Mordechai Shani

Mordechai Shani was born in 1938 in Tel Aviv

Mordechai Shani was born in Tel Aviv in 1938. He earned his M.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1965. In 1971 he became a specialist in internal medicine after training at Tel HaShomer hospital.

He headed the internal medicine department at Tel HaShomer. After the Six-Day War and until 1971, he also directed medical services in the Gaza Strip and Sinai. After the death of Chaim Sheba in 1971, he became director of the hospital and held the post until 2004.

He served as Director General of the Ministry of Health in 1979 and again from 1993 to 1994. He sat on the Netanyahu Commission on the health system and played a central role in the law on community rehabilitation of people with mental illness. He also chaired the committee that sets the national health basket.

In 2005 he founded the School of Public Health at Tel Aviv University, where he is Professor of Healthcare Systems. He founded the Gertner Institute and started the Motke project for older adults in 2007 and the Kmoni social network for chronic patients in 2010.

He received the Israel Prize in 2009. The movement Ometz asked the education minister to reconsider the award, citing claims of corruption, and Shani denied claims about work for a private company in Hungary. In 2017 he was named Yakir of Ramat Gan.