March 9th – 16th
The Association of Jewish Psychologists (AJP) has been, for several months, planning a Mission Trip to Israel, that would be focused on the treatment of trauma and the generation of resiliency. Lenore Walker, a co-founder of AJP along with Beth Rom-Rymer, was selected as a Voice of the People (VOP) Council Member in 2025, by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. The 150-member VOP Council, from around the world, met in Haifa, March 2nd – 6th, 2025. The purpose of the prestigious Council was to generate opportunities to “create and lead change” in areas affecting Jewish people “on issues that they care about.”
Beth: Lenore and I agreed that planning an AJP trip to Israel, that would immediately follow the March meeting of the Voice of the People Council, would be timely. We then scheduled the AJP trip for March 9th – 16th. While Lenore and Shayna Davis (AJP Secretary) took the lead in planning the trip, other AJP Executive Committee members (Ester Cole and Sarah Landau Friedman), in addition to myself, were also vitally engaged. Fourteen additional AJP members, from around the world: the U.S., Canada, South Africa, and Israel, joined us. Our group of 20 psychologists formed unbreakable bonds, giving each of us the freedom and courage to learn and fully experience what we were seeing and hearing.
What we created was a superb study of trauma treatment strategies, that included the reinforcement of resilience in Israeli citizens and citizen-soldiers. Their trauma experiences have been driven by family, national, and international history, as well as, most recently, by the October 7th Hamas massacre; the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas; and the tortuous wait for the return of the 24 living (but terribly physically and psychologically compromised) hostages and the remains of the approximately 34 dead hostages.
Lenore: We were able to plan a program that offered CE credits to practitioners who attended the lecture and discussion sessions as well as visited university and independent resilience centers where we observed both the methods being used as well as the outcome measures analyzed by other mental health professionals who were incredibly generous with their time and knowledge. It was important to them, as well as to us, that we stand as witnesses to the horror, that began on October 7th and continues, to this day.
Beth: The Outstanding speakers included: Merav Roth, psychoanalyst on the faculty of Education in the Department of Counseling and Human Development (ECHD), at The University of Haifa. She was one of the first mental health professionals to meet with the survivors of the October 7th Hamas massacre. As soon as she had realized the enormity of the devastation, she drove down to the south of Israel, where the survivors had been given shelter and food in hotels. (Many of the survivors continue to live in hotels, with several family members in just one room.) Although she had planned to stay with the survivors for only a short time, she stayed with them for over three weeks, helped organize a cadre of other Israeli psychologists to help, and has continued to stay involved with the psychological treatment of the survivors, family members, and returned hostages. Her narratives of the survivors’ experiences were harrowing.
Also on the faculty of ECHD at the University of Haifa, Yael Enav and Yael Meyer spoke with us. They have developed a play-based intervention to foster mental health and resilience among displaced parents (especially parents who had to leave their families to go to the war front) and their young children. They have conducted outcome research on their work and have implemented their successful treatment model in communities around the country.
In Jerusalem, we met with Guila Benchimol, a criminologist, consultant, educator, and victim advocate, who works with abuse survivors, faith institutions, and leaders, around the globe, to prevent and address sexual violence and other abuses of power. Also on her panel, we heard from Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attorney Colonel (Reserve) Sharon Zagagi Pinhas. She is the former chief military prosecutor of the IDF and is an expert on crime victims’ rights. Colonel Zagagi Pinhas is the co-initiator and co-founder of the Dinah Project, in which she leads efforts to secure international acknowledgment and legal justice for the victims of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) on October 7th and those still in captivity, developing and promoting new legal frameworks that close existing gaps in prosecuting CRSV.
We heard Ayelet Harel, professor of Political Science at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, talk to us about the women soldiers who were the first to notify the government about an impending Hamas attack. Unfortunately, they were not believed by their command officers. We heard Ruth Halperin-Keddari, internationally renowned legal scholar; the former Israeli representative and Chair of the UN Security Council’s Commission of Inquiry; and a full professor on the faculty of Law at Bar-Ilan University’s Reichman Institute, talk about the paucity of international attention to the sexual violence to the victims of the October 7th massacre and the continuing sexual violence to the Israeli hostages, imprisoned by Hamas. She is one of the co-authors of a report detailing the evidence of the weaponization of sexual abuse as a means of war, not just the aftermath that often occurs. We resonated to the silence of the feminist community to Israeli pain.
In all, we heard from over 33 trauma experts; visited resiliency centers and retreats; spent an evening at Hostage Square, listening to Israeli songs of peace and yearning, and hearing urgent pleas from hostage family members and former hostages, to bring home the remaining hostages; spent a day, in the south of Israel, paying our respects to the victims of the Nova Festival site and of the kibbutzim destruction; we visited the Yahalom IDF military base and had the opportunity to walk down into a narrow, dark, dark tunnel, built as a replica of the tunnels that Israeli soldiers and hostages have had to endure for weeks and months. We witnessed the joy of the street celebrations of the Festival of Purim.
Being in Israel, during this fraught time, was inspiring, exceptionally informative, and gave us profound insights into the resilient spirit of the Israeli people and the resourcefulness of a nation that has never been free of military threats to its very existence.
Beth N. Rom-Rymer, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and President, Association of Jewish Psychologists
Lenore E. Walker, Ed.D., ABPP CL & Fam
Co-Founder and Treasurer, Association of Jewish Psychologists
