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Jessica Feldan
Impacting Tomorrow, Today

Behind the Scenes of Israel’s Unprecedented Real-Time Trauma Research for Hostages

In Berlin-Mitte, Germany, a "Bring Them Home" mural for the Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas. Photo by Benzi Auguststraße via Wikimedia Commons.
In Berlin-Mitte, Germany, a "Bring Them Home" mural for the Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas. Photo by Benzi Auguststraße via Wikimedia Commons.

Ever since Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement in mid-January, the Israeli people and world Jewry have been sitting on the edge of their seats each week as a new group of hostages returns home, in what will amount to 33 returnees over a six-week period.

Putting aside the political debate surrounding the agreement itself, one crucial yet less-discussed element of the hostages’ return is their mental health as they reintegrate into Israeli society after nearly 500 days in captivity. Our community’s rallying cry has been “bring them home,” but how do we ensure the hostages’ wellbeing once they’re home?

According to Prof. Tamar Silberg — senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University (BIU) and head of a research unit within the Pediatric Rehabilitation Department at Sheba Medical Center — there were no existing protocols corresponding with the specific needs of Israel’s situation regarding the hostages’ return.

Prof. Silberg and her research colleagues proceeded to design and implement a comprehensive trauma-informed procedure for the care of hostages, including young children, their caregivers and families, immediately following their release from prolonged captivity. What makes the procedure stand out is not necessarily its details, but rather its timing.

The real-time, on-the-ground model of trauma research and treatment that’s being implemented in Israel is unprecedented, since most trauma studies typically occur retrospectively (years later) or from observational perspectives — such as in the case of the war in Ukraine.

“In Israel, we’re the only country that’s studying this issue and trying to understand it while it’s actually happening,” Prof. Silberg says. “That’s a model that I’m not aware of anywhere else in the world.”

In this way, the mental health protocols for returning hostages mirror BIU’s broader approach to crisis response as an academic institution. At Bar-Ilan University’s Community Psychology Clinic, each intervention serves three crucial purposes — treating trauma, researching new and alternative solutions, and educating the specialists who will carry this knowledge forward. Every patient interaction in real-time becomes a data point that helps the clinic develop better treatments whose applications will make a long-term impact.

For the first wave of returning hostages earlier in the war, Prof. Silberg and her team started developing the protocols that are used today. That includes “helping the helpers” — not only caring for the hostages themselves but also for the therapists who are working with them, as mental health professionals can experience severe distress from treating this level of trauma.

Given the extreme severity and complexity of the October 7th trauma, mental health professionals face significant risk of secondary traumatic stress and burnout, which can have long-lasting personal and professional consequences.

Another unique aspect of the protocols is that they were developed and implemented at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital. It has been said that following captivity, some hostages come back in a regressive state that resembles young children and adolescents. From a physical health perspective, Prof. Silberg compares it to the lungs needing to slowly adapt to surface pressure. Similarly, the returning hostages need the breathing room to slowly reintegrate into daily life amid their rehabilitation and recovery.

On a parallel track, Bar-Ilan is addressing the Israeli people’s wartime trauma through the Community Psychology Clinic. In the immediate aftermath of the October 7th attacks, the clinic’s therapists provided immediate support and researchers carefully documented response patterns, treatment outcomes, and emerging needs. Simultaneously, graduate students observed and assisted the effort, gaining essential real-world experience in crisis intervention. Today, the clinic is working with “forgotten grievers” — those who fall outside traditional support systems — to attain new understanding about grief’s ripple effects through communities.

Their TRIP (Trauma and Resilience Intervention Protocol) program offers five sessions of therapy for children ages 3-12 whose parents have been deployed to military service. The intervention helps them cope with the complex emotions  — in some cases, they even feel anger towards their own parents who’ve been away from home, while simultaneously dealing with their own trauma of being under constant threat from bombings, sirens, and terror attacks.

Unfortunately, Israel is no stranger to trauma, from the surprise attack of the 1973 Yom Kippur War to the October 7th atrocities 50 years later. In fact, the trauma runs so deep that when Israeli clinicians read literature on these topics, they see that Israeli scholars are cited.

But thanks to the forward-looking approach of the mental health professionals at Bar-Ilan as well as the clinicians they’ve trained — all of whom are simultaneously responding to today’s crises and designing tomorrow’s protocols — may we never need to use these new protocols in the future. Yet if we do, Israel will be prepared thanks to the work being done in these clinics.

About the Author
Jessica Feldan is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Friends of Bar-Ilan University. She previously served as the Chief Development Officer at the Birthright Israel Foundation and Associate Vice President of the American Technion Society.
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