22.12.2023

Ruzena Rachel Bock was born in Czechoslovakia. She studied veterinary medicine at the University of Kosice from 1955 to 1962, and worked as a poultry veterinarian in Bratislava for six years. Following the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Red Army in 1968, she went to Jerusalem to participate in the European WPSA conference, and remained in Israel.
She was employed in 1969 at the Kimron Veterinary Institute, Beit Dagan, in the Poultry Diseases Department. She was appointed in 1979 as director of the regional Poultry Disease Laboratory, Beer Tuvia, where she worked until she retired in 1998. Rachel Bock has devoted her career to the investigation of all aspects of poultry diseases, as well as dealing practically with outbreaks of diseases on Israeli farms. She has done pioneering work on Ornithobacterium rhinotrachaele, and prepared an autogenous ORT vaccine for use in turkeys.
Since 1985 she has served as Corresponding Secretary of the Israel Branch of WVPA and, as such, has assisted Czech and Slovak colleagues in creating new Czech and Slovak WVPA branches.
She has been awarded many prizes in Israel and abroad. In 2007 at the WVPA Congress in Beijing she was made an honorary life member of the WVPA. In 2010, at the WPSA Congress in Jerusalem, her name was added to the Golden Book of the Israel Foundation, the highest recognition for her contribution to the Israeli poultry industry. In 2015 she was chosen to the WVPA Hall of Honour.
Dr. Rachel Bock was one of the most professional veterinarians in the poultry industry in Israel, very thorough, knowledgeable and always positive, smiling and encouraging.
R.I.P!