52 | AUGUST 27 • 2020 

Going Home Again

Jewish surgical oncologist fulfi
 lls his dream 
of aliyah, securing new job.

ELIZABETH KATZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Health

J

ake Shachar Laks, 41, has 
spent his life moving between 
his birthplace in Israel, 
growing up in Farmington Hills, 
receiving his medical degree at 
the Sackler School of Medicine 
at Tel Aviv University, working 
at U.S. hospitals and now, finally, 
going back home to Israel.
For Laks, an oncology sur-
geon who specializes in treating 
pancreatic cancer, his aliyah is a 
dream come true.
“It’
s always been a dream for 
me to go back home,
” he said. 
“The medical community there 
was so difficult to enter. There 
were only a few positions I could 
move into.
”
Laks, who was an associate 
professor at East Carolina State 
University before his move, has 
joined the surgical staff of Sheba 
Medical Center in Ramat Gan, 
Israel, a hospital ranked ninth-
best in the world by Newsweek
magazine. He is now using his 
highly specialized robotic sur-
gical training for the benefit of 
pancreatic cancer patients in 
Israel and is a faculty member of 
Tel Aviv University. 
“It’
s been really exciting,
” Laks 
said about his move to Israel in 
the fall of 2019. “(Sheba Medical 
Center) has a really incredible 
innovation center I have never 
seen anywhere else. All you have 
to do is talk to people around the 
water cooler and you get ideas 
for cutting-edge research.
”
Laks said he has also been 
impressed with Sheba’
s response 
to the COVID-19 global pan-
demic and its ability to secure 
PPE devices and ventilators in 

the face of a worldwide shortage.
“The initial response of the 
hospital was perhaps the most 
impressive mobilization of 
resources I’
ve ever seen,
” he said. 
“The entire hospital switched to 
working in three separate pods 
around the clock to minimize 
the possibility of health care 
workers becoming infected and 
causing a shortage of health 
care staff while still being able 
to deliver quality and efficient 
health care. 
“That type of mobilization 
of resources would have taken 
months of negotiations and 
board meetings to get approved 
in a hospital in the United states. 
(The mobilization) occurred 
essentially overnight in an Israeli 
hospital whose structural oper-
ation runs more like an army 
division than a hospital at times 
of emergency. This proved to 
be a great asset in the initial 
response.
”
Laks obtained his bachelor’
s of 
science degree in biology from 
the University of Michigan in 
Ann Arbor. After receiving his 
medical education in Israel, he 
did his surgery residency at St. 
Louis University in Missouri 
and his surgical oncology fellow-
ship at the University of North 
Carolina in Chapel Hill. He 
also spent six years at Columbia 
Surgical Associates and at the 
University of Missouri. He 
practiced for an additional three 
years at East Carolina University 
in Greenville, N.C.
Laks’
 family joined him on the 
move, including his wife, Meital, 
who is a veterinarian, and his 

two daughters, Noam Renee, 
11, and Einav Elle, 10. Laks 
met Meital when he was going 
through medical school in Israel.
His daughters are becoming 
accustomed to Israel, which 
he said is very different from 
America in terms of schooling.
“My oldest daughter was 
struggling with Hebrew, but she 
is getting used to it,
” he said, 
recalling with a laugh a Jewish 
phrase that goes something like, 
“learn to use your elbows.
”
“She came from a very cod-
dled Hebrew school in the states, 
where it was a very controlled 
environment,
” he said. “She is 
learning to use her elbows.
”
Laks said he is thrilled to 
have the opportunity to use his 
robotic surgical skills for his 
pancreatic cancer patients and 
that taking the “cancer journey” 
with them is humbling. It is one 
that he has personally taken, 
given that his eldest daughter 
was diagnosed with and sur-
vived rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare 
cancer that develops in the soft 
tissue around the skeleton. 
Laks has noticed the differ-
ences in the levels of communi-
cation that Israeli patients prefer, 
compared to American patients.
 “In the states, we see a very 
solid line between the patients 
and the doctors, and it’
s a line 

that is literally never crossed,
” 
he said. “In Israel, that does not 
apply. It’
s very informal. Patients 
have no qualms about giving you 
advice. It’
s quite amusing. At the 
same time, that brings you closer 
to the patient and the family and 
it can make it difficult.
”
Laks said it’
s normal that all 
his patients have his cell phone 
number. And those patients take 
advantage of that fact. Laks said 
he doesn’
t mind.
“If I don’
t give them my num-
ber, they wouldn’
t get the kind 
of answers or care they need,
” he 
said. “Patients don’
t really have 
the kind of resources they have 
in the states.
”
Laks and his family, who are 
Reform, now live in Tel Mond. 
He says that realizing his dream 
of returning “home” brings him 
in greater connection with all 
aspects of Judaism, both the reli-
gion and the culture.
“One of the things I do feel is 
a special bond with the Jewish 
people and being able to take 
care of people who are my own,
” 
he said. “It’
s really quite reward-
ing to give back to a country that 
is a homeland to our people. It’
s 
important we live in that home 
and it’
s important to be part of 
that home. I wanted my children 
to grow up in Israel and feel like 
they belong.
” 

SHACHAR LAKS

Dr. Jake

