Culture, Community, and Holding the Holders in Times of Collective Trauma

Building Recovery from Within:  

Culture, Community, and Holding the Holders in  Times of Collective Trauma 

A Practice-Based Framework Developed from BINA’s  Work Since October 7, 2023 

Research report 

Anva Ratzon, MSW 

Community Specialist, Independent Researcher 

Carmit Rapaport, Ph.D . 

University of Haifa 

September 2026

 

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Executive Summary 

The attacks of 7 October 2023 and the prolonged war that followed, confronted Israeli  communities and civil-society organizations with overlapping forms of disruption,  including bereavement and trauma, displacement, extended reserve duty, geographic  separation, and continuing uncertainty. Organizations and recovery programs were  required to respond rapidly across markedly different settings, often without an  established framework for sustaining community-based support during an unfolding  national crisis. Against this background, the present study asks a practical question:  what principles enable community organizations and recovery interventions to foster  meaning, belonging, and sustained support under conditions of collective trauma? 

The study examines professional practice and the tacit knowledge embedded within  it across three BINA initiatives: (1) the “Heart Spaces” project, which provides  supportive spaces for young Israelis travelling in India and the Far East; (2) the  “Growing Again” project, which supports community recovery among displaced and  affected communities from Southern and Northern Israel; and (3) facilitated  processing groups for military reservists returning from operational service. The  analysis draws on 23 in-depth interviews with program managers and facilitators  (social workers and local community leaders). Using an inductive thematic approach,  the study identified recurring patterns and principles of practice across interviews and  program settings, while also attending to contextual differences. The resulting themes  were subsequently interpreted and refined in relation to relevant scholarship on  trauma and recovery, meaning-making, narrative and ritual, social identity,  community resilience, secondary trauma, and professional supervision. 

The analysis produced a three-dimensional framework. The first dimension, cultural narrative resources, describes how texts, rituals, stories, music, writing, and creative  practices can provide an indirect and shared language for approaching difficult  experiences and constructing meaning. The second, community belonging and  collective agency, emphasizes relationships, trust, local participation, and the  community’s capacity to become an active resource for its members. The third,  holding the holders’, concerns the professional, emotional, and organizational support  required by the staff members, facilitators, volunteers, and local leaders responsible 

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for sustaining others. These dimensions are not sequential stages or independent  intervention components. They operate as an interdependent system: cultural  resources gain meaning within trusted relationships, community ownership depends  on supported local leadership, and practitioners’ capacity to sustain others is shaped  by the support available to them. 

The framework offers an evidence-informed basis for designing, reviewing, and  adapting community interventions during prolonged crises. It directs organizational  attention beyond the delivery of visible activities toward the conditions that allow  those activities to become meaningful and sustainable: cultural relevance,  relationships, local ownership, reflective supervision, organizational learning,  professional boundaries, and pathways to specialized care. It also emphasizes the  importance of identifying and strengthening existing local capacities, relationships,  and structures, so that intervention supports not only immediate needs but the  community’s own capacity to generate meaning, belonging, agency, and support over  time. Its innovation lies in integrating cultural meaning-making, community capacity,  and support for those sustaining the response within a single practice-based  framework, developed through comparative analysis of tacit professional knowledge  across three distinct crisis settings. The study does not measure clinical recovery,  establish causal effects, or claim that the framework can be transferred unchanged to  every context. Rather, it translates recurring field-based insights into an integrated  and potentially transferable framework that can inform organizational practice and  provide a foundation for comparative and longitudinal research in Israel and across  diverse Jewish communities.

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Introduction 

The practical challenge after 7 October 

The events of 7 October created not one bounded emergency, but a protracted social  condition. Individuals and communities were required to function while confronting  loss, disrupted routines, repeated exposure to threat, and uncertainty. The affected  populations were also dispersed: some were evacuated from their homes, some were  serving for extended periods in the IDF reserves, and others were abroad, physically  distant from familiar support systems. This produced a challenge for psychosocial and  recovery intervention mechanisms. Assistance had to be rapid but not generic,  emotionally meaningful but not necessarily clinical, locally adapted but still coherent,  and sustainable even when staff members and community leaders were themselves  affected by the crisis. 

The study addresses a gap between two common trauma responses. One treats  trauma primarily as an individual clinical matter; the other treats community response  primarily as the delivery of activities and services. The field evidence suggests that  recovery interventions depend on the relationship between personal meaning, social  belonging, and the capacity of those who lead and facilitate the response. The  resulting framework therefore shifts attention from isolated interventions to the  conditions that allow communities and organizations to carry recovery over time. 

Organizational Context 

BINA is an Israeli educational and community organization that has worked for nearly  three decades to develop an inclusive and pluralistic Jewish-Israeli identity. Its  approach brings Jewish texts, traditions, rituals, and cultural practices into dialogue  with democratic values, civic responsibility, and contemporary Israeli life. BINA works  through educational programs, leadership development, community-based  initiatives, and cultural and social programming in Israel and among Jewish and Israeli  communities abroad. This organizational background is relevant to the present study  because BINA’s established practice already combined cultural interpretation,  community building, and the development of local leadership before 7 October.  Following the attacks and the prolonged crisis that ensued, these practices were 

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adapted to markedly different populations and circumstances: Israelis travelling  abroad, displaced and affected communities in Israel, and military reservists returning  from operational service. The presence of recurring principles across these distinct  settings made it possible to examine how an existing organizational approach was  adapted under crisis conditions and to identify the elements that appeared  consistently across different applications. 

Relevance beyond one organization 

BINA provides the empirical case, but the object of inquiry is broader than BINA’s  organizational performance. The study compares recurring practices across three  programs, populations, and operating environments to identify principles that may be  useful to community organizations, municipalities, Jewish educational and cultural  bodies, welfare services, and diaspora institutions responding to collective disruption.  The purpose of the research is analytical and generative: to transform tacit field  knowledge and accumulated experience into a transferable framework that can guide  organizational action, learning, and future research. Existing scholarship on collective  trauma has generally examined cultural meaning-making, community resilience, and  professional supervision within distinct theoretical and empirical traditions. These  perspectives are less often integrated into a single applied framework for  organizations responding to an ongoing national crisis. The present study addresses  this gap by examining how these three mechanisms interact in practice and by  translating their interdependence into a framework for organizational action. 

The contribution of the present framework therefore lies not in proposing cultural  meaning-making, community belonging, or professional support as individually new  mechanisms. Rather, it lies in bringing these three established areas of knowledge into  a single applied framework and, importantly, in conceptualizing them as  interdependent capacities. From this perspective, cultural resources become  meaningful through relationships of trust and belonging; community capacity  depends partly on supported local leadership; and the ability of practitioners and  community leaders to sustain others is shaped by the professional and organizational  structures that support them. The framework thus shifts attention from individual 

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intervention components to the relationships among the conditions that enable  community-based responses to be sustained during prolonged collective crisis. 

What Was Studied and How 

Research settings 

Setting / project	Primary   population	Immediate   challenge	Forms of practice   examined
“Heart Spaces”	Young Israelis  travelling in   India and the   Far East	Distance from  home and   family during a  national crisis	Community gatherings,  writing and creative   workshops, Shabbat and  holiday meals, emotional  support, and professional  referral links
“Growing   Again”	Displaced and  affected   communities   from southern  and northern   Israel	Rebuilding   communal   identity,   leadership, and  a shared future  after rupture.	Local leadership   development, renewal of  community narratives,  culturally grounded   gatherings, and   partnerships with   municipalities.
Reservist   processing   groups	Reservists and  former   combatants   returning from  operational   service	Processing   combat   experience and  the transition  back to civilian  roles	Facilitated group dialogue,  creative and projective  tools, and Israeli and   Jewish texts and   narratives

Table 1. Overview of the Three Initiatives Examined in the Study 

Data and analytic strategy 

The source material records 23 in-depth interviews across professional and  community roles, including program managers and group facilitators. Interviews  explored working experience, decision-making under uncertainty, challenges  encountered in the field, moments understood as professionally successful, and the  tools that appeared to support belonging, meaning-making, and community  rebuilding.

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The study adopted a qualitative, practice-based approach aimed at extracting  knowledge embedded in practitioners’ accounts of experience, action, and  professional judgment. The analysis proceeded through inductive thematic analysis  across interviews and program settings, followed by theoretically informed  interpretation of the emerging themes. First, recurring patterns and principles of  action were identified inductively across the interviews. Second, patterns were  compared across the three settings to distinguish program-specific activities and  contextual variations from mechanisms and principles recurring across settings. Third,  the emerging themes were brought into dialogue with relevant theoretical and  empirical scholarship on meaning-making, narrative and ritual, social identity,  community resilience, post-traumatic growth, secondary trauma, supervision, and  holding environments. At this final stage, the literature was used to interpret,  contextualize, and refine themes derived from the data, rather than to provide an a priori analytical framework or predetermined categories. This approach is particularly  suited to the study of professional practice in a rapidly evolving crisis, where important  forms of experiential and tacit knowledge may not yet be captured in formal protocols  or established models. Further, the study remains exploratory and qualitative:  recurrence across accounts can support the identification of potentially transferable  conceptual principles but does not establish causal relationships or statistical  generalizability. The methodology is described in detail in the appendix. 

The Three-Dimensional Framework 

The framework describes three capacities that appeared repeatedly across different  programs and populations. The cultural-narrative dimension gives participants a  language through which difficult experiences can become speakable and meaningful.  The community dimension turns that meaning into belonging, mutual responsibility,  and local agency. ‘Holding the holders’ creates the professional and organizational  conditions required to sustain both processes. Each dimension can be observed  separately, but the field evidence indicates that their value is relational: cultural tools  become meaningful within trusted human relationships; community ownership  requires supported local leaders; and staff support is purposeful when it improves the 

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quality and continuity of the space offered to participant. Figure 1 presents the mutual  interactions between the three dimensions. 

Cultural- Narrative Shared Language for  meaning making 

community  

infrastructure-based Collective Recovery  Capacity

Holding the Holders Support, reflection and  professional capacity 

Community 

Belonging, trust and  collective agency 

Figure 1. The three dimensions operate as a mutually reinforcing system rather than  a sequence of stages 

Dimension One: The Cultural and Narrative Dimension 

One of the most consistent findings to emerge from the interviews was that cultural  content, including texts from Jewish sources, rituals, holidays, music, creative  expression, writing, and shared symbols, was generally not described as the objective  of the intervention. Rather, it functioned as a language through which participants  could process experiences, construct meaning, and connect with themselves and with  others. Interviewees rarely described the work as "studying Judaism" or transmitting  knowledge. Instead, they repeatedly emphasized that culture provided a safe space  for engaging with issues that are often difficult to address directly: trauma, loss,  identity, guilt, hope, and leadership. Cultural language enabled a shift from factual or  therapeutic discourse to a personal, emotional, and shared conversation, without  requiring participants to speak explicitly about themselves at the outset of the process. This principle appeared across a wide range of contexts: in work with Israeli travelers  in the Far East, in processes with evacuated communities, and in workshops for reserve  soldiers. Despite the considerable differences between these populations, the  consistency of this finding suggests that the use of culture is not a project-specific  

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technique, but a crosscutting principle identified across the three initiatives examined.  Its recurrence among different populations also indicates its potential relevance  beyond the organizational setting in which it emerged. One of the social workers  involved in establishing ‘Heart Spaces’ project explained that, alongside sessions on  trauma and facilitated group circles, the program consistently incorporated yoga,  creative activities, music, and writing. Writing, she noted, was chosen because of its  therapeutic value and its capacity to facilitate emotional processing. It was therefore  perceived as an integral part of the space rather than an ancillary activity. 

A similar idea emerged in interviews with facilitators from ‘Growing Again’ project.  One facilitator described using the figure of Moses as a metaphor for leadership in  times of uncertainty, alongside the Midrash depicting the Messiah unbinding and  rebinding his wounds, as a way of opening conversations about injury, recovery, and  communal responsibility. These metaphors became part of the participants' shared  language, allowing them to engage with their present reality without remaining solely  at the operational level. Group facilitators mentioned that even participants who had  little previous experience studying Jewish texts described how the encounter with  Jewish texts generated curiosity and offered new perspectives. One facilitator recalled  that participants initially experienced the texts as unfamiliar, yet through guided  reading and discussion, they gradually became a resource through which they could  connect ancient narratives with their own lives. As he put it, "They realized there was  real depth there, and that they could take something from it". 

The findings also clarify that cultural resources are not effective on their own. Several  interviewees described the most meaningful moments as those in which one  participant shared a personal experience, others recognized something of themselves  in it, and the group became able to engage in a deeper conversation. Texts, rituals, and  creative activities often provided a shared language that made such disclosure more  accessible, but their value depended on the relationships and trust surrounding them.  As one facilitator explained: "The moment someone shared something deeply personal,  others joined in”.  

Cultural resources may therefore open the door to personal expression, while a safe  and well-facilitated group environment allows that expression to develop into a shared  process of meaning-making.

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The findings emerging from the knowledge extraction process resonate with a broad  body of research emphasizing the role of narratives, rituals, symbols, and cultural  resources in meaning-making following trauma. The literature indicates that coping  with crisis occurs not only through direct emotional processing, but also through  cultural frameworks that enable individuals to situate their own stories within a  broader context of identity, community, and continuity. In this context, texts, rituals,  and creative practices are not regarded as additions to therapeutic or community  work, but as resources that help create a shared language, strengthen a sense of  belonging, and construct meaning. The narrative approach forms the foundation of  this dimension. A central component of the narrative approach is the creation of  rituals. Rituals and rites of passage create an intermediate space in which an old  identity can break down and a new identity can be constructed. The rituals used by  BINA, from Shabbat gatherings to processing workshops, constitute such transitional  spaces, enabling participants to process trauma and reconstruct identity. As noted  above, this dimension refers to the use of cultural anchors, including holidays, texts  and stories, language, and rituals of mourning and celebration, as tools for processing,  grounding, and meaning-making in situations of trauma and crisis. These are healing  tools and can be drawn from a variety of cultural and religious traditions according to  the target population of each project. 

Further, A substantial body of research has examined the relationship between  culture, religion, spirituality, and psychological well-being, particularly in coping with  trauma. Azoulay (2024) argues that meaning is the force that connects the individual  to the community and provides a sense of purpose. This understanding builds on  Frankl's (1963) development of Logotherapy, which identifies the search for meaning  as a fundamental human motivation. According to Frankl, suffering remains suffering,  yet meaning provides the framework through which it can be endured. Subsequent  research likewise demonstrates that constructing meaning following trauma  contributes to better long-term psychological adjustment (Park, 2010). Symbols, texts,  and cultural traditions may therefore provide resources for constructing meaning and  supporting adjustment. Research conducted following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita  found that religiousness was prospectively associated with psychological distress  among female survivors, illustrating the potential relevance of religious and spiritual 

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resources in coping with disaster (Chan, Rhodes, & Pérez, 2012). More broadly,  participation in collective gatherings, whether secular, cultural, or spiritual, constitutes  an important resource for coping with stressful circumstances in general and trauma  in particular. Beyond the broader relationship between culture and healing, research  also highlights the unique role of Jewish mourning rituals as mechanisms of recovery.  An Israeli study examining the practices of ‘Shiv'a’, ‘Shloshim’, and the first year of  mourning found that these rituals yield continued functioning while maintaining an  ongoing relationship with loss, gradually accompanying mourners back into everyday  life (Rubin, 2014). The principle of structuring mourning and recovery through stable,  meaningful cultural anchors extends well beyond Jewish tradition and applies across  many cultural and religious contexts. 

Cultural and narrative anchors, however, do not operate in isolation. They derive their  power from the human relationships and sense of belonging within which they are  embedded. Having examined the role of culture in the creation of meaning, the  discussion now turns to the community itself – the setting in which meaning becomes  a shared experience and a resource for recovery. 

Dimension Two: Community Belonging and the Reconstruction of Identity If the cultural dimension demonstrates how culture provides a language for processing  experience, the central finding of the community dimension is that recovery does not  occur solely within the individual: it takes place within relationships and within the  community to which the individual belongs. Across the interviews, regardless of the  specific project, a specific theme emerged repeatedly: the primary task is not simply  to provide services to people experiencing crisis, trauma, or distress, but to create a  space in which they can feel that they belong, that they are seen, and that others hold  them. From this perspective, the community is not merely the setting in which the  intervention takes place; it is an integral part of the intervention itself. Interviewees  described their work less in terms of implementing programs and more in terms of  building relationships, cultivating trust, supporting local leadership, and fostering a  sense of home. Repeatedly they emphasized that, particularly during periods of  trauma and uncertainty, the experience of not being alone becomes one of the most 

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significant resources in the recovery process. This idea was particularly evident in  interviews conducted within the ‘Heart Spaces’ project. One of the program directors described its space's purpose as follows: "to provide a sense of security, knowing that  there are people here who care about me… that I'm not alone…and that even if I leave  Goa, there are still people I can turn to". Her words illustrate that resilience derives not  only from the encounter itself but also from knowing that a human network continues  to exist beyond it. The physical gathering thus becomes the starting point for an  enduring community rather than merely the location in which an activity takes place. 

A similar insight emerged from ‘Growing Again’ project, where one of the project's  central tasks was to accompany communities rebuilding themselves after crisis and  profound disruption. One community leader described the process's beginning: "they  needed some direction…someone to help them stop for a moment, make sense of  things, and ask: how do we begin again?" 

This statement reflects an important reality: in times of crisis, a community's first need  is not necessarily additional activities, but someone who can help reorganize  relationships, roles, and shared meaning. Accordingly, interviewees repeatedly  described themselves as accompanying a process rather than producing events. 

Another finding that appeared consistently throughout the interviews was the  importance of adapting each intervention to the unique identity of the community.  Interviewees stressed that there was no uniform model that could simply be replicated  from one setting to another. On the contrary, the work required sustained listening,  familiarity with the local culture, an understanding of community leadership, and  ongoing responsiveness to changing needs. One program director described this as: "it  was a delicate dance of adapting the content to the community”. Another interviewee  observed: "what still amazes me is their (the group facilitators’) ability to adjust the  program from one community to another, because every community is different in its  identity and in its character”. These reflections suggest that flexibility is not a  compromise in professional practice but one of its defining principles. Interviewees  associated the development of trust and a sense of community with the combination  of stable professional principles and careful adaptation to the local context. 

Another important finding concerns the gradual transfer of responsibility to the  community itself. The objective is not merely to strengthen participants but to enable 

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communities to assume ownership of the process. Interviewees repeatedly described  how, after receiving initial support, community members began organizing activities,  initiating gatherings, sustaining local traditions, and supporting one another.  Interviews described success not primarily in terms of the number of events conducted  but by the community's growing capacity to become an active partner in creating its  own resilience. One community leader explained that the accompaniment was never  limited to organizing activities; rather, it focused on developing residents' ability to  lead processes independently and to regard the community itself as a shared resource.  In summary, the interviews indicate that, across the initiatives examined, community  was treated not simply as the setting of the intervention but as an emotional and social  resource in its own right. Creating belonging, nurturing trust, strengthening local  leadership, and cultivating mutual responsibility are not secondary outcomes of the  intervention – they are its very core. 

These findings are consistent with research on community resilience, social capital,  and post-crisis community building. Research literature demonstrates that recovery  from collective trauma depends not only on individual psychological resources but also  on the quality of social relationships, the sense of belonging, mutual trust, and the  community's ability to organize and act collectively. Communities characterized by  strong relationships, active leadership, and opportunities for participation are better  equipped to respond to crises and to support their members over time. The findings  emerging from BINA's knowledge capture process can therefore be understood within  a broader conceptual framework that views the community itself as an active agent in  the creation of resilience rather than merely the setting in which interventions occur.  Accordingly, most of the interventions described in the interviews are directed not  toward delivering services to communities but toward creating the conditions that  enable communities to become sources of meaning, support, and growth.  

Professional literature likewise reinforces these findings by describing community as a  healing force. Shared identity and group belonging provide important protection  against trauma while facilitating recovery. Community is not simply a collection of  individuals but a living system of relationships, identities, and narratives (Brachman,  2025). Social Identity Theory argues that a substantial part of an individual’s self identity derives from membership in social groups, a form of belonging that 

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strengthens the individual and provides psychological resources (Haslam et al., 2018).  The relationship between the individual and the community to which they belong is  bidirectional: when a community experiences trauma, a shared social identity,  emerging from a sense of shared fate, generates mutual support and collective  resilience. As individuals identify with the community and become stronger, they in  turn contribute to its resilience (Drury, 2012). Studies have found that group  membership and a supportive social identity are associated with reduced depression  and anxiety and with a stronger sense of self-efficacy (Kellezi & Reicher, 2012).  Research indicates that a sense of group belonging is not only a basic psychological  need but also a resilience mechanism in its own right. Following a traumatic event, an  individual’s experience of having a place where their voice is heard is associated with  reduced loneliness, lower psychological distress, and a greater capacity to cope with  loss and uncertainty (Haslam et al., 2018). 

McMillan and Chavis (1986) describe four central components of a sense of  community: membership, mutual influence, fulfillment of needs, and a shared  emotional history. Communities that have experienced disaster together often  develop especially strong bonds, and processing their shared story within a communal  framework reinforces that sense of community. Numerous studies have shown that  communities characterized by high levels of trust and dense social networks recover  more rapidly following disaster (Norris et al., 2008). Community, therefore, is not  simply a backdrop to recovery but a "second skin" that provides its members with a  fundamental sense of security (Ashkenazi, 2025). Strengthening social capital and  informal support networks is important for community resilience (Aldrich & Meyer,  2015). Community-building practices, including identity-based groups, communal  celebrations, and the development of local leadership, are directed toward  strengthening precisely these networks. 

Research also indicates that collectivist cultures, which emphasize social cohesion and  interpersonal relationships, demonstrate higher levels of post-traumatic growth than  more individualistic societies (Wlodarczyk et al., 2017). Similarly, the strength of social  connectedness has been identified as a significant predictor of post-traumatic growth  (Matos et al., 2021). The events of October 7 left many communities with what may  be described as a fractured ethos. Ashkenazi (2025) argues that recovery begins with 

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acknowledging this rupture and then constructing a renewed communal ethos. He  refers to this process as ‘community Kintsugi’, drawing on the Japanese art of repairing  broken pottery with gold lacquer. In this model, the fracture is not treated as a flaw  but as an integral part of the community's story. Recovery requires recognizing the  rupture and transforming it into a source of strength and renewed identity. A “Kintsugi  community” understands that resilience does not require restoring the community’s  former ethos unchanged but developing a renewed one that acknowledges the  rupture and responds to the community’s altered circumstances. Azoulay (2024)  introduces the concept of communities of meaning, as part of his work on "the value  of meaning", arguing that genuine belonging is rooted not in institutional affiliation  but in shared values and a shared narrative. A community, he suggests, is defined not  by the people who live within it but by the meaning they create together. Community  recovery is therefore fundamentally a process of restoring shared meaning. Within this  process, each individual's sense of belonging remains essential. At times, collective  recovery efforts may unintentionally overshadow personal experiences of grief  because of the community's desire to demonstrate resilience and growth (Tzfoni &  Sarig, 2025). The field accounts suggest that professional accompaniment can help  communities balance these two needs: rebuilding a shared sense of purpose while  preserving space for individual experiences of grief and loss. Within the initiatives  examined, facilitators sought to create conditions in which individuals could  experience recognition, participate in communal life, and develop a sense that they  had a meaningful role within the community. 

Recovery, therefore, takes place simultaneously at the level of both the community  and the individual. A recovering community is one that succeeds in holding a shared  narrative while also making room for the personal stories that compose it. As  individuals experience recognition, participation, and meaning within the communal  space, their sense of belonging deepens, strengthening the resilience of the  community as a whole. 

Dimension Three: Holding the Holders 

The first two dimensions described how meaning and belonging are created for  participants and communities, however, analysis revealed a third dominant principle: 

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communities cannot be sustained over time unless those who sustain them are  themselves supported. Rather than viewing supervision or professional  accompaniment as an additional service, interviewees consistently described it as an  integral component of the intervention itself. Supporting the supporters took the form  of shared reflection, teamwork, professional consultation, flexibility, trust, and the  ability to pause, learn, and adjust while the work was unfolding. In other words, the  organizational system does not merely enable the intervention – it is itself part of the  intervention. 

One of the strongest themes emerging from the interviews was the understanding that  professionals went through an ongoing process of learning and adaptation. The social  worker who led ‘Heart Spaces’ project, described a role that simultaneously involved  designing workshops, providing individual support, coordinating logistics, recruiting  participants, and holding together a multidisciplinary team. These responsibilities  could not be separated because they all contributed to creating a safe environment  for participants. One of the ‘Heart Spaces’ directors likewise emphasized that the  success of the initiative rested first and foremost on teamwork: "it simply worked. The  collaboration between ‘Heart Spaces’, the house management …and the  communication among everyone involved – that's what made it possible". Asked how  professional decisions were made, she explained that the team met every week to  review what was working, identify what required adjustment, and allow each  professional to contribute according to their expertise: "every week we sat together,  planned the week ahead, consulted with one another, looked at what was working and  what wasn't … let the professionals do what they do best". 

A similar pattern of holding emerged in the work with communities. One community  leader described how BINA's facilitator contributed not only activities and content but  also served as a source of professional reflection and personal growth: "the program  director became my personal professional mentor. She helped me understand my role,  notice things I hadn't seen before, opened my eyes, and brought enormous patience".  These accounts illustrate that professional accompaniment extends far beyond  technical supervision. It creates psychological safety, strengthens practitioners'  confidence, and develops their capacity to lead communities independently. Even  when facilitators changed, interviewees did not describe this as replacing one provider 

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with another but as the continuation of an ongoing professional process. As one  participant explained: "each person brings her own world. There is a shared core to  ‘Growing Again’, but every branch grows in its own way". This observation captures an  important balance between a common professional language and the autonomy of  individual facilitators – a theme that appeared repeatedly throughout several  interviews. 

The interviews further showed that supporting the supporters extends beyond BINA's  own staff to include community partners themselves. Community leaders described  facilitators as people who enabled them to think more clearly, refine their practice,  and act with greater confidence. One participant recalled: "suddenly I had the courage  to do things. There was someone beside me saying, 'Yes, go ahead’". Another  explained: "the program directors understand the fabric of the community. They know  how to recognize it, and that helps me see things differently". 

These findings broaden the meaning of this third dimension – supporting the  supporters is not limited to BINA staff and activities; it encompasses everyone  responsible for leading the process: community directors, local leaders, facilitators,  and professional partners. Through sustained relationships, shared reflection,  learning, and trust, those who carry responsibility themselves become an enduring  resource for the community. 

The knowledge extraction process identified holding the holders as an organizing  principle, rather than a strategy for preventing burnout. The field accounts suggest  that professional, emotional, and organizational support strengthens practitioners’  capacity to create and sustain spaces of meaning, belonging, and resilience for others.  This finding is consistent with trauma-informed approaches to community  accompaniment, which emphasize that practitioners who are themselves exposed to  collective trauma require systematic support as an integral component of professional  practice rather than as an occasional or ad hoc intervention (Mittelman, 2025). Further, the concept of secondary trauma refers to the emotional and behavioral  consequences that may result from repeated exposure to other people’s traumatic  experiences (Hadar & Zeidner, 2012). Professionals working with trauma encounter  such exposure as part of their daily work. Over time, repeated engagement with  human suffering may contribute to compassion fatigue and diminish a practitioner’s 

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capacity to provide sustained empathic support (Figley, 1995; Pardes & Ben-Nun,  2014). In the aftermath of 7 October, this challenge was particularly complex because  community practitioners were supporting others while living within the same broader  national crisis and operating in circumstances for which few established protocols  were available (Ashkenazi, 2025). 

Two concepts from psychoanalytic theory further illuminate the importance of  supporting practitioners. Winnicott’s (1960) concept of the holding environment  describes a relational space characterized by reliable, consistent, and nonjudgmental  presence, which allows individuals to feel sufficiently secure to develop and engage  with difficult experience. Bion’s (1962) concept of containment refers to a process in  which another person’s anxieties are received, processed, and returned in a more  manageable and meaningful form. Applied to the present context, these concepts  suggest that facilitators’ ability to provide stable and containing spaces for participants  may depend, in part, on whether they themselves have access to reliable professional  and organizational support. 

Parallel Process 

Psychotherapeutic literature uses the term ‘parallel process’ to describe how dynamics  emerging between therapist and client may be reflected in the relationship between  supervisor and therapist (Searles, 1955; Ekstein & Wallerstein, 1958). Applied to  community interventions, similar dynamics may arise across the relationships among  participants, facilitators, supervisors, and organizational leaders. What occurs at one  level of the system may therefore affect interactions at other levels. This relationship  is sometimes represented as a pyramid. Participants or community members form its  base; facilitators and practitioners occupy the next level; and supervisors and  organizational leaders form the level above them. Each layer is expected to support  the one below it, while also requiring appropriate support from the level above. The  model does not imply a rigid hierarchy of value, but illustrates the interdependence of  support across the organizational system. In practical terms, supervision and peer  consultation may shape the emotional presence and professional judgment that  facilitators bring to their work. Practitioners who have regular opportunities for  reflection, consultation, and emotional processing may be better able to maintain 

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appropriate boundaries, respond thoughtfully to changing needs, and sustain stable  community spaces. When such opportunities are absent, accumulated strain and  unresolved concerns may affect decision-making and interactions with participants.  Holding the holders should therefore be understood as part of the intervention’s  professional infrastructure. Regular supervision, peer consultation, reflective team  meetings, and opportunities to process the emotional demands of the work can  support both practitioner well-being and the quality and continuity of community  accompaniment. These structures also allow teams to convert field experience into  shared organizational knowledge, identify emerging difficulties, and adapt their  practice over time. 

Distinctive Empirical Findings 

Three findings are particularly distinctive. First, cultural resources generally functioned  not as content to be taught or as markers of religious observance, but as a mediating  language for approaching experiences that were difficult to discuss directly. Jewish  texts, rituals, stories, music, writing, and creative practices created symbolic distance,  invited multiple interpretations, and opened shared conversations about loss, identity,  responsibility, and hope. Their value did not necessarily depend on prior textual  knowledge or religious identification, but on how they were introduced and embedded  within relationships of trust. Second, holding the holders emerged not merely as a  staff-well-being measure or a strategy for preventing burnout, but as part of the  intervention mechanism itself. Unlike many professional settings in which  practitioners provide support from outside the crisis affecting their clients, the  collective trauma following 7 October also encompassed the social world of the  practitioners, facilitators, and community leaders responsible for supporting others.  They were required to hold communities while confronting the same prolonged  uncertainty, threat, loss, and disruption. Under these conditions, professional,  emotional, and organizational support became essential to their ability to remain  attentive, exercise sound judgment, adapt their work, maintain appropriate  boundaries, and sustain meaningful community spaces. The category of “holders” also  extended beyond BINA’s professional staff to include local leaders, volunteers, 

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facilitators, and organizational partners who carried continuing responsibility for  community processes. The distinctive finding is therefore that, under conditions of  collective trauma, supporting this wider network is not external to the intervention; it is one of the conditions through which the intervention becomes possible and  sustainable. Third, coherence across the three initiatives did not depend on delivering  the same program or activities in each setting. The populations, needs, texts, group  formats, and forms of accompaniment differed substantially. What remained  consistent were the underlying principles: creating culturally meaningful entry points,  strengthening relationships and local ownership, and supporting those responsible for  carrying the process. The findings therefore distinguish transferability from replication.  What may travel across contexts is not a standardized package of activities, but an  integrated set of principles whose practical expression must be adapted to local  identity, needs, and capacity. 

Broader Organizational Implications 

The findings offer several implications for organizations developing community-based  responses and interventions to collective trauma and prolonged crises. The three dimensional framework directs attention beyond the content of individual activities  to the organizational conditions that allow those activities to become meaningful,  adaptive, and sustainable. Applying the framework does not require replicating BINA’s  programs; it suggests examining how the three dimensions are expressed within an  organization’s own context and practices. 

Recognizing the Infrastructure Behind Visible Activities 

Workshops, ceremonies, group meetings, and community events are the most visible  components of an intervention, but the findings suggest that their value depends on  a less visible organizational infrastructure. This includes the relationships established  before and after an activity, familiarity with the community’s history and internal  dynamics, coordination among professional and local actors, opportunities for  reflection, and the availability of continued support.

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Organizations developing community interventions may therefore benefit from  examining not only what activities they provide, but also what makes those activities  possible and how existing community infrastructure can be utilized. A culturally  meaningful workshop, for example, is unlikely to have the same effect when delivered  without prior trust, appropriate facilitation, or a pathway for continued engagement.  Similarly, a community event may create a temporary sense of connection without  necessarily strengthening relationships or collective capacity over time. The  framework accordingly suggests a broader understanding of implementation.  Preparation, relationship-building, professional consultation, follow-up, and  adaptation are not secondary tasks surrounding the intervention. They are part of the  intervention itself. 

Balancing Coherence with Local Adaptation 

The recurrence of the dimensions across different settings indicates that organizations  can maintain a coherent professional approach without using an identical program in  every community. The field accounts repeatedly emphasized that communities  differed in their histories, identities, leadership structures, experiences of loss,  religious orientations, and readiness to engage. Effective practice depended on  preserving common principles while adapting their expression to the local context. 

For organizations implementing interventions, this requires distinguishing between  the elements of a model that should remain stable and those that should remain  flexible. The commitment to meaning-making, belonging, local participation,  professional support, and ethical boundaries may remain consistent. The specific  texts, rituals, activities, language, duration, and form of facilitation may need to  change. Adaptation should not be understood as improvisation without structure. It  requires systematic listening, professional judgment, familiarity with the community,  and opportunities to review what is and is not working. A learning-oriented  organization creates regular spaces in which practitioners and community partners  can interpret emerging needs and modify the response accordingly.

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Developing Local Ownership and Capacity 

The community dimension of the framework suggests that organizational success  should not be assessed only through participation rates or the number of activities  delivered. An equally important question is whether the intervention strengthens the  community’s ability to recognize its own resources, make collective decisions, initiate  activity, and sustain supportive relationships. This shifts the role of the external  organization. Rather than remaining the sole provider of content and leadership, it  gradually becomes a facilitator of local capacity. This may involve identifying and  supporting formal and informal leaders, establishing a local steering group, including  community members in the design of activities, and transferring knowledge and  responsibility over time. Local ownership does not mean withdrawing support  prematurely or assuming that every community has equal internal capacity.  Communities affected by displacement, bereavement, conflict, or prolonged  uncertainty may require sustained accompaniment. The aim is therefore not rapid  organizational exit, but a gradual change in the relationship: from doing for the  community toward thinking, deciding, and acting with it. Evidence of emerging  capacity may include locally initiated activities, wider participation in decision-making,  renewed communal traditions, stronger connections among residents, and the ability  to maintain meaningful practices when external staff are less present. These  indicators complement conventional measures of program reach and participant  satisfaction. 

Supporting Those Who Sustain the Response 

The dimension of ‘holding the holders’ has direct implications for organizational  design. Staff members, facilitators, volunteers, and local leaders working in conditions  of collective trauma frequently carry both emotional and operational responsibilities.  They may be expected to respond quickly, contain the distress of others, coordinate  multiple actors, make decisions under uncertainty, and remain continuously available – all while living within the same broader crisis. Community organizations cannot  assume that professional commitment alone will sustain this work. The findings  indicate the value of regular supervision, peer consultation, reflective team meetings,  role clarification, manageable workloads, and clear referral pathways. These 

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structures enable practitioners to process difficult experiences, recognize the limits of  their role, learn from one another, and adapt their work without becoming isolated. 

