ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 20(3–4), 265–276

Copyright © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1050-8422 print / 1532-7019 online
DOI: 10.1080/10508421003799008
PSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS IN ISRAEL
RUBIN

Psychological Ethics in Israel: Riding the Winds

of Fashion to Guide Transformative Changes

Simon Shimshon Rubin

University of Haifa

This article offers a narrative dimension to the evolution of professional ethics in psychology in Israel.
The similarities and differences with ethics in the United States frame the discussion. The author’s
viewpoint and involvement in promoting ethics in academic and professional settings opens the arti-
cle. This is followed by consideration of the licensing of the profession in 1977, and the ethics require-
ments that followed. Cultural developments that influenced Israeli society in the direction of greater
individual autonomy and disillusionment with paternalism are discussed. The Patient’s Rights Law of
1996, the Ethiopian Blood crisis of 1996, and the sexual boundary violations of psychologist Falach in
1992 have had important implications for psychology in Israel. Examining ethics education, the re-
quirements for ethical research, and current ethics resources for psychologists show that although
much has been accomplished, there still remains a great deal to be done.

Keywords: bioethics in Israel, cross-cultural comparisons, patient rights, psychological ethics in

Israel

In 1991, the Israel Ethics Regulations for Psychologists contained six principles of a general na-
ture, fit on a single page, and was vague to the point of irrelevance. When the shift to a comprehen-
sive ethics code was made in 1998, the Israel Psychological Association’s (IPA’s) ethics new
code drew from and incorporated much from its American counterpart. Both in size and sub-
stance, the Israeli code paralleled the American Psychological Association ethics code, and had
relatively few differences of substance with the U.S. code. In this article, I wish to describe some
of the milestones passed on the ethics pathway in Israel and to set forth some of the ongoing diffi-
culties still faced by the field in Israel. My goal in this article is to give the reader a historical per-
spective on the evolution of professional ethics in Israel alongside an understanding of the current
state of the ethics enterprise among psychologists and related healthcare providers in Israel. For a
variety of objective and subjective reasons, a comparison with the U.S. model is also an organiz-
ing theme for this article.
My biases and personal history give me a particular vantage point with which to view and to
help shape, the evolution of professional ethics in Israel (Rubin, 1986). As a bona fide Chicagoan
who moved to Israel, I had something in common with Gary Hobson (played by Kyle Chandler) in
the TV show titled Morning Edition. Hobson, the fictional Chicagoan, received the Chicago

Correspondence should be addressed to Simon Shimshon Rubin, Department of Psychology, University of Haifa,
Haifa, Israel 31905. E-mail: rubin@psy.haifa.ac.il
266 RUBIN

Sun-Times a day ahead of time, which gave him knowledge of the potential future. He sought to
use that knowledge to influence the present so as to improve the future. Since my relocation
(“aliyah”) to Israel, I too have had early information about potential future developments before
they occurred in Israel and have attempted to use that knowledge to make things a bit better than
they were (Percival, 1803). The knowledge base was a function of having followed ethical issues
as they developed in the United States, continuing to follow the ethics literature over the years,
and attending to the ethical implications of practice in Israel.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Beginnings
Over the last 40 years, there has been a cultural shift toward greater attention to ethics in Israel.
These developments were influenced by many of the same intellectual, political, professional, so-
cietal, and biomedical developments that propelled ethical concerns to a prominent place in the
United States (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001; Emanuel et al., 2008; Steinbock, 2007). As a small
country with strong links to the Western world, many of the cultural winds of change blow here as
well. Nonetheless, there are distinct Israeli features to the developments that have also had an im-
pact and have influenced the evolution of the field of psychological and professional ethics in Is-
rael (Rubin, 2007; Shefler, Achmon, & Weil, 2008). There are numerous programs addressing as-
pects of ethics in Israel today. Two that had national impact are the International Center for
Health, Law and Ethics at the University of Haifa (founded by Prof. Amnon Carmi) and the Jeru-
salem Center for Ethics at Mishkenot Sha’ananim.
Ethics in psychology is intertwined with the evolution of psychology (and psychiatry) in the
country. Historically, the IPA was formed as a voluntary professional organization in 1957. At
that time, it had 170 members and incorporated two professional groups that had evolved inde-
pendently prior to that point (Levinson, 1997; Zadik, 1998). The first departments of psychology
opened at the Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University in those same years.
With the establishment of the IPA, an ethics code was drafted in 1958. The code addressed is-
sues such as maintaining respect for the profession, advertising of services (not allowed), and in-
teraction with professionals and laypersons (Achmon, 2008). In 1977, an addition to the code ad-
dressed research with humans. The development of the field quickly led to demands for greater
professionalization. By the 1970s, steps were taken to establish regulations and licensure require-
ments for psychologists so as to regulate the profession. These developments bore fruit in 1977.
The success of these efforts resulted in a licensure law. In the framework of this law, the Council
of Psychologists (Moetzet Hapsichologim), an advisory body to the Minister of Health regarding
matters of practice in psychology, was established. The management of licensure, training, and
recognition of specialty competence are related to the law that effectively separated the regulation
of psychology from the voluntary professional organization of the IPA (Achmon, 2008). The law
addressed the management of complaints and disciplinary action against licensed psychologists
as well as against those purporting to be psychologists and who were not entitled to claim that title.
After its formal establishment as a licensed profession in Israel in 1977, questions were
raised within government regarding the attention to ethics and implementation of procedures
for adjudication of ethical violations. As a result, regulations were developed in the Ministry of
 PSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS IN ISRAEL 267

