10/07/2025
Two years ago, I was stunned — like all of you — by the horrific details of the massacre on October 7.
The brutality pierced not only the soul of Israel but something deep inside me as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. The stories of people hunted, burned and torn from their homes awakened echoes of my father’s memories of his darkest years. It was as if the trauma that shaped his life — and mine — had returned in a new generation’s anguish.
In those first days, I was gutted by grief. As a psychologist, I had spent over three decades helping people find strength after trauma, but I had never felt the pain so personally, so viscerally. Amid the heartbreak, I felt a calling.
I established a nonprofit and called it Israel Healing Initiative even though choosing a name with “Israel” in it was fraught with prejudice, as the word itself had already become entangled in a propaganda war of moral inversion.I assembled a team of leading trauma experts, recognized nationally and internationally — specialists who grasp the intricate ways trauma can disorganize the brain, stealing sleep, scattering focus, and chipping away at the basic sense of safety and hope that makes life feel livable.
That conviction became the foundation for our work. Trauma needs more than care or talk therapy; it requires methods grounded in science and delivered with compassion. After helping survivors regain stability, we provided neurostimulation devices for them to take home to support their ongoing recovery, and we began training practitioners across Israel to extend the reach of our approach. We are now partnering with Adi Negev Rehabilitation Hospital to study how these methods can accelerate and strengthen healing.
But we soon saw that propaganda and denial were worsening our patients’ suffering. Their sense of safety and belonging was being stripped away by the erasure of their pain. We realized we had to respond — not only to protect their recovery, but to help others grasp the cost of minimizing or denying their experience. Through our writing and public advocacy, from Jewish Journal to The New York Times , and through our social media storytelling, we’ve worked to make their voices heard. Healing also depends on truth.
Our work has proven that early intervention reduces suffering and accelerates recovery. Please watch this video we created to capture our work, crisscrossing Israel, bringing treatment and training to so many.
In just two years, we have:
✅Treated 150+ survivors of the Oct. 7 Nova festival massacre, IDF soldiers and Druze, Bedouin and Jewish civilians.
✅Trained 40+ clinicians in cutting-edge trauma methods that integrate neuroscience and psychotherapy.
✅Delivered 500+ hours of care across Israel.
Behind every number is a human story — a survivor who sleeps through the night again, a sister who can finally breathe without panic, a young soldier who no longer flinches at every sound.
This work is gut-wrenching, but it is also profoundly hopeful. I’ve witnessed moments when life reclaims its light, when a survivor laughs for the first time in months, or when someone says quietly, “I feel like myself again.” These are miracles of healing that reaffirm our shared humanity.
As we mark this solemn anniversary, I want to thank you for standing with us — honoring the memory of those we lost by helping those who survived. The wounds of Oct. 7 run deep, but together we can help restore peace in the hearts of individuals and, through them, the nation itself.
