Latest news with #kibbutz
New York Times
23-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Zelig Eshhar, Who Engineered Immune Cells to Fight Cancer, Dies at 84
Zelig Eshhar, an immunologist whose breakthrough research in the 1980s and '90s created a critical pathway to developing immunotherapies that attack particular cancers, died on July 3 at Tel Yitzhak, a kibbutz in central Israel. He was 84. The death was confirmed by Tova Waks, Dr. Eshhar's longtime research assistant, who said that Dr. Eshhar had been diagnosed with dementia and stopped working about five years ago. Dr. Eshhar's exploration of the human immune system began in the 1960s, during his Ph.D. studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv, where he focused on the T-cell, a type of white blood cell with the natural ability to fight germs and disease. It does that by enlisting the help of 'a receptor that sits on the T-cell and binds with molecules of the foreign invader,' Dr. Eshhar told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 2017. 'The binding activates the T-cell's killer mechanism, which eradicates the alien cell. Eradication occurs, for example, when a virus invades a body cell.' But it doesn't always work. 'The mechanism by which the T-cell receptor identifies foreign molecules on cancerous cells and binds with them is not very efficient,' he said, 'so cancer cells occasionally evade them and develop in the body.' How, then, to improve the targeting ability of T-cells? Dr. Eshhar's solution was to create antibodies that target molecules characteristic of cancer cells. By combining those antibodies with T-cells, he was able to produce a hybrid known as a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, or CAR-T, which can grab onto the proteins, called antigens, that appear on cancer cells. Dr. Eshhar shared the credit for this innovation with Ms. Waks, his technician, and a doctoral student, Gideon Gross, who were both named in the CAR-T patent. 'It was a tinkerer's dream: a way to rewrite the intricate machinery of these cells,' Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote in 'The Miracle Century: Making Sense of the Cell Therapy Revolution,' a book to be published by HarperCollins next year. 'Eshhar's invention was no minor tweak in the lab; it was a conceptual leap,' Dr. Gottlieb added. 'The notion that these genetically engineered immune cells could be re-engineered to home in on cancer transformed what once seemed a distant vision into an imminent reality.' Dr. Eshhar's CAR-T leap is the fundamental science behind immunotherapies that have been approved by the F.D.A. since 2017 to treat blood cancers like acute lymphoblastic leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Small clinical trials of CAR-T therapies for ovarian and colorectal cancers have also shown promise, according to the National Cancer Institute. 'There's a direct line between Dr. Eshhar and these therapies,' Dr. Dan Littman, an immunologist at NYU Langone Health, said in an interview. 'It really was Eshhar who first showed that it could be done.' In an autobiographical essay provided by Ms. Waks, Dr. Eshhar wrote, 'Our biggest satisfaction was that CAR-T therapy was approved by the F.D.A., and now patients benefit by getting the treatment all over the world.' In an example of the possibilities offered by CAR-T immunotherapy, a study published last month in Journal of Clinical Oncology reported that 32 of the 97 patients with multiple myeloma, for whom immunotherapy was a last-ditch treatment, saw their cancers disappear and remain in remission after five years. The immunotherapy, developed by Legend Biotech, was delivered as 'an infusion of the patient's own white blood cells that have been removed and engineered to attack the cancer,' The New York Times reported. Cancer specialists say that CAR-T therapies have saved the lives of thousands of people with blood cancers. Zelig Lipka was born on Feb. 25, 1941, in Petah Tikva, in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine, and grew up in Rehovot. His parents were both from Poland; his father, Jacob, was a truck driver who brought agricultural products to market; his mother, Sarah, was a teacher. Zelig, who grew up in Rehovot, enlisted in the Israeli Army and joined a brigade on a kibbutz. After his military service, he stayed on at the kibbutz, where he started his scientific career as a beekeeper. A year later, he left to study biochemistry at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1963 and a master's degree in 1966. The same year, he married Nomi Friedlander and changed his surname to Eshhar, the Hebrew word for a plant that grows in northern Israel. In 1968, he received his Ph.D. in chemical immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot with a thesis on the role of T-cells. He went on to study at Harvard Medical School under Baruj Benacerraf, who would share the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that the strength of an individual's immune response is controlled by a group of genes. At Harvard, Dr. Eshhar began to focus on cancer as a target for T-cells. 