BY HERB KEINON

It’s the stuff that movies are made of: a group of Yazidis from Iraq make their way to Jerusalem to learn the fine art of medical clowning.
According to the Foreign Ministry, that is exactly what happened last week when a group of Yazidis came to receive training in medical clowning to help children in need of medical treatment or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The project was a joint initiative of Dream Doctors, an Israeli NGO integrating medical clowns into the country’s hospital healthcare system, a British charity called Road to Peace, Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem and the Foreign Ministry.

Road to Peace, which helped bring the Yazidis to Israel, describes itself as a British charity “working with organizations and individuals across the world to help build alliances between communities in conflict and facilitate medical treatment for sick and vulnerable children. The impact of war on children is devastating and its effects can last for decades after hostilities have ceased.”

The organization has been active with the Yazidis, who suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of Islamic State, and recently set up a child-care unit in Sinjar, in northern Iraq, where Islamic State killed thousands of Yazidis and other minorities in 2014.


The Foreign Ministry only announced that the delegation was here after it had already left.

A Foreign Ministry official characterized the visit as “very sensitive,” and said that very little information was provided in order not to endanger the participants.

According to a communique put out by the ministry, “The participants in the special training program left Israel with new tools and techniques that will enable them to smile at people living in war zones, regardless of their origin, religion or gender.”

The Jerusalem Post