Sustaining an Entire World

How is it possible that we’re once again on the cusp of a new year?  How can it be that the horrors that befell us that terrible morning will shortly be a full year past?  5785 arrives Wednesday at sundown, just days ahead of October 7, 2024, the secular anniversary of the blackest day in Israel’s history, and since the defeat of the Nazis, that of the Jewish people. 

The assault began at sunrise on Simchat Torah, the day Jews celebrate the completion of the year-long reading of the entirety of the Sefer Torah – the five books of Moses – and the beginning of the next such cycle.  A day of celebration was transformed into a frenzy of bloodlust and unbridled savagery.  Can it really be a year?

We haven’t yet finished burying our dead – bodies remain in the hands of their killers somewhere in the tunnels under Gaza.  Also imprisoned in those dungeons are the living among 101 Israelis held captive in unimaginable conditions – their fates unknown – as the war for their liberation continues. The fighting capacity of their captors is largely broken, but their safe return is still just out of reach. 

Even as Israel absorbed the horrific blows out of Gaza, Iran and its proxies throughout the region joined in the assault.  Rockets, missiles, drones and projectiles of every description have rained down on Israel from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen.  Nearly a full year later, tens of thousands of Israelis are still displaced from their homes and across the country, countless thousands rush to shelters and safe-rooms at all hours of the day and night – as we did here in Tel Aviv on multiple occasions this past week.

Increasingly, Israel is taking the fight to our enemies.  Their leadership is being systematically erased.  Their fighters eliminated in hi-tech strikes with near surgical precision – the stuff of Hollywood movies – a steady stream of reminders that those who pursue Israel’s destruction will themselves be brought to ruin.

Meanwhile, Israelis confront the continuing fallout of October 7 and the ensuing war.  Notwithstanding political division, economic hardship and disruptions born of its citizen army’s ongoing service on the battlefield and away from home, jobs, businesses, and studies, each a core component of every healthy society, Israelis of every stripe and background continue to rise to the occasion, lending a hand in myriad ways to those most in need of support and assistance.

Back in April I wrote about a meeting I’d had with the mother of Niv Raviv (27) murdered in the assault on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, together with her fiancé, Nirel Zini.  Niv’s grief-stricken mother, Tami, had joined hands with Dr. Kfir Feffer, one of Israel’s leading experts on Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), to develop plans for a desperately needed comprehensive trauma center to serve the rapidly growing number of Israelis whose lives have been turned inside out by combat and terror related traumas.

On the eve of October 7, 2023 Israel’s infrastructural and professional capacity for treating those with PTSD numbered not more than 8,000 – and owing to the fact that PTSD often only becomes acute years after the initial trauma, the need even then, appeared to be growing.  On a recent tour promoting the work of the new center, Kfir shared that the number of those already seeking assistance in the aftermath of October 7 is approaching 50,000 and is expected to continue to climb.  Their traumas not only impact their own lives – but the lives of those around them - family, friends and coworkers.  We’re witnessing a watershed moment in Israeli society, and what will most certainly be a generational need.

PTSD doesn’t discriminate.  Those suffering come from every corner of Israeli society, every ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic background.  The newly diagnosed include those whose lives are intertwined with the events of October 7 and the war that followed, as well as those triggered by recent events, many with long concealed traumas now rushing to the surface.

When I first met Tami and Kfir, I was captivated by their vision, their passion and their determination.  Having spent decades working in and around Israel, I was well aware of the many hurdles that must be crossed to get new institutions like this one off the ground and anticipated a lengthy development process.  I was mistaken.  In a demonstration of seemingly unprecedented achievement, the Niv Nirel Center opened its doors on August 1, its first days spent hosting training program for its expert clinical team – and on August 18 the center welcomed its first patient.

With the help of hundreds of volunteers, contributions of equipment, supplies and furnishings from dozens of companies and NGOs, and the talents of skilled craftspeople of every description, Tami, Kfir and their team transformed a portion of a derelict building at the edge of a residential village for youth-at-risk into a warm, welcoming and picturesque center for Israelis with PTSD.  Within a year, the Niv Nirel Center is expected to serve more than 500 patients and once the renovation of the remainder of the facility is complete it will have the capacity to treat as many as 1500 each year. 

This was the topic of that recent tour, undertaken by Tami and Kfir across the New York Metropolitan Area and in Memphis, Tennessee.  Nearly every hour of each of the 9 days found Tami retelling the heartbreaking story of her daughter’s brutal murder and Kfir describing his encounters with the survivors of IDF bases overrun by the legions of terrorists that invaded southern Israel on that terrible day.  Each time their own traumas were revealed as they invited listeners to join them in their endeavor to provide vital services critical to restoring balance to shattered lives.

Each of us in attendance was given a very special gift - the chance to do a service of our own – to contribute critically needed funds and to pay that gift forward by helping to spread the word.  The Niv Nirel Center is a remarkable addition to Israel’s capacity to meet this need and a model that has already caught the attention of Israel’s Ministries of Health, Defense and Social Welfare with an eye towards its replication elsewhere in the country.

A year on, the fight continues.  The fight to defeat those determined to destroy us, to bring our hostages back to the desperate arms of their families, the tens of thousands of those displaced to their homes in the north and around Gaza.  This fight isn’t only taking place on the battlefield.  It’s also a fight to heal the wounded – those with devastating physical injuries as well as those whose wounds can’t be easily seen from the outside. 

On their return to Israel, Kfir (48), was recalled once again to active duty in the IDF while Tami took up the reins of the Niv Nirel Center.

A year on and the dawning of a new year once more in the offing.  May 5785 bring better days for all Israel and for Jews the world over.  May healing supplant war, and may we live by the wisdom of the Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a): anyone who sustains one soul …, the verse ascribes him credit as if he sustained an entire world.