Rabbi Chananya Chollak, who founded Ezer Mizion about thirty years ago, was awarded an honorary doctorate at the annual Congress of Bar Ilan Univeristy Board of Trustees.

The doctorate was conferred by Professor Moshe Kava, Bar Ilan University President, and Dr. Mordechai Katz, Chairman of the University Board of Trustees. Doctorates were awarded this year to eleven men and women from Israel and abroad who made a unique impact on the areas in which they are involved.

The rationale cited for this choice:

Bar Ilan University is proud to confer an honorary doctorate upon Rabbi Chananya Chollak, in recognition of three decades of kindness, selfless giving, and mutual responsibility, in the spirit of our Jewish heritage, as Founder and International Chairman of  Ezer Mizion, and as a figure who continues to radiate a personal example of dedication to thousands of volunteers.

Rabbi Chananya Chollak is Founder and International Chairman of Ezer Mizion, one of Israel's largest non-profit organizations that assists hundreds of thousands of ill, handicapped and elderly people in Israel and their families. In addition to medical treatment for the patient, there are many needs and challenges that cast a heavy burden on the shoulders of family members. Ezer Mizion is there to meet these needs with a broad scope of professional services and programs.

Ezer Mizion responds to about 650,000 requests for assistance every year, and coordinates activities of some 11,000 devoted volunteers throughout Israel. The organization distributes about 50,000 hot meals a month. The transport division operates a fleet of 18 ambulances to transport patients and mobility impaired individuals for medical treatments and other purposes, in addition to over a thousand volunteers who drive patients in their private vehicles.

A central focus of the organization's activity is support of cancer patients, and especially sick children and youth. In 1996, Ezer Mizion, together with Dr. Bracha Zisser, founded the Oranit guest home for children with cancer. Another vital project of Ezer Mizion, also initiated in collaboration with Dr. Zisser, is its Bone Marrow Donor Registry, which has grown to become the world's largest Jewish Registry. The third largest internationally, Ezer Mizion's Registry has facilitated hundreds of life-saving stem cell transplants.

Chananya Chollak, born in 1954 and an alumnus of Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, became aware first-hand of the hardships experienced by the hospital patient and his family when he accompanied his ill father-in-law through various hospitalizations. As a result, in 1979, Ezer Mizion was established. It started as a modest initiative, with hot meals cooked by his wife Leah and distributed in hospitals, and a small group of neighbors who were drafted to relieve exhausted parents sitting at the hospital bedside of their sick children. Before long, requests for assistance came in from additional areas, and the fledgling organization rose to the challenge. Under Rabbi Chollak's able leadership, Ezer Mizion turned into the largest humanitarian assistance entity in Israel.

Ezer Mizion today is active in a wide range of areas: loan of medical and rehabilitative equipment, support and assistance to the elderly, medical counsel and referral, community social services, treatment and advancement of children with special needs, creation of sheltered rehab employment frameworks for the emotionally ill, and much more.

Chananya Chollak has been devotedly and thoroughly directing Ezer Mizion for three decades, with rare sensitivity and receptivity to the needs of the ill and handicapped, and constant aspiration for achieving excellence in service, seeking solutions and developing new horizons of activity.

Chananya Chollak, who, with his wife Leah, raised sixteen children, four of them adopted, continues to be available at any time to every caller, and provides a gleaming personal example both to his professional staff and his cadre of volunteers.  

Ezer Mizion and Chananya Chollak have been awarded prizes and honorary medals by the President, the Prime Minister, various government Ministries, the Knesset Chairman, municipalities and other bodies in Israel and around the world for their remarkable work. In 2008, Rabbi Chollak and Ezer Mizion were awarded the "Israel Prize" for their outstanding achievement and exceptional contribution to Israeli society and to humanity, which is the highest government award in Israel.

As a token of esteem for thirty years of dedication to the ill and handicapped in Israel, for his tremendous contribution to Israeli society,  for his arousal of the volunteering spirit and inspiration of warm societal relations through his tireless activity for others, Bar Ilan university is proud to confer upon Rabbi Chananya Chollak an honorary doctorate.