Health with significant input from the IPA and from the Council of Psychologists. The new eth-
ics regulations stressed psychologists’ responsibility to protect clients, to safeguard the reputa-
tion of the profession, and the necessity to maintain competence in the profession (Levinson,
1997; Zadik, 1998).

Transforming Ethics

By the early 1990s, the importance of professional ethics and the need to update the field was
gathering steam. The Council of Psychologists’ Committee for Clinical Psychology charged a
committee with the task of drafting an ethics code for clinical psychology (Rubin, Achmon,
Dagan, & Shochat, 1993). After a period of deliberation and information gathering, the committee
issued a report in the form of a small volume addressing the ethics education of the profession. In
addition to background of the committee’s task, the volume included the Israel ethics code of
1991, a Hebrew translation of the 1992 APA ethics code, the ethics code of the Israel Medical As-
sociation, and a listing of the major laws relevant to the work of psychologists (encompassing pri-
vacy issues, confidentiality, mandatory reporting, and the like). The volume concluded with a bib-
liography and sample test for assessing knowledge in professional ethics.
The committee’s recommendations were unequivocal. They recommended that both the Israel
Psychological Association and the Council of Psychologists work to draft an ethics code for all
psychologists regardless of specialty. In addition to arguing against a separate ethics code for the
clinicians, the committee recommended that newly licensed psychologists be required to demon-
strate familiarity with the ethics codes, laws and requirements of ethical practice (Rubin, et al.,
1993). The report was distributed across Israel to accredited internship training programs and to
academic psychology programs. Despite these modest beginnings, a positive shift in the profes-
sion’s approach to ethics was underway. The IPA went on to draft a revised ethics code, which
was ratified in 1997 and closely paralleled the 1992 APA code. The 2004 revision of the Israeli
code of ethics was a response to changes in the 2002 APA code. The revised Israeli code was rati-
fied by the membership of the IPA and was also adopted by the Council of Psychologists in 2006.
Thus the current ethics code in psychology is the standard for the voluntary and formally consti-
tuted overseeing bodies regulating psychology today in Israel (Achmon, 2008; Israel Psychologi-
cal Association, 2004). Today, for psychology as well as for most other health professions in Is-
rael, the local ethics codes overlap significantly with their counterparts in English speaking
countries (Shefler et al., 2008). Although some cultural and legal variations variation is to be ex-
pected, most of the main issues and topics addressed in the North American codes find parallels in
the Israel codes.

“THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’” (Dylan, 1964): THE GROWING

ATTENTION TO THE INDIVIDUAL

Much more than legislation, of course, underlies the ethics evolution here. The explosive growth
in medical capabilities and the parallel growth in the importance of the entire field of bioethics,
had an impact on Israeli society and culture. Viewed through the prism of the cultural forces at
work within Israeli society, the bioethical culture evolved in similar but far from identical ways in
comparison with developments in the United States. It is helpful to keep in mind that Israel’s
268 RUBIN

founding ethos and long-standing Jewish tradition tend to favor a noticeably collectivist dimen-
sion alongside respect for individual rights (Gross, 1999). The individual’s responsibilities to the
community and state are part of the social contract of Israeli society as is the citizen’s right to be
helped by the community and state (Triandis, 2001; Weinberg, 2000). With the establishment of
the State of Israel in 1948, the fledgling country absorbed large numbers of Jewish immigrants.
Their numbers dwarfed those of the prestate Jewish community. The country’s leaders were
forced to make decisions about the lives of these new immigrants to Israel for their benefit and the
benefit of the entire state without significant input from those immigrants themselves. The “help-
ful” (beneficent) decisions that were made reflected the ethos of the times and the paternalistic
perspective that had been the cultural default. The shift from “we know best what is good for you”
to “what is best for you is defined by what you think is important—and ‘we in power’ will have to
negotiate with you on that” has been a long and arduous process.
For the generation coming of age in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, the Vietnam War
was a watershed in catalyzing opposition to paternalistic sentiments and behaviors in the United
States. For the generation coming of age in the 1970s in Israel, the 1973 Yom Kippur war set in
motion a major renegotiation of the relationship between the government and the citizenry. Disil-
lusioned with the failures of the political and military leadership and the resultant traumas of that
war, the citizenry reasserted their rights to be heard and reckoned with. The refusal to tolerate the
status quo across a number of areas came with increased individualism and self expression.
Greater attention to the individual also brought with it explosive growth in academic psychology
and much greater public acceptance and utilization of psychological services.
Continuing on from those years, Israel continues to undergo cultural and demographic changes
that empower the individual vis-à-vis the collective. These same developments also hastened a
process of empowerment for those previously marginalized. These marginalized groups included
most notably Sephardic Jews, Ultra-orthodox Jews, and Christian and Muslim citizens of Arab
ethnicity (Greenberg & Witztum, 2001; Rouhana, 1997). Despite the continuing discrepancies in
allocation of resources based on economic, religious, ethnic, geographic, and cultural divisions,
the parliamentary democracy that governs the country includes all the players. The allocation of
resources reflects the give and take of the political process. The country is committed to being
both a “democratic and Jewish” state and so the country’s civil pact with its citizens is one of
equality (Yakobson & Rubinstein, 2008). That pact does not distinguish among its citizens al-
though the overarching ethos, language, and national aspirations reflect the Jewish majority.
Among the most successful areas of coexistence and integration are the healthcare professions
and services. Throughout Israel’s history, and still manifest strongly today, the tradition of benefi-
cence and care has been a hallmark of the general as well as the healthcare culture (Beauchamp &
Childress, 2001; Glick, 1997). There is mandatory government provided health coverage and care
for all citizens in the public sector, along with an active private healthcare sector providing ser-
vices to supplement, and compete, with the national insurance plans. The enfranchisement and
care for the population, however, come with the perennial questions about what are the limits of
care that society in Israel must impose on finite resources in health care in order to maintain its so-
cial contract and viability.
What has changed in healthcare in Israel most dramatically is the attention to respect for auton-
omy which has greatly increased over time. At times willingly and at times less so, the guild-pro-
fession of medicine has been at the forefront of the change from autocratic paternalism to a more
balanced relationship. Determining criteria for scarce resources such as dialysis beds or organs for
 PSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS IN ISRAEL 269

