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October 5, 2023. The last two days of the Sukkot holiday. My parents came to visit me at my new home in Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan, located around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border between Israel and Lebanon. 

Together, we went on a tour of Mount Dov, the easternmost point of the borderline. The military personnel that helped organize the tour told us about the security at the border as we watched in amazement over Lebanon, seeing Hezbollah positions situated meters from us. 

We felt so safe there. We didn’t know what was coming. 

October 7, 2023. I wake up to a phone call from my mother in Beersheva telling me a war has broken out.

I told her she was exaggerating because we’ve had rocket attacks in the south a million times before. I then called my family and friends in the south, telling them if they want a quiet place to escape to, they are invited to my home. Ironically, now a year into the war, I am the one asking them for shelter and a roof over my head.

I spent that day in front of the television with my good friend, until he, like many others, was called up for the reserves.

Resilience coordinator

My name is Rita Rubin. I have not been at my house in Lehavot HaBashan since October 8, 2023. 

I am a social worker, and for the past year as an evacuee, I have been working as a resilience coordinator, working with other evacuees from the north in hotels across Tel Aviv. 

It is difficult to explain the role of a resilience coordinator, a position which did not exist before the war. I could say I am the “gatekeeper” of the souls of the evacuees.

My average workday starts with a team meeting of eight other coordinators like myself. I then run around Tel Aviv until nighttime, from hotel to hotel, tending to the needs of the evacuees.

Their needs vary: from small talk, to help with municipal bureaucracy, and even persuasion to get mental healthcare.

However, we can’t always help them no matter how much we want to. The truth is that living in a tiny hotel room for a year causes a plethora of symptoms, such as anxiety, panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, fatigue and aggravation of existing medical conditions. 

These symptoms often lead to disintegration of familial and marital ties. The most difficult part is that “you don’t see the end of it.” 

High Holidays

In preparation for the High Holidays, the concerns of the evacuees revolved mostly around arranging the celebrations away from home. 

The hotels make lists of those who opt to stay at the hotel during the holiday. Then, each hotel decides whether families are allowed to host guests in their new “homes.” 

Families who are used to cooking, setting the table, and entertaining the guests now depend on hotels or family members to “allow” them to celebrate. 

This year, the composition of some families is different from what it was in previous years.

There are families who have lost loved ones in the war: on the battlefield, as a result of rocket attacks or from diseases that were aggravated by the situation. 

In addition, there are also families that have broken down due to problems in relationships, sparked by the prolonged stay in one small space.

Home in the wild

I also spent the first nine months of the war living in a room of a hostel, which was provided to me through my job. 

After nine months I had to leave, involuntarily, and found a short-term sublet in a shared apartment. Since then, I have moved apartments three more times, living out of my suitcase. 

I tell myself I cannot find a “homey” apartment in Tel Aviv, and I must keep looking. But, deep down inside I know I can’t commit because my heart still belongs to our abandoned north.

There are many other young people like myself spread across Israel, confused and hurt. 

We don’t know if we will ever return to our homes, if we will ever see those green pastures again, swim in those streams or hike those mountains. 

Will we even get to see the white summit of Mount Hermon from up close again? 

Making history

Despite all the difficulty and fatigue, I constantly remind myself that my colleagues and I are writing history.

There has never been a situation where evacuees from within their own countries had to live in hotels, appropriated as resilience centers, for such a long period of time. 

My role is a new one, born out of this war, and we are designing it on the fly, hoping that future research on social work will do us justice. 

The team I work with (some of whom are also evacuees), has been my rock over the past year.

Our management team, also made up of social workers, is very attentive, supportive and there for us with a solution to any problem. 

The people from the Community Stress Prevention Center and the Ministry of Health, who have created from scratch the job of resilience coordinators, have also been extremely supportive. 

The evacuees themselves also give me strength to keep going. In the hotels, we see how resilient the Israeli people are; they take care of and respect each other. We see deaths and divorces, but we also see babies being born, and we attend bar mitzvahs and weddings.

Finally, if there is a positive to take away from this war it is the realization of the Israeli people that we all need to talk to a mental-health professional from time to time. 

Some evacuees I work with were not ready to hear about therapy at the start of the war. 

Today… they ask for it, and acknowledge its importance.

This article was translated from Hebrew by Yulia Karra.

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