Sharsheret Israel: Making the cancer journey easier for Anglo women

Having a cancer diagnosis is tough. And so is having a cancer diagnosis in a country where you don’t speak the language well, or even at all. For English-speaking women in Israel diagnosed with breast cancer, navigating treatment and support just got easier with the launch of Sharsheret Israel. 

Sharsheret, Hebrew for “chain,” was started in the United States in 2001, four months after Rochelle Shoretz, then 28 and a young mother, was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Shoretz, who had been a clerk for Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, launched Sharsheret when she realized that she wanted to talk to other young Jewish women like herself who had to explain chemotherapy, hair loss, and the other concerns  of cancer to their young children. 

Above all, she wanted to take the silence about cancer she found in the Jewish community and turn that into opportunities for Jewish women facing breast cancer to share information and challenges with each other.

Shoretz passed away of breast cancer in 2015, but not before leaving an organization well known throughout the Jewish and cancer communities that offers women with breast cancer and ovarian cancer and their families resources, community, and “sisters” with whom to share their cancer journey. 

What will Sharsheret Israel do?

Sharsheret Israel, which launched in May, is a pilot program born out of the many English-speaking women in Israel diagnosed with breast cancer who have reached out to Sharsheret in the US over the years looking for information and support.  

Key services in Israel will include: 

• One-on-one virtual psychosocial support
• Personalized cancer navigation services
• Community-wide education
• Peer connections
• Facilitated support groups
• Surgery care kits

SHARSHERET ISRAEL has been in the planning stages for years and was originally planned for an October 2023 launch. After October 7, like so many other things in the country, Sharsheret Israel was put on hold. 

But cancer doesn’t wait for a war to end. “The Sharsheret Israel initiative comes at a vital time to help support the physical and mental needs of women in Israel who are facing the dual trauma of war and breast cancer or ovarian cancer,” says Sharsheret CEO Elana Silber. “The need for support is something we can answer.” 

Silber says that while Sharsheret is open to receiving calls from women anywhere asking for information and support, the idea for establishing a program in Israel came about because “without having that touch point on the ground, we’re not able to give the type of support and provide resources that we were capable of in the US.” 

The pilot is focused on Anglo women who speak English, but Sharsheret plans to, over time, add programs for Israeli women who speak Hebrew and other languages as well. 

Especially for women new to the Israeli healthcare system, Sharsheret offers help in navigating treatment options with both healthcare professionals and peers who have been through a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment and can help with health system navigation. 

In Israel, the Sharsheret co-directors are Liora Tannenbaum and Dr. Pnina Mor. Tannenbaum found out she was a carrier for the BRCA gene mutation 18 years ago when, at the request of her mother, she had testing done in the US just before making aliyah. She had bi-annual breast screening for several years after finding out she was a carrier. After finding abnormalities and having multiple biopsies, Tannenbaum decided to have a prophylactic double mastectomy. 

Two years ago, at the recommendation of her doctors, Tannenbaum, who has four children, decided to have her ovaries and uterus removed. She switched to having her follow-up care at the Noga clinic a few years ago. The clinic, located in Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, supports people who test positive for the BRCA gene mutation, helping them navigate testing and treatment if needed. 

Tannenbaum heard from many women looking for information and support after creating a video about her own cancer prevention journey several years ago. When she met Mor, who has a PhD in nursing, with an emphasis in genetics, at the Noga clinic, she asked Mor to partner in Sharsheret Israel, and then reached out to the Sharsheret US office to launch the project.

One of the key areas Mor says they are targeting is to help women understand what has been said to them about their cancer risk or diagnosis and what they need to think about and do next. 

“Coming from an Anglo background, no matter how long you are living in Israel or how fluent you are in Hebrew, when confronted with a new medical situation or diagnosis, it is not easy to hear it in a language that is not what you grew up with, says Mor. “Sharsheret Israel is here to help navigate the health system and provide emotional support, mental health counseling, and education to women and their families in their cancer-related journey.” 

Services, as in the US, will be available via phone, text, email, and WhatsApp, as well as, when possible, one-on-one meetings and community events. The first community education event, focused on caregivers, was held in May in Ra’anana. “When women are diagnosed with cancer or the genetic predisposition for cancer, there’s a lot to learn,” says Mor. 

There is no question that Sharsheret is impactful and will continue to be so in Israel. Decades later, the support they received stays with women who have been helped by Sharsheret. Judy Bogen, who lives in Modi’in, was diagnosed with breast cancer 15 years ago in the US, where her husband had been sent by the Jewish Agency to teach. 

“My children still remember the Sharsheret ‘busy boxes’ of things to play with while I recovered from treatment,” Bogen says. She now heads Place2Heal, a nonprofit that creates beautiful treatment and waiting spaces for people undergoing cancer treatment, as well as resources for hospitals including an MRI simulator for children at Safra Hospital for Children at Tel Hashomer in central Israel, and a resilience room for physicians treating wounded soldiers and civilians at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon since the start of the war. 

“It is very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel when traveling on the cancer journey,” says Bogen. “I think Sharsheret in Israel will be a great asset to our healthcare services, and working together with other organizations in the same field can only improve the care that we all give.” 

Sharsheret Israel includes a board of directors and a medical advisory committee. Michal Gorlin Becker, a director, first learned about Sharsheret when her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the US more than a decade ago and relied on Sharsheret for support and information. A plan to join the US Sharsheret team during the NYC Marathon in 2020 was delayed by the pandemic and Becker’s own breast cancer diagnosis, but she ran that race with her Team Sharsheret T-shirt in 2022 and plans to run with the group again for the NYC Marathon in 2024. “Sharsheret Israel will be able to support the enormous Anglo community who have questions about BRCA screening, genetic counseling, cancer diagnoses and treatments, surgery, recovery, and more,” says Becker. “Breast and ovarian cancers are scary to navigate, and having Sharsheret peer counselors who know the local Israeli system will be a huge benefit to so many. Not to mention the events, parlor meetings, support kits, and more that we hope to provide to this community.” Becker says she is “so excited to be involved in the trailblazing endeavor.” 

Sharon Galper Grossman, a radiation oncologist and member of the Sharsheret Israel medical advisory board, has fielded more calls than she can count from frightened women, with little Hebrew knowledge, facing a breast cancer diagnosis. “As Israel promotes and subsidizes population-based screening offering BRCA testing to all Ashkenazi women (and those who are partially Ashkenazi), the number of women who require their services will rise and grow exponentially,” says Grossman, adding that “Sharsheret Israel will fill this void by transplanting and implementing the systems which work so well in the United States to Israel, tailoring them to the unique features of the Israeli healthcare system.” 

The timing of the launch also matches another growing need in Israel: mental health support. Silber says that with the country’s mental health infrastructure taxed by the war, they are glad they can bring resources now, including peer support, to help with emotional and mental health needs of those facing BRCA, breast cancer and ovarian cancer diagnoses. 

Paving an easier path for others on a cancer journey is what motivates Tannenbaum. “I was able to find support during my BRCA journey,” she says, “but it wasn’t easy. I feel the responsibility to share that, and with the launch of Sharsheret Israel we will.” ■

For more information about Sharsheret Israel, contact Liora Tannenbaum at ltannenbaum@sharsheret.org or +1-972-503-459-038; or Pnina Mor at pmor@sharsheret.org or +1-972-534-577-499.