For decades, Prof. Yoram Yovel, who has earned the title of "National Psychiatrist," has been monitoring the changing moods, fears, hopes and dreams of the Israeli public. Now, one month—and an eternity—after October 7, even the great expert on the human soul still bears the impressions of the great upheaval. "On October 7, Israel experienced the greatest disaster in the history of the Jewish people since they closed the gas chambers in 1945," he said.
For the past two years, Yuval (65), a doctor, psychiatrist, researcher, author and television personality ("Soul Talk", "Broken Heart"), has served as head of the research section in the Population Behavior Branch of the Home Front Command. As part of his position, he reported quickly to the Home Front Command base in central Israel, when an iron sword war broke out.
War is a battlefield, and also a field of research for experiments and experiments. For Yuval and his friends, the days of fighting are also busy, full and fascinating days of research, which offer an opening through which one can peek inside the human soul and discover its resilience – and our resilience as a people.
"I see soldiers around me who are not the screen generation – they are the generation of stormers, both regulars and reservists. They came with tremendous motivation and a willingness to go forward, fight and take risks. These are no less amazing things, and we see the results on the ground," Yuval says with enthusiasm that has become his trademark.
"Many people said that the younger generation is only self-centered, familiar only with the virtual world and unable to cope with reality. So they said. I think the surprise at the determination and performance of the 2023 generation of fighters is part of the general surprise at the performance of Israeli society following the Simchat Torah massacre."
"It's not a pretense"
What can you tell us about the mental state of Israeli society?
"The mental state of Israeli society as a whole has undergone a fascinating and extraordinary change. We see feelings of sadness, fear and anger, and at the same time we see not only personal resilience, but also national, group, very high, and they live together. This is not a normal combination. As a company, we are very exceptional. We regularly star at the top of the happiness chart. Last year we were ranked fourth in the world (the data from a survey conducted in 2022), and I think Israeli society has tremendous strengths."
On Sunday morning, Prof. Lt. Col. (res.) Yuval walks around in uniform at the Home Front Command base in central Israel. His schedule is packed with meetings and conversations with military and civilian officials, such as ZAKA, the police and others. In between, he conducts group meetings, interviews with various population groups affected by the war, collects and processes data.
Yuval with his soldiers in a Home Front Command unit. "There is a singular pride here and a bastardizing and kicking way of life", Photo: Arik Sultan
He is remarried to Tamar, the father of two sons from his previous marriage and three young daughters. With the eldest, Naomi (12), he went on a bat mitzvah trip to Nepal just as Hamas' surprise offensive began on 7 October. Plans to continue to Kathmandu were cut short, and father and daughter quickly returned to the country. Yuval got into his uniform and rushed to the base.
"I'm originally an artillery officer on a forward track. In the reserves, I was a brigade support commander of the Nahal Brigade. I didn't want to transfer to the Medical Corps, to become a doctor in the reserves, and I continued as a MASACH until my trip to the United States. Two years ago, I got a call from the industry, asking me to come and lecture on resilience and treatment, and we started working together. When they asked me to come to the reserves, to the position of commander of the research cell of the Population Behavior Branch of the Home Front Command, I agreed.
"All my friends and cellmates are reservists who serve on a voluntary basis, and in civilian life they are academics and researchers from the social sciences. Our role, in routine and emergency situations, is to collect and analyze information about the needs and ways of defending the civilian population in Israel against various threats. Based on this information, together with our friends in the population behavior system, we formulate recommendations every day aimed at increasing resilience and assisting all segments of Israeli society in coping effectively with emergency situations."
"I see soldiers around me who are not the screen generation, they are the generation of the stormers. They came with tremendous motivation to go forward, fight and take risks. The surprise at the determination and performance of the 2023 generation of fighters is part of the general surprise at the performance of Israeli society after the massacre."
Yuval and his friends sleep at the base and work shifts around the clock. "We draft and analyze surveys, monitor the discourse in the Israeli media and digitally, and from time to time conduct interviews and focus groups with populations that need special attention – for example, those evacuated and evacuated from their homes since the beginning of the war. This means a lot of work in front of screens, daily meetings, planning and discussion groups, and repeated situation assessments. It also means many trips out into the field, in order to meet Israeli citizens in malls, evacuated hotels, homes and protected areas, in order to hear from them how they are and what they need.
