There are sentences a child should never have to say.
A few weeks ago, my nine-year-old granddaughter traveled to Spain for a family wedding. It should have been an adventure: airports, cousins, dresses, dancing, perhaps too much sugar and too little sleep.
Instead, one of the first things she asked upon arrival was, “What happens if there’s an alarm? Where’s the mamad?”
There was no alarm. There was no mamad (protected space). There was no siren to prepare for. She was in Spain.
But in her world, in the world of so many Israeli children since October 7, the question made perfect sense.
We speak a great deal, and rightly so, about the trauma of soldiers. We speak about reservists who have returned again and again to Gaza or the North; about young men and women who have seen things no human being should see; about bereaved families, wounded soldiers, evacuees, hostages, survivors of the Nova massacre, and communities shattered beyond language.
But the circle of trauma is wider still. It includes the child who scans every room for a safe space. The teenager who cannot sleep. The mother whose son is in miluim and whose phone is never more than a few inches away. The oleh who has no family here and is trying to navigate war, bureaucracy, loneliness, and fear in a language that is not yet fully his own. It includes the therapists who sit, hour after hour, absorbing the pain of others while often carrying their own.
Israel is facing a mental health crisis of enormous proportions. PTSD is not a slogan. It is not a diagnosis reserved only for the battlefield. It is in our schools, our homes, our marriages, our army bases, our synagogues, and our WhatsApp groups. It is in the exhausted faces of people who say, “Baruch Hashem, we’re fine,” when they are plainly not fine at all.
And yet, one of the most overlooked questions in this crisis is: Who is caring for the carers?
Recently, in Safed, there was a small but deeply significant answer to that question. Tikva, the mental health program of KeepOlim, together with the TRU Conference for Trauma and Resilience, organized a resiliency retreat for mental health professionals at Beit Binyamin, a remarkable retreat center in the Old City of Safed.
This was not a luxury weekend. It was not a spa break pretending to be therapy. It was a serious, thoughtful, compassionate response to a real and growing problem: therapists themselves are burning out.
Many are dealing with overloaded caseloads, compassion fatigue, and their own personal trauma. Some are treating soldiers while having sons or daughters in combat units. Some are supporting bereaved families while carrying their own fears. Some are helping olim navigate isolation and despair while they are living through the strain of war themselves.
Seventeen therapists came from across Israel for two days of respite, learning, connection, and renewal. The program included presentations on EMDR and resiliency by Dr. Norman Goldwasser, innovative resilience tools with Yaakov Goldman, therapeutic breathwork with Reva Emanuel, Jewish meditation and art experiences, music, a tour of Safed, and time simply to breathe.
That last phrase matters: simply to breathe.
One participant described the retreat as giving her “a lighter heart, a deeper connection to myself, and a renewed focus on self-care.”
Another spoke of feeling as though she had received “a warm embrace that fully recharged my batteries, allowing me to continue my work of giving and therapy.”
A third, the mother of three combat soldiers, wrote movingly of being held by the “majestic beauty of Safed” and by the quiet power of Beit Binyamin itself.
What struck me most was a sentence from one of the participants: “Resilience is not leaving our pain behind to show positivity. It’s bringing our whole selves, and turning our pain into meaning.”
That is exactly right.
What resilience really means
There is a dangerous caricature of resilience that says: be strong, smile, move on, don’t complain. That is not resilience; that is suppression. Real resilience is not the denial of pain; it is the transformation of pain.
It is the ability to say: this happened, it hurts, it changed me, and still I will not be broken. More than that, I will use what I have endured to help someone else stand.
But no one can give endlessly from an empty cup. Therapists are trained to listen, contain, and support. They are not machines. They are human beings. They need supervision, community, time, rest, spiritual grounding, and emotional replenishment. If we do not care for them, we should not be surprised when they cannot continue caring for us.
This is where Tikva deserves enormous credit.
KeepOlim was founded to support olim in Israel, and Tikva, its mental health program, addresses one of the most painful gaps in Israeli society: accessible, culturally sensitive mental health care for immigrants.
Olim often struggle to find therapy in their own language. Lone soldiers in particular can fall between every crack in the system. They may be brave, idealistic, and admired, but admiration does not replace family, language, familiarity, or emotional support.
Tikva’s work with olim and lone soldiers is therefore not peripheral. It is lifesaving. At a time when aliyah is both a dream and, for many, a profound emotional challenge, the ability to speak to someone who understands not only trauma but also the immigrant experience is invaluable.
Beit Binyamin deserves a special place in this story.
Set in the heart of Safed, Beit Binyamin was founded by the Airley family in memory of their son, Binyamin Airley, who was killed during the current war. It offers respite and recovery to combat soldiers, bereaved families, displaced families, and others suffering from the traumatic effects of the war. But it is more than a building. It is an act of faith.
There is something almost impossible to comprehend about bereaved parents creating a place of healing for others. Grief can close a person down, and no one would have the right to demand anything else.
Yet the Airley family has taken their pain and built a home of comfort, dignity, and renewal. In doing so, they have created not only a memorial to Binyamin, but a living continuation of his light.
That is why this retreat matters beyond the seventeen people who attended it. It represents a model for what Israel now needs.
We need more therapists. We need more funding. We need shorter waiting lists. We need trauma-informed schools, army units, synagogues, and communities. We need to recognize that the psychological wounds of this war will not disappear when the headlines change. They will accompany us for years.
But we also need something deeper. We need a culture that understands care as a chain. Soldiers need care. Children need care. Bereaved families need care. Olim need care. And the carers need care too.
In Jewish life, we often speak about chesed as giving. But sometimes, chesed is receiving. Sometimes the holiest thing a healer can do is admit: I, too, need healing. I, too, need to be held. I, too, need a place where I can put down the burden for a moment.
The retreat in Safed was small. The crisis is vast. But small acts can carry enormous symbolic weight. In a city associated with mysticism, song, and spiritual repair, a group of exhausted therapists was given permission to pause, to feel, to learn, to cry, to laugh, to connect, and to return to their work strengthened.
In this war, the Jewish people have discovered again and again that we are bound together by invisible threads of responsibility. We hold each other up. We stretch out a hand. We take the hand stretched out to us.
That is not weakness. It is the deepest form of strength.
Caring for the carers is not a luxury. It is a national necessity.