Yona Tadir

Yona Tadir was born in 1943 in Jerusalem

Tadir was born in Jerusalem on 5 October 1943. His father, David Wultz-Tadir, came to the country as a decathlete with the Maccabi Warsaw team for the second Maccabiah Games in 1935 and stayed. His father helped found the sports system of Hapoel and the Israeli Olympic Committee.

He served as a combat medic in the Armored Corps and later commanded the combat medic course. In the reserves he was a physician in Unit 669 with the rank of Major.

He began medical school at the University of Vienna in 1967 and graduated with honors from Tel Aviv University in 1974. He then trained in obstetrics and gynecology at Beilinson Hospital until 1980, with further training at Sheba Medical Center, in London and at Bourne Hall Clinic in England.

At Beilinson he set up the Endoscopic Surgery Unit in 1983 and ran the IVF Unit from 1985 to 1991. From 1991 to 1998 he was Medical Director of the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine, and later managed the Ramat Marpeh hospital network under Assuta until 2003. In 2007 he founded the Uterine Fibroid Center at Beilinson, which he directed until 2011.

He developed devices such as a laser-integrated laparoscope and an electric morcellator for removing uterine fibroids. He wrote over 200 scientific articles and 4 books, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery in 2021. He is married to Miri Tadir, and they have three daughters and seven grandchildren.