A collaborative endeavor initiated by Hadassah Australia with Melbourne’s Monash Univeristy and the University of Melbourne brought to fruition the first international conference on trauma and mental health to be held in Israel, attracting 270 delegates from 16 countries.

Having supported the Hadassah Medical Center’s Jerusalem Crisis Intervention Center for more than 10 years, Hadassah Australia has come to understand the challenges of post-traumatic stress disorder, Hadassah Australia President Ron Finkel explains. “It was appropriate for Jerusalem to host the May 21-23 conference,” he says, “because the city has been a flashpoint in inter-communal violence since the First Intifada in 1987.”

Keynoted by Israeli Author Amos Oz, the conference featured a group of Palestinian child psychologists, as well as Prof. Jayashri Kulkarni, Director of the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Center. Read more about the conference in the Australian Jewish News.

Pictured above from left: President of Hadassah Australia Ron Finkel, Israeli Author and Keynoter Amos Oz, and Conference Co-Chair Prof. David Forbes, Director, Phoenix Australia Center for Post-traumatic Mental Health at the University of Melbourne