transplant, and facing questions about who decides and who receives priority, has brought medi-
cine squarely into the debates over ethics. No less important, of course, are the ethical issues re-
lated to the very framework of the individual patient–doctor relationship. Questions such as what
are the rules, procedures, and laws that should govern that relationship, and who should determine
those, typically evolve from the confluence of professional, legal, and legislative work. Court rul-
ings in the United States and Israel have reflected and driven a shift from the “professional stan-
dard” of physician practice as the benchmark of what patients ought to be told, to a “reasonable
person standard” that reorients the interaction to take much more account of what patients would
deserve and expect to be told from their own point of view. In Israel, these shifts occurred with a
predictable time delay in crossing the Atlantic.
The changes have been driven by legislative initiative and case law (Carmi & Nachshon,
2006). The Israeli Knesset, the country’s legislative body, passed the Patient Rights Law, which
gave patients a wide range of rights in the medical area. The law passed in 1996, mandated a major
shift in the relationship between clients and the medical establishment. Among the aspects of the
law: Healthcare workers must identify themselves clearly so patients know who they are, patients
are entitled to receive clear and complete information as well as access to their own medical re-
cords, and the mandating of ethics committees in hospitals and healthcare settings deal with a va-
riety of situations. The law has been a milestone in the relationship of patients and the physi-
cian-dominated health care establishment. From a situation where the reasonable doctor standard
was utilized, a new standard was legislated, and it came down unequivocally on the side of patients.
Many of the rights were already in place theoretically, but the prominence of the law and the atten-
tion to it, as well as mandating ethics committees in hospitals, had the effect of making ethics in the
hospital system a matter of attention, at the very least on a variety of formal indicators.
The law has had an impact upon the practice of psychology as well and the expectation that
psychologists will provide full information to clients about their status, diagnosis, treatment op-
tions, and the like lags behind the law and public sentiment. The direction of the change is clear,
however, and the discomfort is with the slow pace of change and some of practicing psychology’s
reluctance to shift from an expert standard regarding what should be communicated to clients is
rooted in outdated reasoning that is sometimes cloaked in the mantle of theory (Mitchell & Black,
1995). Although self-disclosure has been considered from many angles for its psychotherapeutic
impact, the use of such rationale to conceal student status from clients still has adherents in vari-
ous training centers long after it had disappeared from the U.S. scene.

WHOM DO YOU TRUST—IN THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL?

In the United States, two events stand out as transformative for the evolution of psychological eth-
ics in the last 50 years. The first was the furor over the Tuskegee syphilis study, which resulted in
the formation of the president’s commission to study the process of research in the United States
(Jones, 2008). The commission issued their report in the Belmont Report, which served to recast
the entire review and accountability in research ethics as it is practiced in the United States today
(Beauchamp, 2008). The second earthquake was the Tarasoff decision in which the California Su-
preme Court articulated a professional duty to warn persons who might be in danger who are oth-
erwise not connected to the therapist. The ruling clarified for all that the profession of psychology
involved a duty to others and not just to the patient, although the limits and specifics of that duty
270 RUBIN

remain a source of continuing debate (Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008). In Israel, although there
has not been anything of the force and magnitude of either Tuskegee or Tarasoff, there have been
issues that attracted significant public detention and contributed to a more welcoming attitude to-
ward ethics (Jones, 2008; Koocher & Keith-Spiegel, 2008). Assuming familiarity with both
Tuskegee and Tarasoff, I turn to two local situations to give a decidedly Israeli twist to the issues
of color and sexual boundary violations.

Ethiopian Blood Crisis: A Case Study in Ethics that has Much to Teach Israeli
Psychologists

