TV's Dr. Mehmet Oz. Photo: Wiki Commons

JNS.org – American medical TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz and religious public figure Rabbi Shmuley Boteach participated in a Jerusalem panel discussion on Jewish values that also included Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky.

Dr. Oz, as he is known, is dubbed “America’s doctor” and is currently on his first visit to Israel, sponsored by U.S. Jewish philanthropist Sheldon G. Adelson. “What changed my life is traveling through a country that has been traumatized, yet sees so much hope,” Oz said during the panel, which was moderated by The Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde.

Oz, who is Muslim and of Turkish descent, also shed light on his Israel visit with Rabbi Boteach in a Jerusalem Post interview. “My family and I are visiting Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, in an effort to better understand the source of the universal Jewish values that have so positively impacted on the world and the place from which they stem,” Oz said.