Reuven Dressler OPC ’90

PROFILES

Reuven Dressler OPC ’90

BY MARK F. BERNSTEIN OPC ’79

Change can be hard, but Reuven “Rich” Dressler OPC ’90 is not afraid of it. He even seeks it out.

In 2007, he and his wife, Elana, moved to Israel, where they have lived ever since. The couple and their children (shown below) now live in a settlement about five miles outside Jerusalem. Dressler, a physician specializing in family medicine, also serves on the faculty of the Hadassah and Hebrew University School of Medicine.

Long interested in his Jewish roots, Dressler had been intrigued by the idea of moving to Israel since he visited during a year’s break from medical school at Temple University. “I fell in love with the place,” he said. Still, actually moving there required a lot of adjustments, the most significant of which was learning Hebrew. A two-year stint in the Israel Defense Forces, required of all citizens between the ages of 17 and 49, took care of that.

“The army is the ultimate place to learn Hebrew,” he laughed. “They really throw you into the fire.”

Dressler serves as a reserve medical officer for the Israeli Intelligence Corps and was a staff physician for the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. He described the latter experience as, by turns, fascinating and boring, with a lot of down time. “I got a lot of reading done,” he said.

Asked why he served his adopted country, Dressler explained in a 2013 interview with the Jewish Exponent, “We’re Jews defending our homeland. We’re doing what people for 2,000 years were unable to do, and we need to contribute to that.” In fact, he said, he regrets that Americans do not have the same requirement to defend their country.

Although it has taken time, Dressler has adapted to Israeli life and culture, which may be seen by Americans as gruff or assertive, though passionate may be a better word. “You know where you stand [with someone] quickly,” he said. “If you’re going to be here, you have to learn that.” Dressler now considers himself fully bicultural. “I can act more ‘American’ or ‘Israeli’ as the situation requires,” though he added that he still finds it uncomfortable switching between English and Hebrew rapidly. “I prefer to stick with one or the other.”

Another change Dressler embraced was returning to an old love: lacrosse. Dressler has been passionate about the game since former PC teacher and Director of Middle School Stephen Watters introduced him to it in seventh grade. In 1989, his junior year, the Quakers won the Pennsylvania state championship, and Dressler, the team’s goalie, was named a high school AllAmerican. He continued to star at Yale, winning the team MVP award three times, and still holds the school’s career records for saves. Under Dressler’s steady leadership, the Bulldogs advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals in 1992. Dressler himself was a two-time honorable mention All-American and an academic All-American.

Once he entered medical school, though, Dressler hung up his lacrosse stick—or so he thought. However, in 2014, at the age of 41, he was lured out of retirement to play on the Israeli national team as it competed for the first time in the Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) world championships in Denver. The team, comprised of native Israelis and American ex-patriots like himself, defeated Ireland, Germany and Japan on the way to a seventh-place finish. Four years later, Dressler served as chief medical officer when the FIL tournament was held in Netanya, Israel.

While others might have balked at playing with—and against—players young enough to be their children, Dressler embraced it. “I treated all the guys on the team as I would anybody my age, and I think that I received that in kind,” he reasoned. “It was a chance to be a leader, in the broadest broad sense of the word.”

For Dressler, life moves steadily forward, but he said his lacrosse experience taught him that the old expression, “You can’t go back again,” isn’t really true. Even approaching middle age, he thinks he played some of the best lacrosse of his career.

“When you are dressed and ready on the bus on the way to the game, you suddenly feel less like you are 41 and more like you are 17,” he explained. “It was a real time warp for two weeks of my life.” PC