"The department has unit pride and a bastardizing and kicking vibe. There is also a lot of food and sweets that are brought from home, and there are those who will eat them. If all the tribes and sectors in Israel's mosaic were to live among themselves as we did, this country would be a bonbon."
From your findings, do soldiers have high personal resilience?
"Yes, it's almost like two worlds, the soldiers and the civilian population. The soldiers also feel pain and sorrow for those killed, fear for the fate of the abductees, but there is optimism, self-confidence, energy, and morale here is very high. The people in the military are more confident and believe in our power than civil society, where there is more fear and anxiety. This contrast is overwhelmingly evident."
Maybe the resilience you recognize now is just a mask or a pretense? After all, many of us don't sleep well at night, and still hurt a lot.
"It's not a pretense. Sad people, rightly so. People are afraid, sometimes rightly so and sometimes not, but you can always understand the fear. However, the people are strong. The picture we see here is that there is a determined society here, which understood what happened, stood up for its life and is willing to do it for as long as it takes and go as far as it takes."
Evacuated from the Gaza envelope at the Shefayim Hotel. "It's important for communities to stay together", Photo: Efrat Eshel
Yuval notes with satisfaction that clear proof has already been provided of the failure of the "cobweb theory" – a term coined by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a speech he gave on May 26, 2000, a day after the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon. His argument was that while Israel is a strong military power, its civil society is a spoiled society of affluence with a low threshold. According to him, the citizens of Israel, who are sensitive to the loss of human life, are not currently willing to fight and sacrifice lives in order to defend their national interests.
"Nasrallah's cobweb theory was tested under strict conditions and found to be incorrect," Yuval emphasizes. "Everything that's happening now in Gaza, and the way society has gathered itself, is exactly proof of that."
We are known as a people who unite in times of need, when we are pushed and when we have our backs to the wall.
"Our enemies were sure it wouldn't happen this time. They got the wrong impression of who we were. The war is terrible, the disaster has already happened, but now Israeli society has a huge opportunity, which I hope will not be missed, to see and understand who we really are. What are our values."
"Hassan Nasrallah's cobweb theory was tested under strict conditions and found to be incorrect. Our enemies have gotten the wrong impression of who we are. Now Israeli society has a huge opportunity, which I hope will not be missed, to see and understand what our values really are."
Do you agree with the statements "we are all traumatized", "a country in trauma"?
"Nope. In both my caps, as a clinical psychiatrist and head of a research cell of the Home Front Command, I tell you that this is simply not true. On October 7, we all went through a truly difficult event, and everyone who was in Israel will remember it for the rest of their lives, but a difficult event is not necessarily a traumatic event. A traumatic event is when something bad happened to you, its memory got out of control, and you can't stop acting and feeling like it's happening to you now, even when it's not. It's with you 24/7, and you can't turn off the memory.
"This happens to a minority of people and a minority of fighters. We have data from the First Lebanon War and Operation Protective Edge, and we are talking about less than ten percent of all the fighters who participated. Of course, each of them is a whole world.
"It's not easy to treat PTSD, but it can be treated well and can be recovered. Still, most of the public – that's not what will happen to them."
So don't we all need mental health treatment?
"No, I don't think everyone needs treatment. There are many things that are not post-traumatic stress, but they can cause fear and anxiety and we can treat them, and in a good way, ourselves, without medication and therapists. There are things we can do to increase our resilience.
"There is a minority among us that needs and will need professional help after the war, and it will be the responsibility of the state to provide them with what they need. Right now, first of all, we have to hug them, and at the same time, embrace everyone."
News 13 reporter Almog Boker admitted in the post that he needed psychological treatment, and asked anyone in distress to seek treatment.
"There are quite a few people among us who can benefit from treatment, and there are quite a few people who need treatment. Not 'to be', but because it's needed. But that's a minority of us. It is important that we do not confuse a difficult event with a traumatic one. We know how to recognize when a difficult event turns into a traumatic event - when the memories are intrusive and unstoppable, and when the person is still experiencing them with the same unbearable intensity with which they happened to him the first time. Then the suffering is unrelenting. What should turn on a red light is any significant impairment of a person's functioning. Any such injury should raise the suspicion that there is something here that requires treatment."
"Now we are learning about Ukraine, to understand what we can implement here. Israel and Ukraine are certainly sisters of resilience. The mobilization of civil society and the war on fake news and cyber threats are lessons that can be taken from there. We're on it."
