After the October 7 Massacre: How Resilient is Israeli Society?

Although extensive attention is devoted to the military aspects of the war between Israel and Hamas, much less focus is given to one of the most burning issues on the agenda: the well-being of Israeli society after the horrific massacre of October 7 on Israeli soil. This massacre is cast as Israel’s deadliest and most traumatic attack, particularly given its large scale: this was the deadliest event the Jewish world has ever experienced since the Holocaust. What can be said about the resilience of Israelis today, three months into the war? Are there already signs of recovery after this trauma, or it is still too soon to tell? What is needed for a society in trauma to recover and return somehow to what is known in the research as “functional continuity”? What does it really mean to ‘”function” after an event of this sort, and is it even possible? In today’s podcast, INSS researcher Adi Kantor sits down with Brig. Gen. (ret.) Dr. Meir Elran, a senior researcher at INSS and head of the research cluster on domestic issues at the Institute, and with Anat Shapira, Neubauer Research Associate in the Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict Program at INSS and a PhD candidate in the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University. Together they discuss the issue of national resilience, taking Israeli society as a case study.