As Israel passes 1,000 days of war, the costs and scars of the conflict continue to grow. Few have been affected as deeply as those who have lost immediate family members – from the massacre at the Nova festival to battlefronts across the country. Rabbi Aron White joined a therapeutic trip run by OneFamily to learn about the challenges the bereaved face, and the remarkable new approaches being developed to heal emotional wounds.

“Lehitraot, See you soon” – said Aviv Baranes, as he hung up the phone with his brother Nir. It was the ninth of July, 2024, and Nir and his wife Noa had called Aviv from their car near Kibbutz Ortal in the Golan. Half an hour later, reports began coming in of a direct Hezbollah missile strike on a vehicle. “The photo of the burned car was circulating within five minutes, and I immediately recognized it as my brother’s,” said Aviv. “My mother saw it on the evening news.” Nir and Noa were murdered as they drove together near their home. Their three children became orphans in an instant.

The murder of a husband and wife in their car together shook Israel deeply, with the President and numerous Members of Knesset coming to pay their respects during shiva. “When the shiva was over, the social workers came to me and my sister: ‘Who is going to take care of the kids?’” says Aviv. “I have three children, my sister has three children, and now there are three teenage orphans. We decided they would live with my sister in Netanya, and I would be their legal apotropos, their guardian. And so a new chapter in our lives began.”

Aviv describes with quiet intensity just how demanding this new reality has been. “Overnight, you have to learn the educational and medical history and needs of three children who aren’t yours. They were changing school and home, dealing with grief and loss, and life still had to go on. The oldest was approaching his army service, and there are legal rights and entitlements one needs to understand. I was working full time, caring for my own children, and trying to process my own grief – all while taking on responsibility for them. After more than a year, I realized it was too much. Six months ago I left my job to focus on what the family needed, and on myself. This trip is the culmination of that six-month process, after which I’ll start looking for work again.” 

I asked whether he had ever considered stepping back and letting someone else take the children. “Never,” he said without hesitation. “We knew this was what we had to do – for my brother, and for the kids.” He looked upward and added: “I trust in Hashem, and believe He will help me, and that it will be okay.”

I am speaking to Aviv as we hike in the Rila Mountains in Bulgaria, as part of OneFamily’s “Stronger Together” therapeutic trip. Twenty men, aged twenty-five to fifty, are taking part – all of them have lost a sibling since October 7th. The trip runs for a week; throughout June, OneFamily is running a separate therapeutic trip each week for a different group of bereaved individuals: one for widows, one for parents, and so on. The sheer scale of Israel’s losses has made this kind of stratified treatment necessary.

The trip is led by Moshiko and Moriah, with content provided by six therapists on staff. While some elements of the schedule – group conversations, shared meals – might seem familiar, what unfolds is far more sophisticated than a standard support retreat. This is real group therapy, planned meticulously, with an impressive range of modalities and a clear therapeutic arc.

I arrive on the afternoon of the second day and join the group for their third session of the day, taking place entirely in the forest a few minutes from their base in Bansko, a quiet resort town in the mountains. “Forests have proven therapeutic benefits,” says Dotan, an avowed believer in both group and nature-based therapy. “Trees emit phytoncides; spending a day in a forest literally lowers stress, reduces blood pressure, and calms the body. It creates an excellent context for conversation and therapy.”

The group has already completed a partner exercise and breathwork session. Now Dotan opens their third session with a short presentation in the quiet of the forest on the BASIC PH resilience model developed by Professor Muli Lahad, which identifies six types of tools we draw on to cope with trauma (see box below). “Which of these methods comes naturally to you?” he asks. “Which did you lean on? Which do you want to lean on?” 

BASIC PH: A Model of Resilience

Developed by Professor Muli Lahad, BASIC PH is an acronym that identifies six channels through which people cope with trauma:

B – Beliefs: Spirituality, values, personal meaning, political or ideological convictions

A – Affective (Emotional): Expressing emotions verbally or through art, writing, crying, laughter

S – Social: Seeking support from family, groups, social roles, or organized structures

I – Imagination: Using creativity, distraction, fantasy, guided imagery, humor, or daydreaming

C – Cognitive: Problem-solving, information gathering, planning, critical thinking

Ph – Physiological: Physical activity, relaxation, sleep, nutrition, somatic awareness, or medication

The group spends the next hour-and-a-half working through exercises that explore these approaches. At this point I am asked to step back, to protect the closed therapeutic nature of the session. Just as a journalist wouldn’t enter a therapy clinic, this group therapy is no different. As the session continues, a thought takes shape: while those who have lost a sibling have experienced the most direct trauma, all Israelis have experienced some degree of loss, shock, and upheaval since October 7th. Models of resilience are relevant and important for all of us.