"It's worth going back to the schools"
A month into the war, the feeling on the street is that Israelis are still walking in a cloud of grief. Yuval understands the mindset very well. "I don't take what happened lightly. There was no precedent in the history of the state, including the War of Independence and the Yom Kippur War, in which so many Jews died in one day. And not only Jews, but also Israeli Arabs, who fought valiantly and sacrificed their lives trying to save Jews, and we must remember them and their heroism.
"But we, as Jews, must remember that all those who were killed were killed because they were Jews. The understanding that this happened to us here, in Israel, with all our past, and after we thought it was already behind us, is something we will have to deal with, learn the lessons from it and see how we preserve its memory for many years to come."
A protest display calling for the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia during the war in Ukraine, February 2022. "Similarities between us and them," Photo: AP
It felt like we were left alone, without a responsible adult.
"That's the feeling felt by the people who were there, locked in safe rooms, and that's a very important part of what happened to them. That's why it's important for these communities to stay together. They want to continue together – and they're right. As a country, we learned from the evacuation of Gush Katif, the last time we had such a trauma of forced evacuation. We learned about the evacuees, and a lot of research work was done that I believe will help us not to repeat mistakes that were made. We know that the people of the communities that survived the massacre near Gaza want to stay together, and they must stay together."
What we feel strongly is identification with the citizens who experienced the disaster up close.
"That's right. There are good sides to this identification, and there are bad sides. Empathy is based on empathy, which is important so we can help, and when someone has empathy for you you feel it. We all felt it when President Biden was here. We breathed a sigh of relief. Not just because of the carriers, but because we felt that this man cared about us and was committed to our well-being.
"On the other hand, there is a risk of over-identification, and people with a well-developed imagination are at a slightly higher risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. This is a reason why I recommend not watching the difficult videos. We need to know how to be there with the sorrow, the pain and the difficult experiences that others have gone through – but also know how to go outside, breathe deeply and get on with our lives."
"Empathizing with the citizens who experienced the disaster up close has better sides and less. Empathy is important so we can help, and that's something we all felt when President Biden was here. We breathed a sigh of relief. Not just because of the carriers, but because we felt this man cared about us."
לאורך שנים, צה"ל היה אחד מהגופים שזכו לאמון גבוה בציבור. בממצאי המחקר כרגע רואים ירידה ברמת האמון הזו?
"בלי להיכנס לפרטים, כמעט לא. מה שכן רואים זה ירידה משמעותית בתחושת הביטחון האישי, ואני חושב שזה האתגר של כולנו, כחברה, להחזיר את הביטחון הזה. יש מקומות שבהם הדבר מוצדק, ולא סתם פונו יישוביי קו הגבול בצפון, אבל ברוב אזורי הארץ הביטחון האישי שלנו הרבה יותר טוב ממה שאנחנו חושבים, ומכאן החשיבות האדירה של החזרה לשגרת חירום. אנחנו חייבים שהמשק יפעל כדי שהצבא יוכל לנצח, כי עורף חזק שווה צבא חזק, אבל מעבר לכך, החזרה לשגרת חירום עוזרת לבריאות הנפשית ולחוסן האישי.
"החזרה לעבודה ולבתי הספר, בניגוד למה שאנשים חושבים, עוזרת להגברת חוסן ולהפחתת חרדה. זה לא מפתיע אותי, כי אנחנו יודעים כבר הרבה שנים, מהמחקר, שמה שמגביר חרדות וחששות זה פאסיביות, ושמה שמחשל חוסן, בונה אופטימיות ומחדד יכולות להתמודדות זה פעולה אקטיבית. לכן הסיסמה של פיקוד העורף היא 'נעזור להם לעזור לעצמם'. אנחנו רוצים שאנשים יקומו ויעשו מעשים, וזה מדהים ונותן סיפוק וגאווה לראות שזה קורה".
יש השוואות למלחמות קודמות?
"המדידות התחילו רק במאה ה־21, אז אין לנו נתונים כמותיים על יום כיפור, למשל. אבל יש לנו נתונים מהסבבים הקודמים, ואין ספק שכאן הקושי היה ועודנו יותר גדול. לדעתי, 7 באוקטובר הוא אירוע שהוא קו פרשת המים בהיסטוריה שלנו כמדינה. זה מתבטא בעצב, בפחד ובכעס גדולים, אבל לצידם יש חוסן רב, וזה מה שמאפיין אותנו".
איפה אנחנו נמצאים בהשוואה לאוקראינה, למשל?
