OFAKIM – Israel has launched the country’s first formal training program for prosthetists and orthotists, opening the door for war-wounded amputees and thousands of other patients to receive advanced devices and care without traveling abroad. The new master’s degree program at the School of Prosthetics and Orthotics at the ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village is operating on the campus outside Ofakim, roughly 40 minutes from Beersheba.
The initiative lands amid an acute, documented need. According to the Defense Ministry, there are 1,061 amputees in Israel who lost limbs in injuries from military activities, including 88 troops wounded in fighting against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon since October 7, 2023. ADI Negev says there are roughly another 18,000 amputees nationwide due to illness, accidents, and civilians wounded in war and terror attacks.
The program also plugs directly into Israel’s public health and rehabilitation system, which subsidizes mobility and rehabilitation devices under Health Ministry rules but has long depended on a small number of foreign‑trained specialists to prescribe and fit complex prosthetics. A Defense Ministry spokesperson said the ministry paid for the expenses of Baruch Cohen’s trip abroad to receive his prosthetic leg and also funded trips for prosthetic fittings for the other 87 recent amputees.
From battlefield loss to renewed mobility
Baruch Cohen, 74, the former security coordinator at Kibbutz Magen and a retired lieutenant colonel in the paratroopers, lost his right leg after being shot while he and his team were credited with repelling waves of invading terrorists intent on a mass slaughter at the kibbutz on October 7, 2023.
Cohen spent months in rehabilitation and was initially fitted with a prosthetic in Israel, but said he remained in “terrible pain.” In August 2025, he traveled to Chicago for a new limb and described immediate relief: it “even has cushioning so I can drive for hours and I’m not in pain.”
Cohen said that now, whenever he is in a crowd of people, “he first looks at their legs.” He added: “I can tell if they have prosthetics and are amputated above the knee or below the knee, even if they’re wearing pants,” speaking at the ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran rehabilitation village, where he is an outpatient.
With the school now operating at ADI Negev, Cohen said “nobody is happier” about the program than he is, arguing that “people like me should be able to get world‑class treatment here, under Israel’s own health system, without being flown overseas.”
A first-in-Israel path to certification
Until the ADI Negev program opened in conjunction with Ben-Gurion University’s Recanati School for Community Health Professions, Israel had no formal educational training track for certified prosthetists and orthotists (CPOs). The school does not yet have a formal name. Program leaders say it is:
– Recognized by the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO).
– Funded by the Health Ministry, the Jewish Federations of North America, and Jewish National Fund-USA.
– Designed to give students the academic and technical knowledge to build prosthetics and orthotics using advanced materials and computerized technology.
Internationally, becoming a CPO generally requires a four‑year sequence of academic and clinical training, including a master’s degree and supervised residency. Israeli officials say that until now, most prosthetics work has been done either by a handful of foreign‑trained CPOs or by technicians who learned on the job, making it harder for the state to standardize quality and plan long‑term rehabilitation capacity.
“There’s no reason why amputees have to travel abroad for prosthetics at the highest level,” said Dr. Tzaki Siev‑Ner, director of ADI Negev’s Kaylie Rehabilitation Medical Center and head of the school. “The start-up nation should have advanced prosthetics.” He described the program as “an incubator for innovation and entrepreneurship in prosthetics and orthotics,” adding that he expects future graduates to help shape national rehabilitation policy and device standards.
“It will be an incubator for innovation and entrepreneurship in prosthetics and orthotics,” he said. “It sounds ambitious, but I’m standing behind it.”
The master’s track is aligned with Israel’s wider regulatory framework for rehabilitation and mobility devices, which is overseen by the Health Ministry and implemented through the country’s public HMOs under national health insurance law. That framework, which defines eligibility and subsidies for prosthetic and mobility aids, is expected to rely on a growing pool of locally trained CPOs for assessments, fittings, and long‑term follow‑up care.
Who is being trained – and how
Academic director Yael Dotan‑Marom said the school is her “mission.” The program runs five days a week for two years, with students receiving a stipend and a full tuition waiver so that, she said, “talent and commitment, not personal wealth, determine who can specialize in this field.”
The first cohort numbers 12 students:
– Seven are physical therapists; five are occupational therapists.
– Two have suffered war injuries themselves.
– Five are women; one is an Arab Israeli.
“Having diverse students is very important to me,” Dotan‑Marom said. “We’re training people who will see patients from every part of Israeli society, in a system that is supposed to treat everyone on equal terms.”
Among the trainees is physical therapist Alexander Yurovitsky, 39, who said, “I always saw his prosthetic leg as kind of cool, in a way,” recalling his grandfather, a Russian war veteran amputated below the knee. He considered studying abroad to become a CPO but ruled it out as too expensive. “As soon as I heard I’d gotten into the school, I dropped everything in Haifa and moved to southern Israel,” he said.
Occupational therapist Utay Ostrei, 49, said the recent war highlighted how “critical” orthotics are. “I wanted to help the wounded,” he said. “They were young soldiers, beautiful souls, but I couldn’t give them what they needed because I didn’t have enough knowledge.” At his own expense, he attended an orthotics conference in the United States and visited a prosthetics facility in Maryland, where he met two Israeli soldiers being fitted for devices. “It was crazy that they had to go all the way over there to receive prosthetics,” Ostrei said. “I know the necessity. I’m eager to learn more so that people here receive the best quality prosthetics and orthotics that they deserve.”
The cohort splits its time between classroom work at Ben-Gurion University, laboratory training, and supervised clinical work at ADI Negev’s prosthetics center and rehabilitation wards – a structure designed to meet international certification norms while producing practitioners who understand the constraints and obligations of Israel’s publicly funded health system.
Capacity on campus and the scale of need
Set on 40 leafy acres just outside Ofakim, the ADI Negev campus is home to about 400 residents and treats hundreds of outpatients, giving students direct clinical exposure as they train to fit and fabricate devices.
Officials said there are currently five certified CPOs in Israel, all trained abroad, and that most technicians working with prostheses learned through mentorship rather than an accredited program – a gap this school is designed to address as the Defense Ministry projects steep growth in the number of veterans entering rehabilitation over the next several years.
Definitions provided by program leaders:
– Prosthesis: an artificial appliance that substitutes for a missing body part.
– Orthotics: devices used to support or stabilize a body part during acute or long-term injury to bone and soft tissue; they can also aid patients with neurological conditions such as cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis.
Beyond training, ADI Negev plans to open a prosthetics and orthotics production center on the same campus, which would be the first such manufacturing hub in southern Israel and could eventually serve the national system alongside existing private and hospital‑based providers.
Key figures at a glance
– 1,061: amputees in Israel who lost limbs in injuries from military activities, per the Defense Ministry.
– 88: troops wounded in fighting against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah on the Lebanese border since October 7, 2023, included in the total above.
– ~18,000: additional amputees in Israel due to illness, accidents, and civilians wounded in war and terror attacks, according to ADI Negev.
– 5: certified CPOs currently in Israel, all trained abroad.
– 12: students in the first cohort; program runs five days a week for two years with stipend and full tuition waiver.
The school’s first cohort is in place on the ADI Negev campus, where instruction and hands-on clinical training are underway five days a week across a two‑year program – a pilot that Health Ministry officials and rehabilitation advocates will be watching closely as Israel decides how to scale specialist prosthetics training within its national health‑insurance framework.
