Moshe Graif was born, as the State of Israel was, in 1948 in Bucharest, Romania, and immigrated to Israel in 1950. He spent his childhood in the city of Acre, which he always remembered fondly.
He completed his medical studies in 1973 at the University of Bologna in Italy and diligently completed his internship year at the hospital in Nahariya.
From 1975 to 1980, he specialized at Rambam Hospital under the management of the late Prof. Alex Rozenberger. After completing his residency, he began working as a young specialist in the ultrasound unit at Sheba Medical Center under the direction of Prof. Yaakov Itzhak. After several years, he went to London, where he conducted intensive research and published several pioneering articles in the field of magnetic resonance imaging.
In 1989, he received an offer he couldn’t refuse — to be the Head the Imaging Department at Ichilov Hospital. During his tenure, a transformation took place in the field of imaging, from the types of scans conducted, to the volume of examinations, the size of the team, and the number of machines. The “X-ray Institute” grew and became the “Imaging Division.”
Prof. Graif married his beloved wife, Yael, in 1980. They had three sons—Assaf, who continues the family tradition in radiology and is completing a specialization in interventional radiology this year, as well as Nadav and Yair—and three grandchildren.
Prof. Graif excelled in academia—he was a full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and served as the head of the Imaging Department for many years. He authored around 112 articles, which received more than 2,400 citations in the medical literature. His main areas of interest were ultrasound—particularly of muscles, skeleton, and nerves—and the physics of magnetic resonance imaging.
Prof. Graif served as the chairman of the Radiological Association for 12 years, during which he established the annual conference in Eilat and the award-bearing competition for residents in memory of Dr. Michal Meidan-Avrahami. His pleasant personality, knowledge, and professional authority greatly contributed to fostering professional ties with radiological associations abroad. Together with Jean-Denis Laredo and Robert Sigal, he was one of the founders of the Israeli-French Radiology Association (AFIM).
Prof. Graif contributed significantly to the acceptance of the Israeli Radiology Association as part of the European association. He was the first Israeli to receive honorary membership and a gold medal from the French Radiology Society in 2007, and he remains the only Israeli to have received honorary membership from the European Society of Radiology in 2012. A year later, in 2013, he was awarded an Honorary Fellow title from the American College of Radiology. To date, only about 200 individuals have received this honor, and Prof. Graif was the third Israeli to do so (after Prof. Shor in the 1960s and Prof. Schwartz in the 1970s).
Prof. Graif was a true renaissance man—in addition to being a department head, university professor, renowned radiologist, and devoted father, he was also a talented painter whose illustrations adorned the booklet of the annual radiology conference each year. He was an avid reader of literature, always ready with a recommendation for the latest book he had read. He loved innovation and gadgets and collected watches and pens. But above all, he was a man who loved people and always found a topic of conversation with whomever he was speaking—whether it was football or a new idea for an article. And above all else, he carried a constant smile, an abundant sense of humor, and unshakable optimism. Even in his later years, as he battled a serious illness, he maintained his optimism and continued to make plans for the future.
Prof. Graif left behind a generation of radiologists for whom he served as a role model—of innovation, motivation, and ambition on one hand, and of humanity and humility on the other.
May his memory be a blessing.
The award is given in memory of Dr. Michal Meidan-Avrahami, who was a radiology resident at the Imaging Institute of Wolfson Hospital. On March 21, 1997, while sitting at a café with her husband after attending a continuing education session on a Friday afternoon, Michal was critically injured in a suicide bombing attack and passed away seven hours later. At the time, Michal was in her third month of pregnancy.
As a radiology resident (at Wolfson Hospital), Michal always dreamed of attending the RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) conference, but never had the chance to fulfill her dream.
Each year, the award is granted in her memory to the best oral scientific presentation by a resident, in support of travel to the RSNA conference—for a resident who has not yet attended the event.
May her memory be a blessing.
Dr. Gideon Flusser graduated from the Faculty of medicine at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem. He completed his residency at Hadassa hospital in Jerusalem, a Musculoskeletal fellowship at the Montefiore hospital in New York as well as a Body Imaging fellowship at MD Anderson in Houston. He also has a Masters degree in Medical Sciences.
In 1997 he started to work at Ichilov hospital in Tel-Aviv where he founded the MSK imaging unit. Dr. Flusser is one of the first MSK radiologists in Israel and was one of the founders of this field in Israel.
Alongside vast clinical work, teaching and passing his knowledge to residents and students was and still is Gideon’s first priority thus creating the next generations of MSK radiologists in Ichilov and Israel.
Besides teaching Gideon’s two main areas of expertise are Oncology and Rheumatology imaging. In these two fields Gideon’s knowledge helped prompt and accurate diagnosis as well as optimal treatment.
We wish Gideon all the best for his retirement, We are extremely happy that he stays with us part-time and hope that he will now have even more time for his other hobbies – classical music and photography.
Dr. Konstantin Kenigsberg is a distinguished Senior Radiologist and innovator who began his medical journey at the Belarusian State Medical University, specializing early in advanced MRI techniques.
He completed a fellowship in neuroradiology and nuclear medicine at the University Hospital of Würzburg, Germany, before becoming a leading MRI specialist at the Minsk Cancer Center.
An active international figure, he has trained radiologists globally, served on the Belarusian Society of Radiology authority board, and received the ESR “Invest in Youth” award three times.
After serving as Chief Radiologist for a major private imaging network in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dr. Kenigsberg was forced to rebuild his career, relocating to Israel due to the war. He quickly established himself at Carmel Medical Center in Haifa as a Senior Radiologist, where he has introduced numerous unique, advanced MRI protocols and is completing a second specialization in Nuclear Medicine. He now represents Israel on the Membership Committee of the European Society of Oncologic Imaging (ESOI), recognizing his professional and academic contributions. Beyond the clinic, Dr. Kenigsberg is the co-founder of Bodyscope VR, an educational startup merging radiology and virtual reality to advance medical learning worldwide.
Dr. Perl Hershkowitz is a radiologist at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, Israel.
She specializes in body imaging and has decades of experience in the field.
A proud Zionist, she made aliyah from the United States in 1986.
Dr. Hershkowitz is known for her deep curiosity and passion for medicine.
She has educated and mentored many generations of radiologists with patience and love.
Her legacy is reflected in the values she instilled and the knowledge she shared.