"אחד מהדברים שאנחנו עושים בתא הוא לעקוב אחרי מקרים דומים בעולם. למשל, פיקוד העורף מתכונן לאפשרות של רעידת אדמה בישראל. אנחנו לומדים מה נעשה במקומות שבהם היו רעידות אדמה בזמן האחרון, קוראים את הדוחות ואת הספרות המקצועית כדי להבין ולהתכונן.
"כעת אנחנו לומדים על אוקראינה, שנמצאת תחת מתקפה כבר שנה וחצי. יש הרבה שוני בין ישראל לבין אוקראינה, אבל גם הרבה נקודות דומות. זו בפירוש אחת מהמשימות שלנו לעקוב אחרי מה שקורה שם, להבין את התהליכים ולראות מה אנחנו יכולים ללמוד מהם וליישם אצלנו. ישראל ואוקראינה הן לא תאומות זהות, אבל הן בהחלט אחיות לחוסן. ארגון ההתגייסות של החברה האזרחית לעזרת המאמץ הצבאי, והמלחמה בפייק ניוז ובאיומי סייבר שמכוונים נגד החברה האזרחית, הם שני נושאים שבהם קיימים לקחים שניתן ליישם אצלנו. אנחנו על זה".
"הילדות שלי רואות אותי על מדים, ושואלות אם יום אחד אהיה הרמטכ"ל. להיות אבא במילואים זה להרגיש קרוע. אתה רוצה לעשות את מה שצריך לעשות בצבא, אבל אתה יודע שדווקא עכשיו הכי צריכים אותך בבית. אני מנסה לג'נגל את זה הכי טוב שאני יכול"
כמי שמגיע מעולמות האנליזה הטיפולית והמחקר האקדמי, נדרשת לשינוי מקצועי סביב העבודה בשטח עם חיילי צה"ל?
"המנדט שלי הוא לא לחקור ולעקוב אחרי החיילים. ממד"ה - מחלקת מדעי ההתנהגות בצה"ל - עוקבת אחריהם, ואנחנו עובדים בשיתוף פעולה איתה על פרויקטים. ממד"ה אמונה על החיילים בצה"ל, ואנחנו אמונים על החברה האזרחית.
"בצה"ל המורל גבוה והרוח איתנה. אצלנו בחברה האזרחית ההרגשה מורכבת. מצד אחד, יש אנשים שהלב יוצא אליהם. הקהילות של יישובי העוטף וקיבוצי העוטף חוו רמות של אובדן ושכול שכמוהן לא ראינו בארץ קודם. אנחנו עומדים מולם, ומול הקושי של המפונים, ורוצים לחבק ולנחם. ומנגד - אתה רואה את החוסן, ההתנדבות וההתגייסות הלא מובנים מאליהם בחברה האזרחית, ואת תחושת האחדות והערבות ההדדית שקיימת כאן עכשיו. לי זה נותן הרבה תקווה לעתיד".
יש לך השערה לאן נלך מכאן כחברה?
"עדיין מוקדם להגיד לאן זה ייקח אותנו בעתיד, אבל לעם היהודי יש יכולת מוכחת לעבור במהירות משואה לתקומה, מ־1945 ל־1948, ואני מקווה ומאמין שזה מה שיקרה לנו גם הפעם. אותי, באופן אישי, ההתנדבות, הלכידות ורוח הנתינה לא הפתיעו, אבל נעים להיזכר.
"בשנה האחרונה עברנו חוויות קשות ומפצלות כעם, והיה קשוח. אם היית שואלת אותי לפני חודשיים, הייתי אומר שהפיצול הזה לא מייצג את מי שאנחנו באמת, ושיש עוד מאחורי מה שרואים. אבל אני חושב שעכשיו כולנו רואים מי אנחנו באמת, ושכל השיח ישתנה. אחרי המלחמה, כשנבוא להמשיך מהמקום שבו היינו, נראה שמה שקרה עכשיו, החיבור המחודש לעם אחד, לא ייעלם. במובן הזה, הסיסמה 'ביחד ננצח' היא מאוד לעניין.
"השינוי כבר התחיל לקרות. כל אחד שיביט סביב יראה את ההבדל בין איך שנראית לו החברה היום לאיך שהיא נראתה לפני חודש וחצי. זה עולם אחר. זה קרה במהירות, וזה חלק ממה שחוסן מודד, את היכולת להסתגל מהר, להתלכד ולהגיע לרציפות תפקודית. ואנחנו עמדנו במשימה".