Tackling issues of racial tension and concerns about discrimination on the basis of color and na-
tional origin are connected with fundamental questions about how to adhere to basic principles of
bioethics. Israel comprises citizens of different religions, ethnicities, and cultures, of which the
Arab–Jewish divide is best known. In the Ethiopian blood crisis, the tensions and fault lines
within the Jewish majority were exposed. The case highlighted the issues that separated new-
comer from older residents and Black African Jews from Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews. I in-
clude it here as it has much to teach Israeli psychologists about ethics and cultural sensitivity. Had
the medical system paid attention to the basic principles of bioethics (respect for autonomy, be-
neficence, nonmaleficence, and justice), at least some of the mistakes made could have been
averted (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001).
In 1996, the Israeli news media reported that the Magan David Adom (the “Red Shield of Da-
vid,” which is the Israeli counterpart to the Red Cross) had been accepting blood donations from
the Ethiopian-born Jewish citizens of Israel and then surreptitiously destroying the blood. The
blood was destroyed due to concerns about potential effects of using the blood and contributing to
the spread of HIV infection. The reasoning stemmed from the heightened rate of HIV-positive sta-
tus in the Ethiopian community (Seeman, 1999). Members of the Jewish-Ethiopian community
were outraged over this disenfranchisement. They demonstrated under the banner “Our blood is
the same as your blood” outside the prime minister’s office in what was said to be the most violent
demonstration ever held in Israel prior to that time. The rage of the demonstrators and the response
of the Ethiopian immigrant community to the revelations about the discarded blood donations
shocked Israel. At the same time, the bioethical failures of the way in which the HIV risk was han-
dled should have been familiar to both policymakers and to healthcare professionals involved in
setting and concealing policy. The outrage over the policy resulted in the formation of a govern-
ment commission under former President Navon to investigate the matter. The final report criti-
cized many aspects of the manner in which the Ministry of Health and Magan David Adom had
conducted themselves (Navon, 1996).
As best as could be determined, the decision to hide the fact that donations were not being ac-
cepted was taken in an authoritarian-paternalistic manner with the intention to benefit all mem-
bers of society. The logic went that concealing the rate of HIV status among the Ethiopian immi-
grants would reduce the potential for discriminatory attitudes among the majority of Israeli
citizens. The concern was that accurate information might increase discrimination against the
Ethiopian newcomers if the other citizens were to distance themselves from these “HIV-carriers.”
The cultural divide separating the Black Jewish Africans who were coming from the African
countryside from the 20th-century Westernized and modern Israelis was already a chasm that was
difficult to span.
 PSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS IN ISRAEL 271

The decision not to use the blood donated by Ethiopians was the product of a medical directive
that established policy for using blood by country of origin. A potentially less discriminatory but
no less responsible policy would have classified donors by time spent in a country with high HIV
rates or by contact with someone from that community (Walters, 1988). Informing the Ethiopian
immigrants of the results of such a policy, namely, that their blood would not be used, would have
been honest. By not doing so, and taking the blood and then surreptitiously discarding it, the ef-
fects were far worse. The Ethiopian community’s outrage over their treatment boiled over follow-
ing the failure of the paternalistic, nontransparent, and deceptive practices that were put into place
in order to assist this vulnerable population transition to greater acceptance in their new homes in
Israel.
Ultimately, a series of substantial shifts in the interface of the Ethiopian Jews with Israeli soci-
ety resulted from this failure of ethics. On the bioethics level, a full disclosure of what blood could
be used was accompanied by a reclassification of blood donor status on the basis of exposure to
HIV prevalent locations. The Navon Commission addressed the need to understand how faulty
decisions were made and by whom, what bioethical policies and procedures needed to be changed
in the blood banks and blood donation arenas, but no less important, what basic changes in the re-
lationship to the Ethiopian Jewish minority deserved to be changed. Respect for the Ethiopian
community and the need to partner rather than paternalize their treatment was a welcome develop-
ment.
The Ethiopian blood crisis served as a template relevant to psychological ethics. In this saga
are issues of transparency, paternalism, misguided beneficence, unexpected maleficence, and in-
sufficient respect for autonomy of both the minority and majority groups. It also highlighted the
fact that there are multiple variations of culture and religious emphasis even within the Jewish ma-
jority of Israel that deserve the attention of every psychologist. Examining what went wrong in the
interface of the healthcare meeting with the community it serves has much to teach psychologists
seeking to meet contemporary ethical standards.

Sex in the Consulting Room

Specifying and addressing the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in psychol-
ogy is at the very heart of the ethical practice of psychology. The boundary limits addressed in
contemporary ethics codes overlaps with many sections of the code. Who is entitled to practice
psychology and psychotherapy addresses the boundary of who is inside and outside that part of
the profession with legal and ethical implications. What are the characteristics of ethical prac-
tice addressing the question of where one sets the boundaries for professional competence and
rectitude? Specifying the conditions and elements for responsible assessment, therapy, supervi-
sion, and research practices is also another way of addressing the boundaries of what character-
izes the permitted and the not permitted zones of professional practices. Yet the areas most as-
sociated with “boundary issues in psychology” are generally seen as connected to issues
of recognizing limitations in the degree to which professional psychologists are constrained in
the freedom to pursue love, sex, friendship, and power needs in the relationship with those who
seek their professional assistance (Rubin, 2000, 2002). These include clients, students, super-
visees, and research participants.
In the United States, psychologists and their clients are exposed to the clear messages that sex-
ual boundary crossing is wrong. Although the problem has by no means disappeared, the clear-cut
272 RUBIN