'Benacerraf discovered a distinctive molecule that characterizes the cancer cells, and he wanted to get a handle on it,' Dr. Eshhar told Haaretz in 2017. 'That was my task, and I gained recognition when I succeeded because no one had done it previously.' Dr. Eshhar returned to the Weizmann Institute as a research fellow in 1976 and became a senior scientist in 1979, an associate professor in 1987 and a full professor in 1994. He served as chairman of the department of immunology there from 1995 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2005. A journal paper he wrote on CAR-T in 1989, and a subsequent lecture, impressed Steven Rosenberg, the chief of the National Cancer Institute's surgery branch, who invited Dr. Eshhar to take a yearlong sabbatical in 1991 to help advance the institute's work on immunotherapy. 'Zelig's finding was clearly of enormous practical importance,' Dr. Rosenberg said during a panel discussion in Boston in 2022, when Dr. Eshhar was awarded the Richard V. Smalley Memorial Award from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer. Working with Dr. Patrick Hwu, a principal investigator, Dr. Eshhar applied his CAR-T model to ovarian cancer cells in mice, which led to a clinical trial. 'When you say CAR-T, it started with Zelig,' Dr. Hwu, who is now president of Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., said in an interview. 'And the first time we used that technology for any cancer was at the N.C.I.' Dr. Eshhar continued to focus on CAR-T research and other subjects at the Weizmann Institute and at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, where he was named head of immunological research in 2012. In 2017, he told The Times of Israel that he wanted to improve CAR-T's 'specificity to certain kinds of cancer' and its use in fighting autoimmune diseases. Dr. Littman of NYU Langone Health said there had been recent success in clinical trials using CAR-T therapy to treat the autoimmune diseases lupus and scleroderma. 'It all tracks back to Eshhar's work,' he said. Dr. Eshhar received the Israel Prize in Life Sciences in 2015 and the Canada Gairdner International Award, recognizing research that improves human health, in 2024. He is survived by a son, Nir Eshhar, and two daughters, Sharon Eshhar Lavie and Meirav Shirion Eshhar, from his marriage to Ms. Friedlander, from whom he was separated; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; two brothers, Samuel and Eran; and a sister, Esther Cohen. Dr. Eshhar's domestic partner, Lihi Semel, died in 2017. In 2013, when the Weizmann Institute licensed Dr. Eshhar's patents for the CAR-T technology to Kite Pharma, Dr. Eshhar was paid $375,000; the biotechnology company was sold to Gilead Sciences in 2017 for $11.9 billion. At the time of the sale to Gilead, Kite said it had developed more than 10 therapies for various cancers using Dr. Eshhar's technology. Arie Belldegrun, the chairman of Kite, recalled after Dr. Eshhar's death that at the signing of the licensing deal in 2013, Dr. Eshhar inscribed a 50-shekel note to him and another board member, to mark 'a new beginning' for CAR-T therapy. 'Though small in size,' Dr. Belldegrun said in a statement on Oncodaily, a cancer news website, 'that note carries monumental symbolic value — a belief in a better future.'
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'This Kibbutz will rise again': Netanyahu visits Nir Oz for first time since Oct. 7
Residents of the kibbutz expressed mixed feelings, as they've invited the prime minister to visit multiple times since the massacre. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at Kibbutz Nir Oz on Thursday, where he met with captivity survivors and toured the sites of destruction in his first visit since the October 7 Hamas massacre. "I'm here with my wife, Sarah, in kibbutz Nir Oz in front of the destruction and slaughter. [Standing here], you feel it in the depths of your soul. The vastness of the pain, the depth of sorrow, the trauma that hasn't healed. Standing here, I feel a deep responsibility to return all of the hostages. There are 20 live hostages and there are dead hostages. We will bring them all home," Netanyahu said. "We need to work hard so that this kibbutz will rise again, and it will rise again." Initially, Netanyahu's convoy was met with heckling from protesters at the entrance to the kibbutz. Residents of the Kibbutz shared mixed feelings ahead of the prime minister's arrival. "I don't know how the visit will end or what Netanyahu expects during it. I'm not even sure how I feel,' Gal Goren, a third-generation member of Nir Oz who lost both of his parents in the massacre, said. 