Helping Israel — Now and for The Future

Millions of Israelis are in crisis, facing displacement, trauma, and unemployment. JDC is there to help — as we have been for more than a century.

November 13, 2024

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Treating Trauma

More than 2 million Israelis have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since October 7, and JDC has spearheaded the country’s response to a looming national mental health crisis.

The Nafshi website — one of many digital solutions JDC has launched to pioneer care in this arena — provides users with access to validated mental health options tailored to their individual needs, including self-care techniques and tools, youth groups, and other more intensive forms of therapy. This intervention has freed senior healthcare professionals and one-on-one therapists to handle severe cases without leaving others untreated.

JDC staff and partners discuss educational strategy at a Dead Sea evacuee hotel.

JDC is also partnering with the Ministry of Welfare, the National Insurance Institute, and the Tribe of Nova Foundation in Yuvalim, a unique initiative designed for festival survivors. The program focuses on promoting education and workforce preparation, intensive immediate and long-term therapeutic interventions, and activities that bolster resilience and restore a sense of belonging and trust.

In the evacuee hotels where tens of thousands of Israelis have lived for months, unable to return home, JDC has utilized cutting-edge technologies like virtual reality (VR) to offer “quiet rooms” — an oasis where traumatized men and women can process their trauma and chart a hopeful and healthy path forward.

“This is wartime, and every lost soldier brings me to 2006 and the Second Lebanon War,” said Zion Sa’adia, an evacuee from Kiryat Shmona who lost a son in that earlier conflict and has spent months living in a Netanya hotel. “I feel sad. I feel tense. I think about their families. And when I’m in that state, I come to the quiet room to disconnect, and I find myself leaving that place a little more calm and collected.”

In many cases, even the everyday mechanics of life are imbued with a trauma-informed approach, like JDC’s work to organize an educational framework for evacuee children housed in Dead Sea hotels. When the hard-hit community of Be’eri relocated to one such facility, JDC and its partners repurposed the hotel’s restaurant as a makeshift kindergarten for dozens of toddlers, ensuring they could access the normal milestones of childhood and that their parents had the bandwidth to pursue employment and tackle other important wartime tasks.

In total, JDC has reached nearly 51,000 of the most severely impacted children, parents, and teachers, through programs like 200 daycare centers in evacuee hotels, the distribution of the evidence-based Hibuki doll trauma therapy to children in extreme need, and the implementation of new play-based interventions tailored to kindergarteners.

JDC has the ability to think two steps ahead — not only to understand the immediate needs, but also to understand what comes after. It requires a high level of sensitivity. The communities dictate the response, but we provide the tools. There’s a lot of pain here, but this is civil society at its finest.”

Yossi Heymann

JDC Emergency Response Team Lead, Israel

Strengthening & Revitalizing Frontline Communities

Prioritizing the Most Vulnerable Israelis

Everywhere you look, there’s some kind of project, some kind of JDC program that’s strengthening Haredi communities, strengthening people with disabilities — the list is endless. Imagine what Israelis could do if they were given more, if there were fewer barriers, and more opportunities.

That’s exactly why we need to be resilient. That’s exactly what’s worth fighting for.”

Tzipi Zipper

JDC Program Participant

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