"לא טפטופים, אלא גשם"
גם שיתוף הפעולה היפה שנוצר מאז 7 באוקטובר בין החברה החילונית לחרדים, שמתנדבים וגם מתחילים בטפטופים להתגייס למילואים, לא נעלם מעיניו של יובל. "אלה לא טפטופים, אלא גשם", הוא קובע.
"יש שתי חברות שפיקוד העורף שם עליהן זרקור, והן האוכלוסייה החרדית והחברה הערבית. אלו שתי קבוצות אוכלוסייה שתמיד היו לנו קשיים איתן. באופן מסורתי הן לא אהבו את צה"ל, ולא אהבו שחיילים מסתובבים במקומות שלהן. מצד אחד, ההזדהות שלהן עם המדינה וההיענות שלהן להוראות פיקוד העורף היו הכי נמוכות, ומנגד, הפגיעות שלהן לאיומי טילים ולאסונות טבע היא הכי גדולה, ובשתיהן חלק ניכר מהאוכלוסייה חי מתחת לקו העוני. בשעת חירום, הם זקוקים לנו יותר משאר המגזרים בחברה הישראלית.
"בזמן הקורונה קרה לפיקוד העורף דבר נהדר: הוא קיבל על עצמו אחריות לדברים שקרו בזמן הסגרים, ירד לשטח, עבד בצמוד לראשי רשויות ולארגוני חברה אזרחית חרדיים וערביים, חילק מזון ותרופות - ובשתי החברות החלו לקבל את פיקוד העורף כארגון הצלה, ובנו אמון בו ושותפות איתו. ראינו את זה אז, ועכשיו ראינו שוב שיש שיתוף פעולה גם עם החברה החרדית וגם עם ערביי ישראל.
"In my opinion, something good is happening to Arab society in Israel. The heads of the local authorities, and almost all opinion leaders, distinguish themselves strongly from Hamas and identify with the pain and loss of their Jewish neighbors. Despite the mutual fear between the two communities now, I think a sense of unity of destiny is developing behind the scenes. And that's part of the new story – understanding what we have in common. We're trying to develop and leverage that. It exists on the ground, and it's great."
"What would my grandfather, the late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, say about those days? I think everything that happened would have broken his heart. Some think he would have said, 'I told you so.' I don't think that's what he would say. He would try to help as much as he could."
"Crying does not weaken us"
Do your girls know you're in the reserves?
"Of course, they see me in uniform and ask questions. They ask, for example, if I will one day be chief of staff. To be a father in the reserves is to feel torn. You want to do what needs to be done in the army, but you know that right now they need you most at home. You feel that your children need you. I try to juggle it, just like everyone else, the best I can. Now it's not just dad, it's mom too. There are families in which the father stays at home and the mothers are in the reserves, on the home front and at the front, and this is a significant and good change that happened to us."
Do you have a connection to the body identification system, where a social worker is assigned to each family in its most difficult hour?
"I was personally involved in this, and we in the Home Front Command are working and dealing with this as well. ZAKA people also work with us and with the police, and they are another group that is exposed to very, very difficult things, and knows how to organize thanks to mutual aid and good treatment. They are doing holy work and need treatment – and they get it.
"Therapy is not necessarily a one-on-one session on the psychologist's couch for a ten-year analysis. These are not the types of treatments we are talking about. There are group therapies, where you are with your brothers to experiment, your brothers in arms, those who have had things with you and experiences that a stranger will not understand - you have to be there to understand what it is all about. These are short treatments that are done during the event. We sit down and talk about what happened to us, formulate a narrative – and move on. Some will continue such treatments even afterward."
And who will take care of the caregivers themselves, who have been exposed to the horrors and who have to carry them with them?
"I think that the exposure of the caregivers to the events of October 7, and also the exposure of the entire population, through videos, is one of the most difficult things about the event. We have been exposed to very great atrocities, and there is a professional term, 'secondary trauma', that describes what is happening.
"You see post-traumatic symptoms in people who haven't physically experienced the horror, but who have helped or been with people who have been there, heard the stories or been exposed to the sights, and it reaches them. You have to have a heart of stone not to take things to heart, and our challenge, at all levels of the therapeutic world, is to take care of the therapists. Now, and do not wait.
