History

Ezra “David” Israelian, also known professionally as David “Eli” Israelian, forged a rare path from lived experience into structural change in the mental health world. Drawing from his own neurodiverse and mental health diagnoses, he transformed adversity into a mission to build peer-led systems grounded in dignity, creativity, and human agency. In 2009 he co-founded Painted Brain, where he served for many years as Board President, helping establish its clubhouse-style model integrating art, media, and technology to support psychiatric populations through connection, trust, and emotional regulation. That foundation later expanded into digital and community-based platforms including Peer Mental Health, alongside the co-founding of CodiePie, a social-impact technology company, and involvement in LaughMD, all focused on using media, humor, and innovation to improve access to care and social stability for people navigating mental health challenges.

This same philosophy found expression through Ezra’s music career under the name EZRA, where storytelling and sound became another language for the inner world he had spent years studying and building systems around. Signed to Sony/BMG Records, he released his album Painted Brain on 11/11, a work that mirrors the emotional architecture of his life’s journey: trauma, identity, longing, and transcendence translated into cinematic pop. The album stands not as a separate pursuit from his advocacy, but as its artistic twin, carrying the same inquiry into what it means to heal, remember, and remain human inside complexity.

Across his ventures, EZRA now serves as a philosophical architect, shaping frameworks that outlive titles and roles. As his cultural visibility through music accelerates, he has increasingly allowed neuroTree and its allied ecosystems to be guided by the principles he embedded rather than by his direct presence. In this way, his influence persists through design, narrative, and ethos, a quiet hand behind systems meant to grow beyond any single figure.