'On one hand, I am filled with anger and horror toward him, and that after over a year and nine months, he still continues to abandon our friends who are still there. On the other hand, as a family member of a hostage who was returned in a coffin, I know that we must try everything, including what is difficult for us." Goren added that if Netanyahu spoke about revenge or continuing the war, and he doesn't understand that the goal should be returning the hostages, 'then it will be an injury and disrespect to everything that Nir Oz symbolizes, and an incomprehensible cruelty toward our community and all citizens of Israel.' He added that the visit should not be seen as an opportunity for forgiveness, but an 'attempt to save lives and bring entire worlds back for burial.' Danny Elgert, brother of hostage Itzik Elgert, said that protesters had initially blocked Netanyahu from entering the kibbutz. Jonathan Shmariz, founder of the "Kumu" (Rise Up) movement, commented on the visit and the fact that Netanyahu won't be alone, 'He brought a camera crew. Slogans. A media briefing. He will talk about his courage. About his brave decisions. He will say, 'We are with you.' And then he'll return to his office, far from the smell of death, far from the children who have no home. We don't need another show. No more press conferences." 'We need leadership that comes in time. That feels the pain, not just films it. That admits failure, not boasts about it. Leadership that returns the hostages, restores life to rehabilitation, and brings the fallen to burial. We will not give up. Not in memory. Not on the hostages. Not on the truth. And we will build something else here. Real," Shmariz added. The kibbutz emphasized that for months, they sent personal invitations to the prime minister to visit the location, which bore one of the highest blood tolls on October 7. However, after the visit, the kibbutz said in a statement that its members expect renewed efforts to free the hostages. "We expect that this visit will promote the return of the 50 hostages, including nine from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and that the Israeli government will be committed to the reconstruction of the kibbutz and the rehabilitation of its people, wherever they choose to live." At the time, on the national day of mourning, members of the kibbutz sent Netanyahu an official invitation which read: "We invite you to come to the place where the disaster occurred, a place where life and death are neighbors—among the ruins of the homes, from which our cries were not heard. The members of the community will be there to welcome you." The invitation also read: "On October 7, Kibbutz Nir Oz was the only kibbutz where security forces did not arrive during the hours the terrorists were on the kibbutz, and therefore they were able to do as they pleased—murdering and kidnapping over a quarter of Nir Oz's population and entering every home in the kibbutz, except for six." Kibbutz member and former hostage Gadi Moses met with the prime minister during the visit. Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu also met with Yizhar Lifshitz , son of former hostages Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz. Yocheved was returend in an early iteration of a hostage deal and ceasefire, but Oded's body was returned in February 2025. Einav Zankauger, whose son Matan is still in Hamas captivity, met with the prime minister and the first lady at the kibbutz. The Zankauger family are members of Kibbutz Nir Oz and have been outspoken against Netanyahu's handling of the hostage crisis After the meeting, Zangauker shared her thoughts of the meeting on X/Twitter. "I met with the Prime Minister today in Nir Oz and, together with Ilana, told him about the moments of Matan and [Ilana's] abduction, emphasizing to him how critical Matan's deteriorating condition is. My Matan, unfortunately, won't hold on much longer there, not 60 nor 120 days," Zanguaker said. "His muscular dystrophy is worsening, his condition is deteriorating, he must be released now, otherwise he won't survive. The Prime Minister promised to bring back Matan and everyone, up to the last hostage. I stressed to him that he has a mandate from the people of Israel to reach a comprehensive agreement for the return of all 50 hostages, the living and the fallen. Now is the time for action." The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that the visit marked a new opportunity to bring the hostages home, noting that a partial deal would be a "grave failure and a tragedy that will haunt us for generations." "After nearly two years of complex and grueling warfare, we must seize this window of opportunity with wisdom and resolve," the statement read. "Prime Minister, you must reach a comprehensive agreement that guarantees the return of every last hostage and brings an end to the fighting. "The era of partial deals, categories, lists that distinguish between one life and another, and cruel selections must end." The kibbutz suffered a serious blow on October 7, when 69 of its 386 residents, guests, and foreign workers were murdered, and an additional 76 were kidnapped by Hamas. Currently, four hostages from Nir Oz remain in Hamas captivity.
