center is their hospital, and the doctors we train are their doctors.
Read the rest of Prof. Reli Hershkovitz’s op-ed on The Jerusalem Post>>.
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