Nearly 900,000 Israelis – soldiers and civilians, survivors and witnesses, and family members who are living under harm’s shadow for their loved ones – are currently reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety at moderate to severe levels. We are in the midst of a national post-traumatic crisis.
Over the years, while working with Holocaust survivors, we’ve learned that every trauma carries a multi-generational “shockwave,” meaning the second generation of Holocaust survivors also requires care and support.
PTSD doesn’t damage only the individual. It disrupts family dynamics, weakens parenting capabilities, and creates patterns of silence, concealment, or hyper-vigilance – which, even when unspoken, are deeply felt by children. It is well known that when one family member is unwell, the entire family is affected to some degree.
Can Israel – which succeeded in developing unique therapeutic models for the second generation of Holocaust survivors – recognize, embrace, and treat the second generation of October 7 trauma? Can it do so now, urgently, without delay?
As a family doctor and a former health system executive, I knew many second-generation Holocaust survivors. Some managed to cope independently and successfully with the burden of growing up in the shadow of trauma. Others needed support from the medical system.
Second generation of the Holocaust vs. second generation of October 7: In the 1980s and 1990s, mental health professionals in Israel began to recognize that symptoms such as anxiety, emotional detachment, hyper-arousal, and guilt also afflicted the second generation of Holocaust survivors – a generation that did not witness the horrors but was raised under their lingering shadow.
The gap between “knowing without knowing” – as described in research and psychoanalytic literature (including the work of Dr. Hava Pinhas-Cohen and others) – and “living it without understanding why” was vast.
In response, Israel developed unique therapeutic models that enabled emotional processing, individuation, and healing. Organizations like Amcha have led emotional, familial, and community-based care for the second generation for decades – a model that has received international recognition.
To prevent an intergenerational PTSD epidemic, the state must act now: Medical teams – doctors, nurses, and social workers – must be trained to identify those in need of support. We must build treatment programs for the second generation of those traumatized by the war, allocate positions and funding, and act immediately.
Yet the field is sounding an alarm: there’s a severe shortage of mental health professionals, wait times of six months or more, no intervention programs in kindergartens, schools, or community centers, and no budget for local therapeutic initiatives.
Instead of prevention we delay. Instead of early detection we ignore. This approach is unsustainable.
The longer Israel delays treatment, the more we will face an exponential rise in mental health crises in the coming years – a wave we won’t be able to control.
Is this a warning sign? Without a doubt.
The second generation of Holocaust survivors taught us that healing is still possible.
But if we want to say the same about the second generation of October 7, we must choose not only to remember but also to care, support, and heal.
The writer is a family medicine specialist and former director-general of the Health Ministry and Soroka Medical Center.