History

Homeopathy in Israel began in 1976, with the first practitioner Josef Reves. Over the years since, there have been a handful of people practicing some form of homeopathy, but only since 1995 has the volume and recognition of homeopathy risen to a substantial level.

The Israeli Association for Classical Homeopathy (IACH) was established towards the end of 1993 in an effort to regulate the practice of Classical Homeopathy and form a body that would further the interests of Homeopathy both amongst the practitioners themselves and in relation to the government bodies.

The number of registered practitioners has grown over the years, from 12 founding members in 1993 to approximately 250 full professional members in 2010. About 150 students are currently attending the various courses offered. At the seminars organized by the IACH the attendance is often around 70-100 people, ranging from first year students to accomplished homoeopaths.

The IACH Activities

• Maintaining, updating and publishing an National register of Classical Homeopaths (RCHom)
• Representing Homeopath's interests in relation to the government authorities
• Educating the public through pamphlets, lectures and website
• Support and accreditation of the schools teaching homeopathy
• Contacts with Homeopathic organizations abroad. Membership with ECCH and ICH.
• Publishing a professional journal in Hebrew twice a year
• Organizing seminars and workshops
• Organizing projects in which homeopaths volunteer to help those in need
• Public relations and work with the media to promote homeopathy.

Classical Homeopathy and the Health Care System

Over the past 12 years homeopathy has been integrated into various multi-therapy clinics. At least three hospitals have taken on homoeopaths (who are not necessarily MDs), to work within a "multi-therapy" clinic – offering Classical Homeopathy among other natural therapies.

All three of the national health care providers ( "Kupot HaCholim") offer their insured customers the option of alternative therapies, in which classical homeopathy is one. This has led to a general acceptance of CAM therapies by the public.

Education

There are several schools that teach homeopathy in Israel, all of them privately run. The more comprehensive ones offer a 4-year course, including one year of supervised clinical training. These institutes model their curriculum on the Education Guidelines of the ECCH and generally offer a rigorous, high level of training.

Various other courses are being taught, varying in quality and quantity of hours, but not all of them have applied for recognition by the IACH. We hope that some of these more comprehensive courses will apply in the near future and thereby standardize the level of homeopathy being taught across the country.

Seminars

The IACH has been very successful in organizing seminars with some of the world's most prominent homoeopaths. In the past years, we have been honored to host Deborah Collins, Nandita Shah, Massimo Mangelavori, George Vithoulkas, Jeremy Sherr , Ananda Zaren, Rajan Sankaran, Jayesh Shah, Jan Scholten, Alize Timmerman, Nandita Shah, Lou Klein, Frans Vermeulen and many others!

All of these were 2-3 day seminars with impressive attendance of around 100 people. Interestingly, both lay practitioners and the few MDs who practice classical homeopathy attend, and a real sense of a "homoeopathic community" is evident at these events. In 1995 we hosted the annual meeting of the ECCH in Jerusalem with a wonderful case conference as well.

Legal Status

The situation in Israel regarding legal practice of homeopathy is still unclear. There is no formal recognition of homeopathy as an accepted form of medicine, but neither are homoeopaths persecuted for practicing as they see fit.

An important government report dating from 1990 confirmed that basic rights such as ones freedom to choose a healer, and the freedom of professional occupation, could not be dismissed lightly. Nevertheless, none of the recommendations of this committee have been implemented to date. We strongly believe that the internal regulation done by our association will serve as a good reference point if and when the government decides to regulate the profession in some way.

Remedies

Homoeopathic remedies are at present freely distributed OTC. We have met with problems regarding homoeopathic prescriptions in the past but now just about anybody can obtain them with no problem. Recently some of the large pharmaceutical companies have begun importing and distributing remedies, and the competition is strong in this rapidly growing market.

Click here for English speaking Classical Homeopaths in Israel.