The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Israel was founded in 1981 by parents and children with diabetes, as a branch of the International Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), with its center in the United States.

JDRF Israel set out in proclamation of a central message: the commitment to finding a cure for diabetes and its complications through supporting research.  The thousands of members, including many parents and volunteers, are dedicated to realizing the promise they made to their children that within their lifetime a cure will be discovered.

JDRF supports the funding of international research for finding a cure for diabetes, more than any other health organization in the world, and is also involved in the welfare of diabetics and their families, and in raising public awareness to the disease and its repercussions.

JDRF is able to realize its goals through the many contributions: at special events, from charitable organizations, foundations, contributions from businesses, individual contributions, and the volunteer work of parents and children with diabetes.

The goals of JDRF Israel

Funding the best medical treatment and research for finding a cure for the disease and its complications, and improving the quality of life of children and their families.

The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation in Israel acts for the benefit of its members:

• Passing on information to its members regarding innovations in research and in treatment by way of conventions, a quarterly journal, literature and written material.
• Establishing connections between experienced families and new families, assistance in approaching professionals.
• Operating a hotline for diabetics and their families.  Every afternoon JDRF Israel operates a hotline with a diabetes nurse and a multidisciplinary staff available for diabetics.
• The “Big brother / big sister” organization between older and younger diabetics.
• Support groups for diabetics and their families.
• Supporting adults with T1D.
• Encouraging doctors and medical workers to study and get involved in fields of research, consulting, and the treatment of juvenile diabetes.
• Annual bike ride – “Ride for Cure – riding for a sweeter future”, with the goal of recruiting money to promote research.
• Camp for children and teens: At camp children learn the basics for successfully coping with diabetes. A team of counselors who themselves attended the camp in previous years serve as role models. 
• Vacations for young children with diabetes and their families.
• Collection of contributions for promoting research that in recent years has greatly added to the knowledge of the disease, improvement in treatment, and reduction of complications. 
• Organization of conventions and support of research for diabetes in research institutes in Israel.
• Increasing public awareness to the disease.
• Representing people with diabetes before public bodies such as the army, social security, government offices, medical clinics, and workplaces, with the goal of preventing discrimination against people with diabetes. 
• Supporting the establishment of clinics for juvenile diabetes in hospitals in Israel.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation  (JDRF)

The worldwide foundation for the research of juvenile diabetes (JDRF) endeavors to find a cure for diabetes and its complication by supporting research.  The JDRF was established in 1970 by parents of children with diabetes who believed that it is possible to cure the disease and its complications through research.  With branches from coast to coast, and partnerships throughout the world, the JDRF allocates more funding for the research of diabetes than does any private non-governmental organization.
JDRF is the promoter and the main supporter of research with the purpose of finding a cure for type 1 diabetes and its complications.  The organization establishes research centers throughout the world, in cooperation with governments and public bodies that support research to overcome the disease.

JDRF confronts the U.S. government with its interest of promoting medical research for finding a cure for diabetes and its complications, including the promotion of stem cell research in the U.S.  Until today, the Foundation has itself funded more than 800 million dollars of diabetes research, and another 20 million dollars in special funds that support the innovative research of stem cells as a source of beta cell production, in the United States, and in the world as a whole, including research in institutes in Israel. 

In the last year the Foundation started a new world campaign “Research for discoveries” – that is intended to recruit a billion dollars by the year 2009, to promote research for finding a cure for diabetes, of which the Foundation has already succeeded in recruiting 667 million!
The Israeli branch, together with eight other branches of the Foundation in the world, takes part in the world effort to recruit money for our common goals: a cure for diabetes!

This is how we started…

By: Lior Tzarfati
Last year JDRF Israel is celebrating the 25th anniversary. From a small office in Nordau Boulevard, opened in Tel-Aviv in 1981, JDRF Israel has grown to become one of the largest volunteer based foundations in Israel, with thousands of members and dozens of volunteers.
The Foundation's "DNA", included several key figures: Tamar Raphael, Emma and Amnon Sirkis, Yaakov and Tzipi Shor, Shalom Tetro and Vivi Mizrahi.
These “sweet” families, who had to face the struggles of diabetes in the early 1970's, describe hard times characterized by uncertainty and frustration. Different aspects in the lives of diabetic patients like camps, holiday vacations, walks, the "hot-line", coaching projects, dietary products, diabetic friends, and a sympathetic ear - exist today but back then were considered just a sweet dream.
Emma and Amnon Sirkis are currently in their 60's and live in Rehovot. They discovered the world of diabetes in 1967, when their son Amir was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 8. Before starting to talk about the early days of JDRF Israel, I asked the Sirkis family about their life in the late 1960's.
Emma sighs and takes a deep breath, Amnon says "The world that our son had entered into as a diabetic back then was a lot harder that the world of today".

