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DAY 1 – FEBRUARY 16, 2026
Israel has a PTSD Crisis.
And the impacts are immense. The people impacted include reservists who have fought, Nova Festival survivors, and terror victims. It is estimated that 20,000 soldiers and 28,000 civilians have been wounded, some of them with physical injuries, and many more with trauma.
The impact on their lives and Israeli society is immense. One study showed that if someone hospitalized with trauma-related injuries did not return to work in the first year after hospitalization, 50 percent of them lost their employment and did not return to work. If this continued into the second year, the ability to return to employment was near zero. And even once these victims return to work, the impacts are still being felt.
Two NGOs Samis visited are trying to solve this problem from two different angles. NATAL Israel Trauma and Resiliency Center, through its Career Development Unit, is offering coaching and mentorship to those suffering from trauma to help them integrate back into the workforce. This is designed to help manage and reduce post-trauma symptoms, and make their return to employment a success.
Zionism 2000 is proposing to engage seven or eight medium to large employers to train them to recognize trauma in their workforce and work on managing this in the workplace-both for the benefit fo the victims, and to assist HR and direct report managers to recognize trauma issues that manifest themselves through absenteeism, managerial burnout and team tension. Through a proof of concept process, the ultimate goal of this program is to develop an online “toolkit” that can be made widely available to employers in Israel.
I have been meeting with Israeli NGOs for many years, and I always marvel at their penchant for problem solving, which is both “getting down to tachlis” (the bottom line), but harnesses creativity at the same time.
Trauma is a huge problem. I have confidence Israelis will tackle and solve the problem, for the benefit of Israel’s society, economy and future.
– Dave
