Dream Care: This haredi male nurse is helping redefine private nursing care in Israel

“I saw people getting confused and falling between the cracks, and I wasn’t able to help them because I was seeing 20 patients an hour,” he says.

“This was not what I signed up for. There was a big hole in the system, and I wanted to fill it.”

Dream Care nurses can perform healthcare services ranging from blood tests and wound care to chemotherapy in clients’ homes in the Jerusalem region. They can also accompany patients to hospitals and doctors’ offices to advocate for their needs and help them navigate through red tape and language barriers at their most vulnerable moments.

“I started two and a half years ago and worked alone for a year,” says Nitzky. “I took a risk; I believed in what I was trying to do. And today, the phones are ringing off the hook. We have about 150 patients per month. Our staff includes 20 nurses and a clinical medical director. I have a full-time assistant and am looking to hire a clinical nursing director and a sales team.”

At age 25, he was learning in a kollel and struggling to support his growing family. He was committed to a haredi way of life, but he knew that full-time study was the wrong path for him.

“I always felt I was not built for sitting and learning,” he explains.

Born in the Bronx, New York, to a nurse and an anesthesiologist, he was 11 when his family made aliyah and moved toward stricter religious observance. As an adult, he looked at his parents’ careers as a model to emulate.

In 2014, the Lev Academic Center (Machon Lev-Jerusalem College of Technology) opened a four-year bachelor’s program in nursing for religious men.

“It was perfect for me,” Nitzky says. After earning a high school equivalency diploma, he put himself through Machon Lev’s evening program by working as a plumber in the mornings. He later completed paramedic training at the Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Academic School of Nursing.

“It was tough, but I got through it,” says Nitzky, now a 40-year-old father of five.

He brought the same can-do attitude to starting Dream Care.

“First, I got insurance and hired an accountant. Then I hired a business consultant and wrote a business plan. It was bootstrapped completely from my savings.”

Nitzky’s goal of providing “personalized care without restraints” focuses on home-based care whenever possible.

“If we can keep the patient in familiar surroundings, that’s huge,” he says. “Many times, it’s just simple things like administering IV fluids. Why go to Terem [emergency care centers] or to the hospital if it can be done in your house, by a nurse dedicated to you? Our nurses come to your house and loop in our doctor telemedically. We can provide a doctor’s visit without the doctor being there.”

Nitzky says that he does his best to interface with the patient’s health fund (kupat holim) and primary care physician. “Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s harder. Most local doctors know me; and, in fact, most of our patients are referred [to us] by kupat holim doctors if they see that the fund can’t provide a service the patient could benefit from.”

The Dream Care founder is also passionate about escorting patients when they do need to go to clinics or hospitals.

“A patient of mine had complications after surgery, and I went to the emergency room with him so that I could explain what was going on. I knew a lot of the nurses there from school. While he was waiting for surgery to repair the issue, he was told he could have a certain pain medication that had to be monitored continuously by a nurse. The nurses were too busy to do that, so I was able to stay with him and assist closely during [its] administration.”

Later, Nitzky spotted and discreetly prevented an error about to be made by an overworked physician, who thanked him. “After the crisis was over, my patient told me it was the best medical experience he’d had in Israel – and I really didn’t do very much!”

Of course, such services come at a price.

“Ideally, this level of care should be accessible to more people, but in practice it remains limited because of cost and because there are relatively few services offering this kind of comprehensive, nurse-led care,” he says. “I’m sometimes surprised that people who don’t have deep pockets also use my service. It’s just important to them, and they’re willing to pay for it.”

About 60% of Dream Care’s clients are Anglos, and many are repeat or chronically ill patients who have opted for a retainer plan. Nitzky tries to match each patient with a nurse who speaks his or her language and is of the patient’s gender if that is what is preferred.

“I’m very picky in hiring nurses; it’s not just their clinical skills but their personality that I assess. And I pay them well,” the nursing promoter says. He recently created an app that nurses use to log their visits.

“It’s amazing to me that this has morphed into something much larger than I ever could have imagined,” Nitzky marvels. “Any time we receive a new type of request – for example, IVIG antibody infusions – I’ll write a protocol, get it approved by my clinical director, and get it done with a lot of thought and a commitment to do better for patients.”

Is franchising a possibility? “Right now, I’m solidifying our services and pricing. When I have it all wrapped up in a bow, I definitely want to bring Dream Care to everybody in Israel,” he says.

“Whenever I get that thank you from a patient or doctor and they tell me how much we helped, that brings me the most satisfaction. It opens my horizons to what nursing could and should be.”

He’s now training to become a nurse practitioner and studying toward a master’s degree in nursing at Machon Lev, which invited him to tell current undergrads about his business.

“Entrepreneurship in nursing is still a new and emerging field in Israel, and Dream Care is a pioneering and innovative enterprise,” says Dr. Zvika Orr, a senior lecturer at Machon Lev’s Selma Jelinek School of Nursing. He taught Nitzky the sociology of health and the fundamentals of health promotion during his undergraduate studies, and then leadership and evidence-based practice during his graduate studies, from 2024 to 2025.

Orr recently co-authored a paper published in Nursing Reports about the growing recognition that nurse entrepreneurship – which is relatively uncommon – can help promote dynamism and creativity in the sector, improve patient outcomes, and reduce costs.

“In an undergraduate course on nursing innovation, Matan’s guest lecture allows nursing students to understand that they, too, can become entrepreneurs and contribute to patient care in new and innovative ways, drawing on their deep knowledge of patients’ needs. By sharing his professional trajectory, Matan serves as a role model for many students,” Orr says.

For Nitzky, “Dream Care is less about building a company than about redefining what nursing can look like in Israel: autonomous, respected, and centered around the patient.”