Dr. Ruchama Marton is a practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and a long-term peace and human rights activist. She is the founder, driving force and president of the Physicians for Human Rights, Israel (PHR-I), a non-profit health and human rights NGO established in 1988 and based on cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian health professionals and human rights activists.
Marton has been a leader in the peace movement in Israel and an exemplary force in the struggle against Israeli violations of the human rights of Palestinians. She has passionately combined her psychological insight, social awareness and medical ethical perspective in order to analyze, expose and challenge the inhumane acts and policies of Israeli oppression of Palestinians, including political repression, torture, and the denial of access to basic resources and health services. She has continuously promoted mutual respect between Israelis and Palestinians working together, as a nonviolent alternative to war. For four decades she has also been involved in feminist activities and the fight for social order in Israel.
Marton was born in Jerusalem in 1937, seven years after her parents immigrated to Israel. She grew under the influence of the Second World War (her father’s family was exterminated in Europe) and of the establishment of the State of Israel. Her sensitivity to human rights violations, which has a deep impact upon her life, it developed further while she was a conscript to the Israeli army. During the 1956 war between Israel and Egypt she witnessed the execution of surrendered Egyptian prisoners of war; her protests were to no avail. A few months later she was discharged from the army for disobeying a command that she deemed sexist.
Marton studied medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (M.D. 1966), specialized in psychiatry (certified in 1974). In 1975 she graduated from the Institute of Psychotherapy at Tel Aviv University’s Medical School. At this medical school she has been a lecturer and a supervisor in psychiatry and psychotherapy, as well as a Senior Psychiatrist at its Psychiatric University hospital.
While her two children were still young, Marton got divorced and became responsible for the subsistence of her family. For 24 years she was a low-paid employee of the public health system. Nevertheless, she invested considerable time, at a personal cost, in activities for peace and human rights. Since 1986 she has been running a private clinic that she keeps to a bare minimum in order to be able to carry out her peace and human rights activism.
In addition to establishing and leading PHR-I, Marton has been involved in the creation and activities of several peace and human rights organizations at various levels--grassroots, political, human rights activist and academic. Among the groups she was involved in founding were an extra-parliamentary organization aimed at promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; The Public Committee against Torture; IMUT--a group of mental health workers for peace; and Forum--a group of teachers at Tel Aviv University who acted against Israel’s closing of educational institutions in the Occupied Territories. She has engaged in promoting respect and solidarity between Israelis and Palestinians, opposing Israel’s Occupation, and opposing Israel’s war in Lebanon. In addition, she helped found a self-help group of women fighting breast cancer.
Over the years, Marton has organized pioneering human rights and peace conferences and participated in numerous international panels, seminars, conferences and workshops. She initiated and organized the first international conference in Israel on the subject of torture, and has co-edited (with Neve Gordon) a book on torture. She has published numerous articles on issues of peace and human rights, and has written screenplays on related topics.
Marton serves on the boards of several international human rights organizations and is the recipient of several Israeli, Palestinian, and international peace and human rights awards. Among these awards are: Operation Smile International, Norfolk, VA., Certificate of Recognition, in 1993; Certificate of Gratitude, Patient Friends Society, Tulkarem, in 1994; Palestinian Award for Human Rights, Gaza, in 1997; Emil Grunzweig Award for Human Rights, presented by the Israel Ass. for Civil Rights, in 1999; Israeli Prime Minister Award: “Shield of the Child” awarded to PHR-Israel, Jerusalem, in 2000; The Helen Prize for Humanitarian Works, The International Organization of the Helen Prize for Women, Montreal, Canada, in 2000; and The Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights, Washington, DC, in 2002.
Marton was also granted human rights and peace fellowships in the USA. These fellowships include: Peace Studies Fellow, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, Harvard, from 1997 to 1998; Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Women's Middle East Peace Studies Fellow, Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, Harvard University, from 1998 to 1999; Fellow, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, from 1998 to1999; and Human Rights Fellow and Visiting Scholar, University of Chicago, from 1999 to 2000. Matron’s vision of health carries a wide spectrum context to include everything that is required for human well-being.
Marton has worked relentlessly to promote and protect the right to healthcare, a right guaranteed in the fourth Geneva Convention and other international conventions, both in Israel and in the Palestinian territories under Israel’s control. She foresees peace as possible and sustainable only if human rights are maintained and mutual respect is built up. Her activities are driven by this guiding vision. These activities are varied and complex, interacting and supporting each other. With PHR-I and in additional individual initiatives, she engages in political protest against human rights violations and against militaristic state policies; and in human rights monitoring, community empowerment, health care provision, advocacy, legal appeals to the High Court of Justice, and campaigns mobilizing policy-making and public opinion in Israel and internationally. All this is done while creating and maintaining ongoing connections with human rights organizations throughout the world.

In December 1987, at the outbreak of the First Intifada, Dr Ruchama Marton mobilized a group of Israeli physicians to meet with Palestinians in order to fathom the real conditions of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and to build a bridge of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. During those days contact with Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) members was banned by Israeli law. Ruchama Marton has risked her life both by meeting with Palestinians and by entering the Occupied Territories at the time of the Intifada and exposing herself to Palestinian shooting. Her visit disclosed facts to her that she would not have been able to discover if she hadn't been there. The Israeli army reacted to the Palestinian uprising with an unprecedented level of human rights violations. Collective punishments and brutal actions were perpetrated against the Palestinian population. The Israeli public was being misled and misinformed by its leaders and the media regarding these actions.
Ruchama Marton and her associates drove to the Shifa Governmental Hospital in Gaza. There they saw casualties with multiple fractures of the arms and legs and men unconscious due to clubbing on the head. The hospital reeked of overflowing toilets, bandages stained with blood and puss, and damp and moldy walls; images that do not exist in Israeli hospitals. This visit was the catalyst for the formation of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel). For 21 years since 1967, Israel had obstructed the development of the Palestinian civil infrastructure. The Palestinians were therefore dependent on Israel for livelihood, health care and medical treatment. On their way home, Marton's group documented the factual evidence they had seen at first hand. A few months later these rumpled notes came to be the founding basis and ideological ground for the establishment of PHR-Israel.

In 1988, Dr Ruchama Marton founded Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel), a leading human rights organization that boosts mutual respect and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. As its current president, Ruchama Marton works to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and promote peace.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel)