Toward the end of May, Mika Nevo sat in a bomb shelter checking her phone to make sure her children had reached their school building before a missile launched from Lebanon triggered sirens in the Upper Galilee. At the same time, she was coordinating an emergency delivery of heart medication for an 80-year-old resident of her kibbutz.

For the health and welfare managers of Israel’s northern border communities, this is not a worst-case scenario. It is a typical day.

For more than 30 months, news from northern Israel has been dominated by rocket fire, air-raid sirens and stories of mass displacement. But behind the military headlines and political developments, a battle for daily survival is being managed, largely by local women.

On any normal day, their job covers the basics of community life. During a prolonged war, their responsibilities become overwhelming. They oversee elderly care, coordinate trauma and mental-health services, and help hundreds of families navigate the exhausting reality of displacement or return—sometimes physically, always emotionally.

The hardest part is the personal toll.

These women are living through the same crisis as the people they support. Many have been running on empty since Oct. 7, 2023, serving as anchors for their communities while their own families have been displaced, their homes threatened and their lives upended.

So who cares for the carers?

Lifeline for frontline welfare managers

A new initiative seeks to provide these caregivers with a lifeline of their own.

The Kibbutz Movement Rehabilitation Fund, together with the Upper Galilee Regional Council, recently launched a support program specifically for frontline welfare managers. The goal is simple: address the emotional strain and severe burnout before it reaches a breaking point.

Recently, dozens of these women gathered in the Upper Galilee for intensive resilience workshops. The program offered practical psychological tools for coping with daily stress and, perhaps most importantly, a rare opportunity to lean on one another.

“These kibbutzim have been living under constant pressure and uncertainty for months, even during periods when much of the country is relatively quiet,” Neri Shotan, CEO of the Kibbutz Movement Rehabilitation Fund, told JNS. “The health and welfare managers in these communities have become the backbone of community life, the people everyone turns to at every hour of the day. After carrying so much responsibility for so long, they deserve support just as much as the communities they serve.”

For the women participating, the workshops offered a rare chance to step out of emergency mode and simply breathe.

“The goal was to remind them that they are not alone,” said Sivan Gamliel, the project’s director. “These women spend every day taking care of everyone else but rarely stop to take care of themselves.”

Rebuilding from the ground up

To understand why this initiative matters, one must look at the organization behind it. The Kibbutz Movement Rehabilitation Fund was established in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.

It was no accident that kibbutzim along Israel’s borders bore the brunt of the attacks and subsequent evacuations. Historically, these cooperative communities were established along the country’s frontiers. Their presence embodies the pioneering ethos of the kibbutz movement—cultivating the land, building communities and helping defend the state’s borders.

For generations, these communities relied on deep social solidarity and a willingness to serve as Israel’s first line of defense. But years of war, displacement and uncertainty have strained that foundation. Rebuilding it is a long-term project that requires a different approach to healing communal trauma.

The broader Kibbutz Movement encompasses 259 kibbutzim across Israel. While it typically focuses on routine social and logistical needs, the current conflict created an unprecedented crisis. The Rehabilitation Fund was established to shift from day-to-day management to long-term recovery and resilience.

Rather than focusing solely on rebuilding physical infrastructure, the fund works directly with communities to identify their needs and develop tailored solutions.

Its efforts are organized around three pillars: “Pioneers,” focused on demographic growth and the Zionist vision; “Protectors,” addressing agricultural recovery and physical security; and “People,” dedicated to personal and community resilience.

The welfare managers’ support program falls squarely under that third pillar.

The fund’s philosophy recognizes a simple truth: Communities cannot be rebuilt without supporting the people responsible for putting them back together.

Looking toward a long recovery

The reality in northern Israel is that the crisis has no clear end date.

For many health and welfare managers, there is no timeline for when the threat of rocket fire will cease. The psychological burden of that uncertainty grows heavier with every passing week.

As a result, the Upper Galilee workshops are only the beginning. Following an overwhelmingly positive response, organizers are already expanding the program. New support forums are being established in the Mateh Asher Regional Council, alongside a commitment to hold regular, year-round support meetings across northern communities.

The goal is to ensure these women are not left carrying the emotional weight of an entire region alone.

Restoring the spirit of Israel’s border communities will take time, resources and patience. There are no shortcuts.

By focusing on the caregivers, the initiative seeks to strengthen the civilian front lines. If the women holding these communities together burn out, the social fabric they sustain risks unraveling with them.