National Post
20-05-2025
- National Post
In verdant vineyard, the cost of October 7 horrors for both Israel and Hamas are laid bare
Nir Oz, Israel – On Monday morning, on either side of a southern Israel vineyard bordering Gaza, the heavy costs of October 7 for both Israel and Hamas are laid bare. Article content Article content Israeli mortars are pounding the suburbs of Khan Yunis, once a city of about 200,000 in southern Gaza. We are on the Israeli side, where we hear the irregular thumps of mortars, then witness the rising smoke as they land. Article content Article content Article content A group of Canadian journalists, on a trip sponsored by the Exigent Foundation, have come here to listen to Shlomo Margalit, an 87-year-old, native-born Israeli who co-founded the kibbutz in the 1950s. Article content He is telling us about the horrors of October 7, but manages to find moments of humour with the comic timing of Larry David. 'That's a good question!' he tells one visitor who asked about the painted markings on each house left behind by the IDF search after the attack. 'You know why that's a good question? Because I have the answer!' Article content He casts an eye on an Israeli Defense Forces Jeep passing on a security road: 'Where were they on October 7?' Article content Article content The IDF never fought for Nir Oz. Hamas caught all of Israel flat-footed, but nowhere more so than Nir Oz. The terrorists arrived here, and overcame fierce resistance from the kibbutz's security team within a few hours. They murdered residents, set homes ablaze and took hostages, then left when they were done. The army arrived later. Article content Article content Margalit takes us on a short tour; he's done this dozens of times in the 19 months since October 7. Article content He takes us to the home of the Siman Tov family – a couple with young twins and a toddler, all killed, the house mangled and burned. Article content Article content 'Over there lived a single woman, she's a nurse,' he tells us. She was taken hostage, and released after 50 days after an internment in which she, via a wilfull personality, strong-armed Hamas into letting her treat some of the other hostages, he says.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
580 Days Without My Son. I'm Still Waiting To Bring Him Home
This Sunday, America will mark Mothers Day - a day to honor the bond between a mother and her child. For me, it will mark 580 days since I last saw my son, Tamir. On Oct. 7, 2023, Tamir was taken. He was 38 years old. A father of two. A husband. A devoted son. A man who loved the soil of our kibbutz, who believed in hard work, and who stood up - unarmed - to defend our home when terrorists stormed through our gates. He was wounded, kidnapped, and murdered. And yet, 580 days later, he is still being held in Gaza. I am a mother with no grave to visit. No final embrace. No place to say Kaddish. Yael Adar There is no name for a parent who has lost a child. Widows. Orphans. These words exist. But when your child is stolen - and never returned, not even in death - language fails. The silence is the wound. The absence, the ache. I dont need a word to describe it. I live it, every single day. When you become a mother, everything changes. You no longer think in terms of your own life, but in terms of theirs. You stay up at night worrying. You tend to every scratch. You invest in their future. You dream about who theyll grow up to be - the values theyll carry, the life theyll build. You protect them as best you can, for as long as you can. Until one day, you cant. He was supposed to visit me later that morning. But then - he was gone. I often try to explain the feeling to people who havent lived it. Its like walking with your child through a crowded store. Youre holding his hand. You turn your head for just a second. And hes gone. Disappeared. Stolen. You call his name. You run in every direction. Your heart pounds. You cant breathe. And no one helps. No one finds him. Then imagine this panic - this primal, overwhelming fear - lasting not for one day, but for nearly two years. We later learned that Tamir had been injured trying to defend himself. That he died in captivity. But even in death, they didnt let him go. Hamas is still holding his body - as if he were a bargaining chip, as if he were less than human. What kind of people do that? What kind of world allows it? This isnt about politics. Its about humanity. Its about decency. Its about the most basic truth every parent understands: No mother should have to beg for her childs body. No family should be forced to live in limbo, denied even the right to mourn. When a person dies, we bury them. We say prayers. We bring flowers. We light candles. We build something - a resting place, a legacy, a way to go on. But without a body, there is no burial. Without burial, there is no peace. There is only suspension - an endless, aching, unnatural pause. Tamir is not "gone." He is missing. He is still being held by those who murdered him. And I cannot move forward until he is returned. I do not want sympathy this Mothers Day. I want Tamir back. I want to bury my son. That is why I share this with you now. Because I still believe in the values that have long defined both Israel and America - family, dignity, and moral clarity in the face of evil. These are not abstract ideals. They are lived, tested, and revealed in moments like this. Our leaders have influence. Our voices have power. We can make a difference. Im asking you: Speak out. Urge your representatives to demand that Hamas return the hostages it holds. Insist that any diplomatic engagement include the return of the dead - not as a gesture, but as a requirement. As a condition of basic decency. Tamir was not a soldier. He was a civilian. He died protecting his home, not waging war. What justice is there in denying his family the right to bury him? You dont have to know Tamir to stand with him. You just have to be a parent. Or a sibling. Or a human being who understands that death should not be weaponized. That grief should not be held hostage. Every mother deserves the right to say goodbye to her child. Every child deserves to be brought home. This Mothers Day, many of you will gather with your families, surrounded by love. I hope you hold your children close. I hope you cherish the blessing of seeing their faces. And I hope, in the quiet moments, you remember those of us who cannot celebrate - not because our children are gone, but because we are not even allowed to grieve them. I will never stop being Tamirs mother. And I will never stop fighting to bring him home. Yael Adar is mother of Tamir Adar, who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose body remains held by Hamas in Gaza.
