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First ‘One Health’ Conference held in Israel – February 4, 2016 Israel just had its first One Health conference in a hospital! The one day event took place on February 4th, 2016 at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv, and was supported by the Israeli Ministry of Health (MOH) http://www.health.gov.il/english/Pages/HomePage.aspx.  *Professor Peter Rabinowitz, [MD, MPH], the director of the Center for One Health Research http://deohs.washington.edu/cohr/ and director of Human Health at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health in Seattle, Washington (USA), was the keynote speaker. He talked about the potential benefits of the One Health approach, such as de-siloing of the various players and integration of data, and shared his own experience at Washington State. He also provided some preliminary data from research he is leading in Kenya regarding shared microbiome between humans and animals, showing that the microbiome is more environment-dependent than species-dependent: the microbiome of children was more similar to the microbiome of animals living in the household than to the microbiome of children leaving further away. The 150 participants of the conference also learned from the other esteemed speakers about the various interdisciplinary collaborations taking place in Israeli academia and governmental offices and how integration of the One Health approach may benefit humans, animals, and the environment. The speakers [physicians and veterinarians] included Dr. Silvia Pessah [MD, MPH], a medical [physician] epidemiologist, in charge of Zoonotic Diseases, Epidemiology Division, Israeli Ministry of Health (MOH); Dr. Eyal Klement [DVM, MSc], veterinarian head of the new veterinary Master’s degree program in public health at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem https://medicine.ekmd.huji.ac.il/schools/publichealth/En/IMPH/Pages/default.aspx; Prof. Mitchell J. Schwaber [MD, MSc], physician director of the National Center for Infection Control (MOH) http://www.health.gov.il/English/MinistryUnits/HealthDivision/InfectionControl/Pages/default.aspx; Dr. Nir Rudoler [DVM, MPH, PhD], a veterinarian at Ben Gurion University, Beersheba, Israel http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Pages/default.aspx; Dr. Yael Paran [MD], physician head of Geographical Medicine at The-Aviv Medical Center http://www.travelhealthassist.com/travel-health-clinic/Tel-Aviv/TelAviv/802; Prof. Nadav Davidovitch [MD, PhD, MPH], physician chair of the Department of Health System Management, Ben-Gurion University http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/fom/HealthDep/Pages/default.aspx; Prof. Gad Baneth [DVM, PhD], veterinarian director of the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine at the Hebrew University http://ksvm.agri.huji.ac.il/en/; Dr. Michal Perry [DVM], veterinarian poultry epidemiologist at the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture http://www.moag.gov.il/agri/English/; Dr. Roni King [DVM], chief veterinarian, Israel Nature and Parks Authority http://www.parks.org.il/parks/Pages/WhoWeAre.aspx; and Dr. Michel Bellaiche [DVM], veterinarian director of the Kimron Veterinary Institute at the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture http://www.moag.gov.il/agri/English/Ministrys+Units/Veterinary+Services/Kimron+Veterinary+Institute+-+Research+and+Diagnostic+Labs/. Selected topics included antimicrobial resistance in animals and human, Leishmania, Brucella, the current Zika virus outbreak, Salmonella, bats as zoonotic reservoir and disease surveillance in wildlife. We would like to thank the speakers from academia and various government agencies for sharing their experience, the participants, and the Tel-Aviv Medical Center for opening its doors to us. We hope that this event marks the beginning of an inter-agency and interdisciplinary collaboration that aims to benefit animals, humans, and the environment, in keeping with the One Health spirit. Provided by co-organizers: Zohar Lederman, MD – Dr. Lederman, a physician, is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. Sharon Amit, MD, PhD – Dr. Amit is a senior physician in the Infectious Disease Unit at the Tel-Aviv Medical Centre. *Dr. Rabinowitz, a physician, is a member of the One Health Initiative team Honorary Advisory Board http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/advBoard.php.