“Everyone in Israel is suffering from trauma—it doesn’t matter if they weren’t present at an Oct. 7 incident, lost a member of their family or were evacuated,” says Moshe Leiba, chief pedagogical officer and deputy director general of World ORT Kadima Mada (WOKM). “Even those who weren’t affected directly are traumatized … we are seeing students and teachers who are severely traumatized.
“There are cycles of grief; we are, unfortunately, a state in trauma. Even if the war would stop today, it will take years to rebuild ourselves.”
The Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, followed the distress and disruption of the multi-year COVID pandemic. Students were starting to return to school and a sense of normality when Hamas attacked and sent them into another crisis, Leiba says.
“Children had a lot of mental health issues from COVID, from the lack of social interaction and structure, and we were already talking about how it would take years to bridge the gap,” he explains. “Now, some of those children have been evacuated for a year and a half, and the issues continue with the trauma of Oct. 7.”
Royi Yablochnik, who was seconded to World ORT’s Kfar Silver Youth Village to provide much-needed psychological support, credits World ORT with helping staff and students to access it. “It was very important that we were able to open up this support for everyone who wanted to see a therapist and not let them wait weeks or even months,” he stresses. “More people are now coming to therapy because they have time to treat themselves and are no longer in survival mode.
“We need to give them the opportunity to see psychologists—the connection between a patient and a therapist can help to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder.”
He says that his main goal after the attacks was to give people a sense of control and the opportunity to “rebuild.”
Another pressing issue was that many staff and students were evacuated from their homes, especially in Israel’s south. While around 98% of people have returned to the WOKM schools and programs in the south, there is still displacement in the north. Only 40% of students returned when northern schools reopened in March.
Support provided by World ORT’s campaign and global supporters includes providing students’ families with money for food, in one case in the north for a family where a student’s mother was ill with cancer and the father had lost his job.
At World ORT’s Kfar Silver Youth Village, only eight miles from the Gaza border, scholarships and stipends were provided not only to students and their families but to teachers and other staff, as well as therapeutic and psychological support.
Yablochnik says giving people the strength to “get used to this routine, of life in war” was crucial.
WOKM provided mentoring and organized activities in evacuation centers, hotels and hospitals where people had been displaced. “We did a lot to try to alleviate stress,” Leiba says. “Some of our staff went under fire in bomb shelters to work with students, doing robotics, DIY and photography, and we’re still doing that.”
Other resilience and confidence-building programs have included Krav Maga self-defense sessions with techniques on how to control mind, body and energy. Meditation and mindfulness, which are included in the classes, have helped students remain calmer during lessons.
Another program both experts believe has been supremely beneficial to students is the respite trips that have taken place in the United Kingdom, the United States and Mexico.
“It’s something ORT did that was very powerful; it gave students a break from all the stress in Israel, and it was amazing for them to see the love from the community all over the world,” says Yablochnik. “There was a feeling that the Diaspora is looking out for us and that we all have the same goal.”
Leiba adds: “The bonds created between the host families and the kids gave the students a lot of strength. In many cases, they are still in touch, even after a year. The ORT host families felt they were doing something meaningful, and it connected them much more to the organization.”
One consequence of the respite trips was that some students who had not previously wanted to pursue psychological support asked for it upon their return. “They understood the importance of it afterwards,” he said. “For the others, we try to find alternative solutions, for example, photo, drama and animal therapy.”