I just watched the recently released clip of former hostage Eliya Cohen returning home by helicopter. As he landed at the hospital in Israel, it felt like another breath of oxygen returning to the nation. For months, Israelis, Jews, and allies around the world had shaken heaven and earth to bring hostages home alive. Diplomacy, advocacy, protests, prayer. Nothing was spared.

We proved something in that moment. When Jewish lives hang in the balance, we mobilize.

But what happens after the helicopters leave?

If the moral engine of the hostage campaign was “bring them home alive,” then we must ask what “alive” truly means. Survival is not only biological. It is psychological. It is communal. It is the ability to wake up without terror flooding the body.

Since October 7, trauma has become a national condition. Survivors of the attacks. Families of victims. Communities uprooted. Reservists returning from Gaza. Soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces who have seen and done things that do not fade easily.

Post traumatic stress disorder does not arrive with sirens. It creeps in quietly. Insomnia. Hypervigilance. Emotional numbness. Sudden rage. Despair. For some, it progresses to suicidal ideation. Unlike hostage rescue, there is no dramatic footage of someone battling their own nervous system at three in the morning.

We understand emergency rescue. We are less fluent in sustained psychological recovery.

But the logic should be the same.

If we mobilized globally to prevent physical death, should we not mobilize with equal seriousness to prevent deaths of despair? If we filled public squares to demand freedom, should we not fill clinics with funding and volunteers to support recovery?

This is not a criticism of what was done. The hostage campaign was righteous and necessary. It is an argument for continuity.

Trauma does not end when the war moves off the front page.

Last summer, on one of the final days of my visit to Israel, I attended a small holistic gathering. There was meditation. Sound bowl healing. A quiet attempt to create calm in a country that has not known much of it. As an American Jew, I carried my own diaspora grief and confusion. I came seeking grounding.

Near me sat an Israeli woman who was visibly struggling. At moments she could not settle into the stillness the rest of us were attempting to find. Her pain felt immediate and uncontained. It was not theoretical. It was in the room.

I saw it firsthand that day. In conversations since with survivors of the Nova festival and others trying to advocate for trauma services, I have heard how steep the climb is. The need is immense. The infrastructure is strained. The attention of the world has already begun to shift.

In many ways, it begins then. The adrenaline subsides. The country exhales. And those most affected are left to metabolize what happened.

What would equal effort look like?

It would mean expanded trauma services across the country, especially in affected communities. It would mean dedicated PTSD treatment tracks for veterans and reservists. It would mean suicide prevention campaigns tailored specifically to October 7 survivors and returning soldiers. It would mean philanthropic dollars earmarked not just for rebuilding infrastructure, but for rebuilding nervous systems.

It would also mean cultural permission. The normalization of saying, I am not okay.

Israel has long celebrated resilience. But resilience is not denial. True resilience includes treatment, therapy, and communal responsibility for invisible wounds.

If the past year taught us anything, it is that collective will is powerful. We can coordinate across continents when we choose to. We can demand life with urgency and moral clarity.

The work of keeping people alive did not end on the runway.

It continues in therapists’ offices, in veteran centers, in community clinics, and in the quiet decision to ask someone, How are you really doing?

The helicopters were the beginning of a promise.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)