16 Facts About Ruchama Marton

Ruchama Marton is an Israeli psychotherapist, psychiatrist, and feminist, and the founder of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

Ruchama Marton was born in Jerusalem, to Bilha and Aaron Smuelevitch who arrived from Poland in 1929.

Ruchama Marton saw members of her regiment killed in the Air Force bombing of the IDF, and witnessed the murder of Egyptian prisoners of war who had surrendered and were unarmed by soldiers from the battalion in which she served In the battlefields of Sinai the first seeds of her anti-militarist attitude and her lifelong commitment to fighting for human rights began.

Ruchama Marton struggled with this policy for many years and was eventually successful.

Ruchama Marton organized a fight against an existing ban that forbade female students from wearing pants.

Ruchama Marton believed that the change would improve the quality of the relationship between doctors and patients.

Ruchama Marton has participated since 1962 in many organizations working in the field of human rights, promoting the right to health, the rights of women and the struggle for peace.

Ruchama Marton served as the organization chairwoman for its first ten years.

Ruchama Marton was one of the founders of the committee against the closure of Bir Zeit University and in 1989 she co-founded "Verification", an organization of mental health workers for peace.

Ruchama Marton was a member of the International Committee for Palestinian NGOs.

Ruchama Marton was among the founders of the Progressive List for Peace, a bi-national party to the Knesset in 1984, which elected two representatives to the Knesset.

In 1988 Ruchama Marton founded the Association of Israeli-Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights, which later changed its name to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

Ruchama Marton put together a group of Israeli and Palestinian doctors, working together in full equality and solidarity.

Ruchama Marton bequeathed to the association a broader understanding of the concept of health - not just as medicine, but in the spirit of the World Health Organization - as "physical, psychological and social well-being" including access to water, sanitation, education, electricity, sewage, work, and free mobility.

Ruchama Marton is on the board of the Mental Health Center in Gaza.

PHR's partnership with organizations in Europe and the United States led to the "Network of International Organizations for Health and Human Rights" in 1992, of which Ruchama Marton is a board member.