In the midst of a brutal 18-month war against Hamas, and with the prospect of conflict with Iran looming, it is little wonder some may consider Israel to be on the verge of a PTSD crisis. But the Middle Eastern democracy has a “secret weapon” that many democracies in the West can no longer aspire to: strong family ties and a true sense of community, which is helping so many to get through.
Never was that more needed than following October 7, 2023, when Israel was hit by its “9/11” moment following a Hamas barrage of 4,300 rockets and a surprise invasion by 6,000 Jihadis, which killed 1,200 Israelis. The response involved more than 360,000 conscripts, many aged 18-21, as well as thousands of first responders. Around a third of Israel’s 10 million-strong population is said to be suffering from some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder, but the corresponding spike in crime or anti-social behaviour so often carried out by sufferers who self-medicate through alcohol has been limited.
“We have the biggest families in the developed world, and that means so much,” said Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur.
Israel’s total fertility rate is around 3.0 births per woman, compared with an average 1.5 in the UK.
“And families are very close, because even if you try to run away, the other side of the country is an hour and a half’s drive away. It’s not Europe. You can’t just move to some other country,“ he added.
He attributed Israel’s ranking as the world’s eighth happiest country to “astonishingly high social capital, strong families, strong civil society and strong communities.”
Few have suffered more than volunteers working for ZAKA, Israel’s first responders tasked with the unenviable role of retrieving victim remains.
“I oversaw the retrieval of bodies after October 7,” said Simcha Greiniman, now ZAKA Representative at the United Nations in New York.
“It was 18-and-a-half weeks of clearing house-by-house, collecting every last trace of blood and bone – whatever remained of those murdered there, so that those who survived could return.
“When you’re collecting the remains, you’re working like a robot – you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. It’s later that it hits you. When you return to a home and you start remembering you collected the body of an elderly Holocaust survivor there.
“Being a soldier in battle is one thing, but eventually you leave the battlefield and return home. These were our homes.”
He added: “When you experience daily terror attacks, knowing that any second something could happen. You grow into it. You grow beside it. So you have to learn to live with it.
“But most of us have a very big support system between ourselves. Families are very close and we support each other by caring for each other.”
Despite government efforts, Israel has fewer than half the professional therapists and counsellors it requires, said Vered Atzmon Meshulam, a medical psychologist who heads Zaka’s resilience unit. So sufferers rely on an extended community.
“In Israel, we know health is never just personal; it’s collective, mutual responsibility. We are all one body in one soul,” she said.
“On October 7th, I served as a first responder at Shura (the IDF’s central morgue base). I stood beside families in their final heartbreaking moments as they identified the bodies of their loved ones who had been brutally murdered.
“Denial doesn’t work – you have to deal with it. Trauma doesn’t fade on its own; it shows up in flashbacks, in emotional numbness, when your soul observes something it can’t explain or make right.
“I was affected. I became disassociated, and that’s where family comes in. We’re surrounded by people who know us so well. They sense what you’re going through and they know just when to push, and when to step back. It’s really our secret weapon.”
But as tensions build with Russia, Israel isn’t the only nation facing a looming conflict.
Yet, society in the UK has transformed from the days when communities were tight-knit and families all lived locally.
Despite a recent decline in applications, nearly half of all marriages in the UK still end in divorce, and loneliness is increasing, with around 7% of Britons experiencing chronic loneliness, while in one poll almost half of the adults asked – 49.63% – reported feeling lonely occasionally, sometimes, often or always following the pandemic in 2022.
“The more supportive a family you have, the better are your chances, particularly if they’re physically close, as happens in Israel and clearly less so in the UK,” said Patrick Rae of PTSD Resolution, a charity that has treated more than 4,500 veterans and their partners since it was established in 2009.
“Many soldiers come from poorer backgrounds, and they joined the army which gave them some sense of security, comradeship.
“And when they leave , they return back to a life with no order, and often little in the way of family, and all those other issues.”
Prof Matt Fossey, director of the Veterans and Families Institute at Anglia Ruskin University, pointed out that Israelis were also unified by the existential threats they face.
“The big challenge in the UK is that the military is so small, and communities’ relationship with the military and their understanding of it is diminished,” he said.
“A lot of veterans feel alone and isolated, irrespective of the huge amounts of support that’s out there for them.
“But, while things have changed since the 1940s and 50s, I think that if this country faced a real existential threat again, such as conflict with Russia, it would bring people together.”
Donate to ZAKA: https://give.zakaworld.org/donate-3/
Donate to PTSD Resolution: https://ptsdresolution.org/donate.php