(Courtesy of Our Family First) Twenty-seven couples who are members of Unit 8208, the group who tragically lost 21 IDF soldiers during a building collapse in Gaza, attended an Our Family First weekend retreat at the Logos Hotel, located at Yad HaShmona atop the Judean mountains on Sept. 13-14. During the weekend, the reservists and their wives bonded as couples while participating in marital and group therapy sessions to address the trauma of the war and impact on their relationships.
After members of Nachal Charedi participated in a similar weekend retreat during the summer, their unit commander wrote a message of appreciation to the coordinators of Our Family First stating, “Couples that participated in the program reported that it had saved their marriage, given them tools they truly needed and made them a stronger couple than ever before.” Many other IDF commanders have heard about the benefits of these intensive weekends and have contacted Our Family First to help address the high incidence of divorce and concerns about suicide in their units.
In January, while engineering forces were in the process of booby-trapping buildings near the Gaza border, an anti-tank missile was launched at two of the buildings where numerous soldiers were stationed. One of the buildings collapsed on and killed nearly an entire battalion. The three surviving members of the battalion, along with members of a second battalion that was stationed outside the building, attended the weekend retreat.
Lavi Kreisman, one of the survivors and a commander of the group, described the horror, including a detailed report of the surviving soldiers reentering the building to retrieve the bodies of their fallen friends. His wife, Katie, conveyed the trauma that she and other wives experienced in the 10-hour period that followed the collapse during which the wives did not have any communication with their husbands and did not receive information from IDF officials regarding the names of those who died. Through a WhatsApp group they formed at the time, the wives shared the few details they received, mostly from the media and from wives of soldiers in other units who were able to communicate. Following the incident, the IDF arranged a single Zoom group meeting with a psychologist, but the wives did not receive any further intervention.
Many of the wives met for the first time at the Shabbaton which included marital counseling sessions with either Dr. Barbara Lauer Listhaus, Dr. Rochelle Ausubel, Rena Kutner, LMFT, or Yonatan Sinclair, MA. Before Shabbat, each of the couples participated in a team building workshop with Liana Allon of Studio Kliche’, in which they used cyanotype to design prints with scenes of nature and personal messages of faith and strength.
Shira Moskowitz of Studio Shira created beautiful gift boxes with treats for Shabbat that were distributed to each couple. During one of the group therapy sessions the participants were divided into three groups, two for the wives and one for the chayalim, to address the emotional impact of the building collapse on themselves, their spouses and their children. The wives described the range of emotions they experienced while waiting to hear about the survivors, from shock to grief to relief that their husbands had survived. They stated that juggling the responsibilities of caring for their children, managing their households and maintaining jobs was both an intense struggle and a distraction following the tragedy.
In the individual sessions, the couples spoke about emotional and physical intimacy issues they were experiencing due to the distance created by the long periods of separation and a fear that they might be overcome by emotions if they start to share their feelings with one another. The couples discussed their feelings of isolation and loneliness, because they are surrounded by family and friends who are experiencing the same or similar trauma and avoid discussing their feelings with them. Others shared a fear that the mental health issues created by this prolonged war may be irreparable.
Though the reservists and their wives described anguish and dread about their futures, they conveyed a strong conviction to return to active duty when they are called back in the next few weeks. Focusing on the unique opportunities the weekend provided to recuperate, rejuvenate and reunite, the couples expressed tremendous appreciation and confidence that they and their families will withstand another agonizing period of uncertainty and instability.
Our Family First was founded by Dr. Barbara Lauer Listhaus, Daniel Krausz and IDF Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Jacob to provide marital and family counseling to members of the reservist units of the IDF. The therapists volunteer their services and the remaining costs of hosting the weekend retreats are privately funded. To donate to future Shabbatonim which have been scheduled in the coming months for other units, visit their website at ourfamilyfirst.org or contact [email protected] or [email protected].