On October 7th, Ravit Asayag was serving as a border policewoman in the Gaza envelope. At 7am, her unit was called to the town of Yachini, between Sderot and Netivot. She fought for two hours, and under fire helped treat an injured soldier, saving his life. She was killed by a terrorist as she entered a building. 

Ravit was nineteen years old, and the middle child of nine siblings. One of her brothers, Matan, is on the trip. “We have done so much to commemorate her, in our hometown of Ashdod and across the country,” he says. Many participants describe similar experiences: channeling grief into projects and commemorations that keep their loved one’s memory alive. This trip offers them something different, a space to focus on themselves.

“The trip aims to take participants on a journey and help them explore different aspects of their new reality,” says Moshiko, the dynamic trip leader, himself a veteran of Sayeret Matkal. “So much of their life has changed. The family is not the same family, their parents are not the same parents, the Shabbat table is not the same Shabbat table. People in this age group often naturally assume the role of caregiver, looking after younger siblings and supporting older parents while still needing to move forward with their own careers, families, and milu’im.” 

“Siblings are also sometimes sidelined in public discourse around grief,” adds Moriah. “The losses that are most visibly acknowledged are parents losing a child, a wife losing her husband, or children losing a parent. Siblings have experienced profound, first-degree loss, but they don’t always receive the support they need.”

Another theme that surfaces quickly among the group is the weight of societal expectations around male grief. While Israeli society has become more open to emotional expression, the image of men as strong, stoic, and able to soldier on remains powerful. “Three months after my brother was killed, I suddenly felt overwhelmed during a staff meeting and had to excuse myself,” says Gal from Modi’in. “That was in 2024, when the war was still so raw and front of mind for everyone. I’m not sure I could do that today.” Gal’s brother Ran was a reservist, thirty-nine years old when he fell in Gaza. A month after his death, his wife Tamar gave birth to their fourth child.

“October 7th unleashed a tidal wave of trauma across Israeli society and in its wake came a wave of new approaches to treating that trauma,” says Dotan. “After October 7th, tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their kibbutzim overnight, as their communities became the sites of atrocities and active war. Within days, therapists began arriving at the evacuation hotels, but traditional routes of therapy had limited reach, for several reasons. There simply weren’t enough professionals to provide individual sessions to everyone who had experienced the attacks firsthand. The financial cost of funding individual therapy on that scale was also prohibitive. 

“But perhaps most importantly, people had experienced the trauma together, and they wanted to process it together. A kibbutz is a close-knit community, and when a kibbutz was overrun, with dozens killed or taken hostage, the entire community bore that wound collectively. Group therapy, processing not in a one-on-one clinical setting but together as a group, became a critical response to this new reality.”

The trip weaves these innovative therapeutic approaches together with lighter activities. After a beautiful hike through the mountains, we reach an icy lake where one of the therapists, Aharon, presents on the therapeutic benefits of cold-water immersion for trauma. Participants who wish to take an ice bath in the open water do so under professional guidance, before the group continues back through the mountains.

Why Bulgaria, I ask, rather than somewhere in Israel? The answer comes with a characteristically Israeli blend of wry humor. “I was running a retreat for paratroopers after a hundred days on the front line, and we went to Mitzpe Ramon, the classic Israeli escape into the desert,” says Ariel, one of the therapeutic professionals. “As we were talking, planes and helicopters from the nearby Hatzerim airbase kept flying overhead. A colleague of mine bought a farm near Zichron Ya’akov to build a retreat center for soldiers. It was hit by a missile in the most recent Iran war.” There are limits to how much one can process the wounds of a war while still living inside it.

Between sessions and activities, the participants form bonds quickly, creating bonds that outlast the trip itself. Speaking with Ziv afterward, he described how grief often brings profound loneliness, and how much it means to spend time with others who truly understand. Ziv’s sister Livnat was killed together with her husband and three children in their home in Kfar Aza on October 7th.

I leave after forty-eight hours with the group, my mind full. The sophistication of the therapeutic approaches on display was genuinely impressive. As Israel’s news cycle continues to report on the effects of PTSD among soldiers and civilians, there is a palpable sense of purpose around providing meaningful support to those most directly affected. 

But there is also something else, a feeling that this work is, in the deepest sense, holy. October 7th unleashed death, destruction, pain, and loss on a scale the Jewish people had not experienced in many years. Its effects have spread far and wide, but those bearing the heaviest burden are the families of the fallen. Finding light in that darkness, finding a path toward healing after trauma, is the holy work of tikkun, enabling people to flourish in spite of devastating loss.

Rabbi Aron White is the Managing Editor of HaMizrachi magazine. He lives in Carmay HaNadiv, Kiryat Malachi, and serves as the Rabbi of Beit Knesset Tzameret Arnona in Yerushalayim.