COL. (RES.) PROF. SALMAN ZARKA, director general of Ziv Medical Center
Zarka says he completed 25 years in the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps on “the first candle of Hanukkah” in 2014. Two days later, he became the first Druze to head an Israeli hospital — the 350-bed Ziv Medical Center in Safed (Tzfat).
His parents, who spoke only Arabic and could not read, raised a large family in the Upper Galilee village of Peki’in and encouraged their children to achieve.
Zarka certainly did. He has an MD from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in public health from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Haifa. He has taught medical students and published nearly 40 papers.
After Zarka had the honor of lighting a torch on the eve of Israel’s 71st Independence Day in 2019, many young Druze told him that he inspires them to dream big and work hard.
Zarka tells ISRAEL21c he’s a proud member of the Druze community in Usfiya (Isifiya) on Mount Carmel.
Yet his Israeli identity comes first in all he does, whether serving in the IDF or providing humanitarian aid to victims of the Syrian civil war and other disasters around the world.
“The Druze were connected with the Jewish community here even before the establishment of the state,” says the father of two current Israeli soldiers.
Zarka, now 56, experienced just one incident of blatant discrimination.
“When I finished the medical officers training course in 1988, HR wanted me to serve as a physician in the air force, even though there were no Druze then in the air force,” he relates.
But the colonel in charge blocked Zarka’s appointment, saying he did not want to be the one to send the first Druze to the air force.
“So I didn’t go, just because I am Druze. I appealed the decision unsuccessfully, and so out of love for my country I went to the battalion where I was assigned and did my job well.”
Zarka went on to head the Medical Corps of the Northern Command; an IDF field hospital treating civilian casualties of the Syrian civil war; and finally Military Health Services.
“I left as a colonel, the same rank as the person who refused to send me to the air force,” he says with a smile.
And now the Israel Air Force finally has its first Druze colonel, as we recently reported.