stand taken by the healthcare professionals, legislators, courts, ethics codes, and the media has
contributed to greater awareness of the problem (Pope, 1994; Rubin, 2001). In Israel, research as-
sessing the extent to which psychologists and physicians respected patient confidentiality and the
sexual boundaries of patients and supervisees indicated that there was great room for improve-
ment (Rubin & Dror, 1996). Although 14.5% of the physician sample had engaged in unethical
sexual behaviors with clients and supervisees, only 3.4% of the psychologists reported having
done so. The figures were far worse for respecting patient confidentiality and characterized both
the respondents’ attitudes and behaviors. Additional research assessing professional and nonpro-
fessional participants’ willingness to refer potential clients to therapists who had sexual relation-
ships with patients in the past found that there was an alarming acceptance of these professionals
by both professionals and laypersons (Rubin & Amir, 2000). Although reports of small-scale re-
search have their place, full-scale media coverage of these issues has a far broader impact. Not
surprisingly, health professionals (and politicians) violations of boundaries make headlines in the
local press. Thus the actions of one Israeli psychologist, Eli Falach, helped place the issue of sex-
ual boundary violation in psychotherapy on the public agenda.
Falach, a licensed clinical psychologist, was tried and ultimately convicted for crossing
boundaries. His actions with female patients had prompted one woman to contact a major Is-
raeli newspaper. The paper’s editor sent out a female investigative reporter to use her real-life
story (she had sought treatment for personal issues) and pose as a prospective patient. The
“patient,” N.K., saw Falach for six visits and was able to record and videotape his sexual and
physical overtures to her with a hidden recording devise. A clear pattern of sexual predation
emerged. According to the court transcript, by Session 6, Falach was lying next to the client
on the bed in the office, had placed her hand on his privates, and was engaged in various acts
of sexual manipulation that fell short of full sexual relations. In February 1992, 5 days after the
newspaper published its exposé (using the complaints of others and photographs from N.K.’s
“therapy”), Falach was arrested. He was convicted of indecent sexual acts (Maasim Mgoonim)
with a total of four patients who had come forward as a result of the exposé. Falach was sen-
tenced to jail for 4 years (serving 2½) and lost his license to practice as a psychologist. His law-
yer appealed the conviction and claimed “consensual relations,” but the appeal was rejected and
the courts saw his liaisons as cases of “consent” based on deceit. Unrepentant, Falach penned a
book released in 1999 titled On the Psychologist’s Couch, explaining his method of “treatment”
and not assuming responsibility for his actions. Having lost his license to practice as psycholo-
gist, Falach returned to practice by listing himself and working in the nonregulated domain of
psychotherapy (a term that does not require any qualifications for its legal use). “Practicing” his
particular form of interaction with female clients, Falach was convicted for the second time in
2007 for violations of sexual boundaries and for abuse of his position. He was sentenced to 8
years in prison.
What makes the case of Falach of more than passing interest is its illustration of how attempts
to manage inappropriate behavior provide only partial protection for both the public and the pro-
fession. Falach is among the more prominent of these cases, but crossing sexual boundaries by
psychologists and other professionals follows the familiar pattern of sexual predation by those
who find ways to manipulate and locate the more vulnerable persons seeking help, and to victim-
ize them. The shifts in the Israeli ethics codes in the 1980s and 1990s specifically forbidding sex-
ual contact between mental health professionals and clients have made the unacceptability of
these practices clear to all.
 PSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS IN ISRAEL 273