"We need to encourage group meetings of the therapeutic staff. Don't let them deal with it alone. Gather the caregivers together, as military commanders do with their soldiers after combat events. Sit together, talk about what happened, let people express themselves, renew their alliance, and move forward.
"The caregivers of survivors and the families of the abductees are people who face difficult things. They are now doing group work among themselves. I was involved in such treatments, without going into details."
Did you yourself watch the horror videos that came out on social media?
"I watched very little, and I deliberately avoid seeing more. My recommendation for adults, not just children and youth, is not to see. It's tempting, like in a car accident we're tempted to take a peek, because that's human nature, but you have to fight it, and you should know that you can get secondary trauma from watching these videos.
"I'm glad the videos exist, because with them we can show the world what we're doing here. The videos will remain, and there will be no denying them, and ultimately in the PR struggle it will help us abroad. But we need to protect ourselves from secondary trauma.
"There's a big difference between knowing and seeing. We need to know very well what happened, but we don't need to see everything that happened. I definitely avoid watching, after being exposed to videos on the first and second days, like the rest of us, and I haven't watched since. If I had to for my role, I would watch, but I don't have to, so I choose not to watch."
Crying at this time is good, because it is liberating. Doesn't it also bring down our spirits, weaken us?
"Crying doesn't weaken us. After we cry, most of us feel better. The sadness did not go away. We cry for the dead, we cry with our friends, and after that we feel a little better. It's a good cry. But sometimes there are situations of bad crying. If a person cries and doesn't feel better afterwards, or maybe even feels worse, it means, on the face of it, that there might be something here that needs treatment. It's important to note that I'm not talking about people who have lost a loved one, where it's part of the usual grief."
"I've watched very few of the horror videos, and I avoid seeing more. My recommendation to everyone, not just children and youth, is not to see. It's tempting, like in a car accident it's tempting to take a peek, but you have to fight it. You can get secondary trauma from it."
The most painful place for us is the question of the abductees, where there is no certainty. The families ask us to be there and to remember, and we identify, remember and remind.
"The people of Israel must embrace the families of the abducted and missing. They need to feel that the whole nation is behind them. It is healthy, healing and good. It's something we can all do. These are people who are in the most difficult place. If you are a family member of abductees, the most important thing is not to be alone. Their gathering together is of therapeutic value, because no one understands them more than they do, and they take the pain and anxiety and translate them into action. They travel abroad, explain, organize events, hang signs, meet with whoever they can – and that's very good."
"Both concepts were broken"
One of the most important issues after the disaster concerns the question of how the constant security threat will affect Israelis in the longer term. Whether it will build us as a society, or whether it will weaken us. Yuval has a strong opinion, but he stresses that it is not based on data, but on speculation.
"I think we've deluded ourselves, and it's not good to delude yourself. It is better to know the truth and face it. That's what happened to us this time. We understood who Hamas is, and we are also studying Hezbollah. The bottom line is that we're not afraid to stand up to them – and that's good. I believe that good things can emerge from this terrible thing in the broader context, not only for Israel and the Jewish people. I see here a chance and an opportunity for change.
"We had a conception in Israel, which has been with us for more than 50 years, that it was possible to 'manage the conflict' with the Palestinians without paying the price required to solve it. There were, and still are, many among us, who think that there is no solution to this conflict and that it will never have. I think otherwise.
"The concept that led Hamas and its supporters, which is actually Nasrallah's cobweb theory, that Israeli society is weak and unable to withstand the losses, is also collapsing now. This combination increases the degrees of freedom in the minds of both peoples, and gives a chance for processes that could bring us and them to a new place."
So you're optimistic?
"Yes. We are at the beginning of a very long road. In my opinion, we are at a unique point in our lives as a people. The good news emerges from the data we see in the cell, when we monitor resilience, readiness to fight and coping with difficulties. All of these are at a very high level, so the war can be an opening for many good changes that will happen to us in Israeli society from here on out. That's why I'm optimistic."
The grandfather, the late Prof. Leibowitz, was experiencing heartbreak, photo: Moshe Shai
What do you think your grandfather, the late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who passed away in 1994, would say about those days?
"It was heartbreaking. Some think he would have said, 'I told you so.' I don't think that's what he would say. He would try to help as much as he could."
On October 7, 2028, Israel will wake up to Saturday. Which country do you think will be here then?
"I personally believe that we will wake up to a much better Israel. Not only better than it was on October 6, but much better, period. I believe that from this terrible thing very good things will come to us."
shirz@israelhayom.co.il
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