Connecting Cultural Resources with Professional Boundaries 

The cultural-narrative dimension creates possibilities for expression and meaning making, but it also requires clear professional boundaries. Texts, rituals, stories, and  creative practices may evoke grief, fear, guilt, or traumatic memories. Organizations  should therefore consider who facilitates these encounters, what preparation  facilitators receive, how emotional responses are handled, and when participants  should be referred to specialized care. Cultural and community interventions are not  substitutes for clinical treatment. Their value lies in providing shared languages,  relationships, and spaces of belonging that may complement other forms of  assistance. Clear distinctions between community support, educational facilitation,  emotional processing, and therapy protect both participants and practitioners.  Organizations should also remain attentive to internal diversity. A cultural resource  that creates recognition for some participants may feel unfamiliar, politically charged,  religiously prescriptive, or exclusionary to others. Facilitators should invite multiple  interpretations and allow participants to decline engagement without being  positioned outside the community. The purpose is not to impose a single collective  narrative, but to create a shared space in which different experiences can be  expressed and held. 

Building Organizational Learning into the Response 

Because prolonged crises change over time, organizations need mechanisms that  allow field experience to become cumulative knowledge. Regular team reflection,  documentation of adaptation decisions, participant feedback, and dialogue with local  partners can help distinguish isolated successes from recurring principles. 

The practice-based approach used in this study offers one possible way of making such  experiential knowledge more explicit. It encourages organizations to ask not only what  was done, but how decisions were made, why particular practices appeared  meaningful, under what conditions they worked, and where they encountered  limitations. This form of organizational learning can support continuity across staff 

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changes and reduce dependence on the tacit knowledge of a small number of  experienced individuals. Documentation should nevertheless remain flexible enough  to preserve professional judgment. The objective is not to convert the framework into  a rigid manual, but to establish a shared language through which teams can examine  their work. The three dimensions can serve as such a language: are participants being  offered meaningful ways to approach their experiences? are relationships, belonging,  and local agency being strengthened? are the people carrying out the process  receiving sufficient professional and organizational support? 

Extending Learning Across Organizations and Jewish Communities The framework emerged from Israeli settings shaped by a particular national  emergency. Its broader relevance should therefore be examined through careful  adaptation rather than assumed in advance. Nevertheless, the organizational  questions it raises may also be pertinent to Jewish communities outside Israel  confronting insecurity, polarization, grief, tensions surrounding Jewish and Israeli  identity, or increased demands on communal professionals and volunteer leaders.  Cross-organizational learning could explore how the three dimensions take different  forms across cultural, religious, national, and institutional settings. Jewish texts and  rituals may provide a shared cultural repertoire, but their meanings and uses will vary  considerably. Community structures, relationships with Israel, professional resources,  and understandings of collective responsibility will also differ. 

The framework offers a basis for comparative inquiry without requiring uniformity.  Organizations holding interventions can exchange knowledge about the mechanisms  that support meaning, belonging, and sustained leadership while retaining sensitivity  to local context. Such learning may contribute not only to improved organizational  practice, but also to a more nuanced dialogue among Israeli and diaspora communities  about how Jewish cultural resources and communal relationships can support people  during periods of collective disruption.

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Using the Framework for Organizational Reflection 

The framework can be used at different points in the life of an intervention: when  designing a new response, while implementation is underway, and after a period of  activity to support review and organizational learning. Rather than functioning as a  fixed checklist, the questions below (table 2) are intended to support a recurring  process of design, observation, reflection, and adaptation. They can help  organizations identify where capacity is emerging, where it remains fragile, and what  may need to be strengthened or adjusted as conditions change.

Dimension	Questions for design	Signs of capacity (what to look   for?)	Warning signs
Cultural  narrative	Which shared languages  can help people approach  experience without   forced disclosure? Who  decides what is culturally  appropriate?  Whose narratives are  being expressed, and  whose may be missing or  harder to express?	Participants   interpret, connect  personal and   collective stories,  and generate their  own forms of   expression.	Content feels   imposed,   didactic,   inaccessible, or  detached from  relationships,   single narrative  replacing   plurality
Community	Who is connected, who is  absent, and where does  trust already exist? How  will local actors shape  decisions?	New or renewed  relationships,   shared   responsibility,   local initiatives,   and sustained   participation.	Repeated   activities without  ownership,   dependency on  outsiders, or   exclusion of less  visible groups,  participation   without   influence
Holding the  holders	Who carries emotional  and operational   responsibility? What   supervision, peer support,  boundaries, and referrals  exist?  What organizational   conditions allow staff and  local leaders to reflect,  adapt, set boundaries and	Reflective   adaptation,   clearer judgment,  continuity, staff  retention, and   supported local  leadership.	Isolation,   reactive   decisions,   blurred roles,   turnover,   exhaustion, or  delayed referral,  constant   adaptation

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make sound decisions  under pressure?

without   reflection

Table 2. Diagnostic questions and indicators across the three dimensions 

The three dimensions should not be considered in isolation. Because they operate as  an interdependent system, organizations should also examine how they reinforce, or  constrain, one another in practice. The following questions can help make these  relationships visible: 

– Where is weakness in one dimension currently limiting the others? – Are cultural and narrative practices strengthening relationships, belonging, and  local agency, or primarily generating activities? 

– Are facilitators and local leaders sufficiently supported to build trust, enable  participation, and adapt the intervention? 

– When one dimension is strengthened, does this increase capacity in the other  two? 

Across all three dimensions, organizations should begin by identifying what already  exists: trusted relationships, local leadership, cultural practices, informal networks,  professional knowledge, community groups, and existing mechanisms of mutual  support. The aim is not simply to deliver support into a community, but to strengthen  the community’s own capacity to generate meaning, belonging, agency, and support  over time. Here we can ask: 

– What capacities, relationships, practices, and structures already exist that can be  strengthened rather than replaced? 

– Who already holds trust, knowledge, relationships, or responsibility within the  community? 

– Is the intervention increasing the community’s capacity to sustain recovery, or  creating continuing dependence on external actors? 

The purpose of the framework is not to determine whether an intervention “has” or  “does not have” each dimension. Rather, it is to help organizations identify where  capacity is strong, where it is fragile, and where the relationships among the  dimensions require attention. Used in this way, the framework provides a shared 

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language for ongoing reflection, learning, and adaptation rather than a fixed model of  intervention. 

Limitations and Boundaries of the Evidence 

The study has several limitations that define how the framework should be used. First,  the sample is purposive and primarily reflects the perspectives of practitioners,  managers and community leaders. Participant voices are therefore unevenly  represented across the three settings. Future studies should include systematic  sampling of participants, nonparticipants, partner organizations, and community  members with critical or negative experiences. Second, the analysis identifies  perceived mechanisms and recurring practices; it does not measure clinical recovery,  compare outcomes with a control group, or establish causality. References to healing,  resilience, or growth should be understood as participants’ and practitioners’  accounts and as conceptual interpretations, not as demonstrated treatment effects. Third, the interventions unfolded during an ongoing crisis. What communities need  may change across emergencies, displacement, return, commemoration, and long term rebuilding. Longitudinal research is needed to examine whether the three  dimensions remain equally salient and how their interaction changes over time. 

Conclusion 

The experience of collective trauma after 7 October has required organizations to  respond while the social world around them remains unsettled. The findings suggest  that durable community practice cannot be understood solely in terms of a workshop,  a therapeutic technique, or an event calendar. It depends on the interaction of three  capacities: culturally meaningful ways to approach experience, relationships that  transform isolation into belonging and participation, and organizational structures  that sustain the people responsible for sustaining others. 

The framework’s contribution is both conceptual and practical. It helps explain why  the same visible activity may become meaningful in one setting yet remain superficial  in another: the difference may lie in the degree of local ownership or the support  available to facilitators and leaders. For community organizations facing collective 

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trauma, the framework provides a structured way to design, observe, reflect on, and  adapt interventions while building on existing local capacities, relationships, and  structures. In this sense, effective intervention involves not only providing support  during crisis, but strengthening the community’s own capacity to generate meaning,  belonging, agency, and support over time. For researchers, the framework offers  propositions that can be examined comparatively and longitudinally in Israel and  across diverse Jewish communities. 

Acknowledgments 

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the professionals,  facilitators, social workers and programs’ managers who participated in this study and  generously shared their experiences, reflections, and professional knowledge. Their  openness and willingness to reflect on successes, challenges, uncertainties, and  processes of adaptation made this research possible . 

We are especially grateful to Mrs. Orly Dabush Nitzan, BINA’s Vice President for  Strategy and Development, for her generous support, thoughtful insights, and  continued engagement throughout the development of this research. 

Methodological Appendix 

Study purpose and orientation 

The study adopted a qualitative, practice-based (“knowledge extraction”) approach  aimed at making explicit the situated knowledge embedded in practitioners’ accounts  of experience, action, and professional judgment. The approach assumes that  practitioners develop situated knowledge through repeated judgment under real 

world constraints, but that this knowledge often remains implicit. Research therefore  seeks not merely to document activities but to reconstruct how practitioners  interpreted situations, why they selected particular actions, and which principles  recurred across contexts.

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Corpus 

The corpus included 23 in-depth interviews with people occupying multiple roles  across the three programs. Roles included managers and facilitators (social workers and local community leaders). The three settings differed in geography, population,  institutional partnerships, and immediate purpose, creating an opportunity for  analytic comparison. The qualitative interviews followed a semi-structured protocol  designed to capture both shared patterns across the three projects and role-specific  perspectives on their implementation. A common interview guide explored five  interrelated domains: participants’ roles and personal engagement with the initiative;  perceived principles of action and markers of successful practice; the role of Jewish  and Israeli identity in processes of coping and healing; the emergence of community,  belonging, and psychological safety; and broader reflections on trauma, community,  and lessons for future practice. This common framework enabled systematic  comparison across interviews while allowing participants to elaborate on experiences  and processes they considered particularly significant. Additional questions were  tailored to participants’ professional roles. Social workers were asked to reflect more  specifically on the creation of meaningful emotional spaces, manifestations of trauma  processing and resilience, and emotional, interpersonal, and cultural challenges  encountered in practice. Project managers working abroad were asked about  implementation and decision-making, the integration of emotional support, Jewish  content, and community-building, the management of therapeutic, logistical, and  cultural considerations, external partnerships, perceived indicators of change, and  conditions necessary for adapting the model to other settings. This layered interview  structure was intended to generate a multidimensional understanding of both the  experiential and organizational processes underlying the intervention, while  preserving sufficient consistency to identify recurring themes across sites and  professional roles. 

Data collection: facilitators and project managers, social workers and community  managers, involved in the three programs were approached and invited to participate  in the study. Interviews lasted approximately 30-60 minutes and were conducted in  Hebrew using the semi-structured interview protocol described above. All interviews 

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were audio-recorded with participants’ consent and subsequently transcribed in  Hebrew for analysis. Prior to each interview, participants were informed about the  purpose of the study and were asked to consent to both participation and audio  recording. Participants were assured that their confidentiality would be protected  throughout the research process. 

Analytic procedure 

Analysis followed an iterative thematic approach. Each interview was first read in full  and examined individually to identify salient ideas, recurring descriptions of action and  decision-making, and meaningful experiences and processes. The analysis then moved  across interviews and program settings to identify recurring patterns as well as  relevant differences and to consolidate related patterns into broader themes.  Particular attention was paid to moments described as meaningful or transformative,  perceived mechanisms that enabled such moments, obstacles and adaptation  decisions, relationships among actors, and organizational and contextual conditions  shaping implementation. The emerging themes were compared across the three  programs to distinguish context-specific experiences and practices from patterns  recurring across settings. As the analysis progressed, conceptually related themes  were clustered into broader dimensions capturing recurring principles of practice.  Emerging themes, dimensions, and their interpretation were discussed among the  researchers. In a final interpretive stage, the resulting dimensions were examined in  relation to relevant theoretical and empirical literature on trauma and recovery,  identity, community, belonging, and resilience. The literature was used to  contextualize and refine the interpretation of the empirically derived themes rather  than to define an a priori analytical framework. 

Trustworthiness 

Analytic rigor was supported through several complementary strategies. Emerging  themes and higher-order dimensions were checked against the original interview  material, and interpretations were discussed among the researchers to reach  agreement on the developing thematic structure. Also, comparison across the three 

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different program settings provided an additional basis for distinguishing recurring  principles from context-specific experiences. Finally, the empirically derived themes  were examined in relation to relevant theoretical and empirical literature as a means of contextualizing and refining their interpretation. Given the exploratory qualitative  design, these procedures support the conceptual credibility and potential  transferability of the findings, but do not imply statistical generalizability or causal  inference. 

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