First signs of the Foundation
Amnon says that the biggest activity carried out by the committee involved selling needles, syringes, and sticks at the smallest price possible. At the same time Emma traveled to the United States, where in New York she met Carol Lurie, who headed the American JDF. She met her for the purpose of learning about the American organization in pursuit of establishing a similar one in Israel.
The American JDF had greatly influenced the decision to establish JDRF Israel. As known, Americans like everything in large sizes and accordingly wanted to make their organization international. Emma recollects that she did not really understand what Carol was talking about and that there were immense differences between what she thought the Foundation should be and what she was told by Carol.
And then the group started to organize. At the same time a group of parents of diabetic children in Tel Hashomer Hospital had started to organize.
When the two groups started to work together, it was the birth of JDRF Israel. The Sirkis say that when they met one mother from Tel Hashomer, Tamar Raphael, they understood that she could be a strong and important force in promoting the interests of the children with diabetes in Israel.
Emma says "Tamar started engaging in intensive activity which made us quickly realize that she was a strong force. Tamar knew many people in the right places".
To know as much as the doctors
Tamar Raphael currently lives in Tel-Aviv and works in marketing academic institutions.
When the Foundation was established she left all of her previous activity and committed herself fully to volunteer work in order to promote the goals and issues of the Foundation. Adi, her daughter, was diagnosed with diabetes in 1976 when she was a two and a half year old baby.
Raphael's relationship with the Foundation began when she met an American friend, Lee Docket, founder of the American JDF. The American organization was founded by Lee Docket several years before and so Docket suggested to Raphael to try to establish a similar foundation in Israel. Docket told her that doctors were never able to tell her what the future held for her son. As a result, she decided to establish an organization aimed at supporting research and information development in any subject with relevance to juvenile diabetes, for the purpose of providing her son and other diabetic children with an adequate response to the disease.

 
What were the first steps of the new Israeli Foundation?
"The first goal was to find the parents of children with juvenile diabetes and to have them join the Foundation. Expanding the nation wide membership was not an easy task, considering that it was carried out in an independent manner, without dependency on any medical center. Another goal was to enter the world of research. At the time no research activity took place in Israel in the field of juvenile diabetes. The Foundation started to organize lectures for doctors, which made them want to kill me. How dare I organize lectures for doctors! We also organized many lectures for patients, and this was a shock to everyone. People did not understand that they needed to know about the disease as much as doctors".

What were the difficulties of the new Foundation in those days?
“In those days it was not acceptable to interfere in the considerations of the doctors or to ask questions beyond the most basic issues. The doctor was the factor responsible for the treatment and the patient had to obey and do as told. When the parents started taking the initiative and invited experts from abroad to lecture before doctors and patients, and independently organized medical conferences, they were perceived as a threat to the medical establishment.
It took great effort and persistence to find a group of supporting and cooperative doctors, whose contribution eventually led to the first workshop for medical students in Israel".
Raphael says that the workshop, which was financed by the new Foundation, was "revolutionary in every sense of the word". A few of the workshop participants even continued into the field of diabetes and endocrinology after graduating.

What was the added value of the Foundation in those days?
"The added value seems to be very basic by today's standards but back then it was considered revolutionary. It was the basic-primary knowledge on how to cope with the disease. The Foundation organized camps, lectures, meetings between patients, meetings between parents, and generally enabled diabetics to meet and get to know others like them. Likewise, the Foundation enabled its members to learn about innovations.
It was innovative to acknowledge the fact that parents had something to say about the disease, the treatment, who should be funded, what was important, and what was not. This issue created many disagreements in the medical world".
Raphael recollects how in one JDF conference in Milan, Italy, a mother of a diabetic child went on stage and said "No doctor knows more about this disease than me, I am living with this diabetes 365 days a year".
This statement explains the contribution of the Foundation to the lives of diabetics in the best and clearest way.

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