The Shaping of Military Nursing in Israel: 1947–1958

Abstract: Unique realities influenced the development of the military nursing profession in Israel. While other countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, established military hospitals staffed by separately trained military nurses, conditions in Israel led to the development of interlocking military and civilian healthcare sectors, as the young country responded simultaneously to healthcare needs brought on by war, ongoing attacks on civilians, and massive waves of immigrants, including European Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries. Relying on an analysis of documents in multiple archives, contemporaneous newspaper articles and interviews conducted with nurses who served in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1956 Sinai Campaign, this paper describes the development of the nursing profession in Israel through 1958, when military nursing was fully established as part of the civilian health sector, a reality that continues to the present.