In 2014 our family spent one week volunteering in Ethiopia, with our four kids ages 11-16. We worked at the Mother Theresa orphanage in Addis Ababa and in the Jewish community of Gondar. It was supposed to one-time trip, but what we experienced  changed our lives. The level of poverty was unimaginable. Severely malnourished children, no medical care, families living in one-room mud huts without sinks or bathrooms. Our last morning in Gondar, our guide who knew Morris was an eye doctor asked him to check a child’s eye. We returned later to find HUNDREDS of people lined up – all wanting to see “the eye doctor.” Even without equipment, he checked every patient. The trip made such a DEEP impression that after months back home we couldn’t resume our normal lives. So we returned as a family the following summer – loaded with 12 duffels of medical equipment, eye medications and eyeglasses that we purchased ourselves, and set up our first mobile eye-clinic in the Gondar Jewish compound. We treated hundreds. We didn’t stop there. We’ve now directly treated 9,500+ patients in the Jewish and non-Jewish villages, started a doctor training for Ethiopian ophthalmologists in Israel, run cataract campaigns to restore eyesight to patients blinded by cataracts, together with SSEJ started a feeding program for malnourished children in the Jewish community and more. In 2022 Dr. Morris Hartstein received the 2022 Global Impact award from Nefesh B’nefesh and the 2022 Humanitarian of the year award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He’s addressed Israeli Parliament regarding human suffering in Ethiopia, joined two Israeli diplomatic delegations to Ethiopia including with President Rivlin. Elisa eventually closed down her US company, took what for years been a family volunteer effort, and in May 2022 created the non-profit organization Operation Ethiopia. Please read more and support our work!

​

~ Prof. Morris Hartstein, MD, FACS + Elisa Minsk Hartstein, MBA