EDUCATION, RESEARCH, AND RESOURCES FOR ETHICS

IN PSYCHOLOGY IN ISRAEL

Consistent with the 1977 Psychology Licensing Law, one is required to have an MA degree in a
recognized psychology program in Israel or an equivalent program overseas to become a li-
censed psychologist. There is no consensus as to the necessity of having an ethics course re-
quirement during graduate school although attention to ethics is encouraged (Zadik, 1998). The
examining boards entrusted with the evaluation of prospective candidates for licensing in the
specialties of clinical, educational, developmental, and industrial psychology have instructed
the examiners to evaluate knowledge of ethics among candidates but no standardized test is in
place for all or any of these specialties regarding either knowledge of ethics or the relevant laws
applicable to the profession. These lacunae are unfortunate but accurately reflect the lack of a
strong commitment to assessing competence in ethics and law by many senior persons in the
field.
The absence of a national policy on ethics education for psychologists in Israel is compounded
by the state of research practice in the behavioral, educational, and social sciences (Landau &
Shefler, 2008; Rubin & Koren, 2008). While in the United States, the National Research Act of
1974 created the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and
Behavioral Research, there is no parallel to that in Israel (Beauchamp, 2008). The laws and regu-
lations governing research with human subjects overseen by the U.S. Department of Health, Edu-
cation and Welfare established strict guidelines for the examination and approval of research in
university and medical settings. In contrast, the Israeli system and lawmakers incorporated the
Helsinki principles of biomedical research to regulate medical research with human subjects. In
1980, legislation was passed that made implementation of the Helsinki 1964 World Health Orga-
nization’s statement regarding experiments using human, and the later 1975 emendation part of
Israeli law. A law mandating the supervision and approval of experiments with animal was passed
in 1994.
The Helsinki review boards review and approve research originating in the medical set-
tings resulted in committees in medical schools, hospitals, and in the Ministry of Health. Re-
search not requiring patients and not understood as medical was not covered by the law. In the
absence of laws or regulations addressing the evaluation and approval of behavioral, educa-
tional, or other research with human participants, much of that research has been unregulated.
The evolution of review boards to review non-medical research with human subjects began to
gather steam in the 1990s, when international funding agencies and journals began to require
ethics approval as a condition for funding and publication. Research review boards examining
research proposals were established to review the proposals that the researchers wished evalu-
ated. This situation represented an improvement but has not translated into mandatory ethics
review of all research with human subjects by psychology faculty and students by committees
that meet the requirements of IRB as constituted in the United States. As of this writing, the
Knesset has viewed drafts of legislation addressing the issue of behavioral and educational re-
search with human subjects that fail to address the full range of concerns and interests ad-
dressed in the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects known as the “Common
Rule,” which is gfoverns policy governing the conduct of research with humans. The Office
for Human Research Protections in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services does
not have a parallel in Israel.
274 RUBIN

On the positive side, print and electronic resources on the issues of ethics in Israel are robust
and healthy. It is not possible to name all the resources, but a few of the more important avenues
available to the local psychologists are mentioned.

Internet: The Web site Psicholiogia Ivrit (Hebrew Psychology) is probably the best known of
the resources available locally. The site has an active (member) forum devoted to ethics and mod-
erated by Yoram Zadik where issues are raised and responses solicited in the manner of similar fo-
rums worldwide. The Hebrew language communications allow free and easy communication
within the country but do represent a formidable barrier to the non-Hebrew speaker.
Books: The volume Ethical Issues for Professionals in Counseling and Psychotherapy (Shefler
et al., 2008) was first published in 2003 and is now in its third printing. The 39 chapters represent a
rich collection of perspectives and issues addressing a wide range of ethical issues faced by psy-
chologist and other mental health professionals. The volume concludes with 12 codes of ethics of
the relevant professions as well as detailed information as to how to consult or lodge complaints
with the various committees responsible for overseeing ethics. For theoretical and practical issues
related to research ethics, the experiences at the University of Haifa and at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem have been addressed in recent publications with the goal of furthering awareness in
these areas (Landau & Shefler, 2008; Rubin & Koren, 2008).

CONCLUSION

The winds of fashion in Israel have been blowing from the West since before the British Mandate
was established in 1920. When attention to the ethical practices in the professions grew stronger in
the West in the last decades of the 20th century, it was only a matter of time before the effects of
those developments would be felt here. In contradistinction to law, with its attempt to accomplish
a clear demarcation of right and wrong, legal and illegal, ethics occupies an area of greater ambi-
guity and is based on the individual and the societies’ wish to do the “right thing.” There are many
welcome developments characterizing ethics in Israel in general and psychology in particular.
Progress has been made, but there remains the need to ride the winds of change to guide additional
transformative changes in this important area.

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