French Jewish groups set up a hotline for people in the community traumatized by Israel-Hamas war

PARIS – French Jewish groups have set up a helpline to supply fortify to people in the community traumatized by the latest Israel-Hamas war — from households who’ve misplaced family members in the Middle East to folks fearful about their youngsters’s response to the battle and Holocaust survivors.

Since it used to be introduced a few days after the fatal Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into southern Israel, dozens of people have known as in on a daily basis, organizers stated.

Fabien Azoulay, the deputy director basic in rate of unity at the United Jewish Social Fund, or FSJU, which brings in combination many associations in France, stated that over 60 psychologists, psychiatrists and kid psychiatrists are volunteering to name again those that go away messages on the helpline quantity.

People of every age are in the hunt for fortify, from youngsters to folks and aged people, Azoulay wired.

For some survivors of the Holocaust, “it brings back childhood traumas they thought they’d never see again,” Azoulay stated. “They see it in the country (Israel) that was supposed to be the refuge for Jews. So it’s very, very traumatic.”

The volunteers every so often suggest a longer session with a psychotherapist or put callers in contact with associations in a position to carry them social help when wanted.

Radio of the Jewish Community, which is operated by the fund, additionally famous standard psychological well being wishes. The radio won virtually 300 questions from listeners when organizing its first display about psychological well being problems, that specialize in youngsters’s publicity to irritating news.

Marie-Claude Egry, a medical psychologist, is volunteering for the helpline and in addition participated in radio presentations on the factor.

She stated folks’ first fear is ready their youngsters’s exact protection amid a rising collection of antisemitic acts in France.

The Interior Ministry reported 719 antisemitic acts between Oct. 7 and Oct. 27, and 389 arrests — offering no different main points on the ones concerned or the nature of the acts. The govt stated figures additionally come with threats towards Jewish people.

Last week, the entrance door of the house of a Jewish couple in their 80s in Paris used to be set on hearth. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo denounced it as an “antisemitic act.”

Since the outbreak of the war and the next uptick in antisemitism, France has deployed 7,000 additional troops and heightened safety at loads of Jewish colleges, synagogues and different puts in the nation.

Egry stated the mom of a nine-year-old, who hadn’t mentioned the Israel-Gaza war along with her son but, requested him if he knew why there have been cops outdoor the faculty.

His resolution astonished the mom: “Of course, I know that when there’s a war in Israel, everyone in France is going crazy.”

Parents are also frightened about attainable stunning remarks and debates over the battle their youngsters would possibly face, the psychologist stated.

“Young people are involved here as much as there, from a distance, through news from family and friends,” Egry added. “We’re far away and at the same time very close.”

France, which has Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, has seen both gatherings to support Israel and demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians.

David Krausz, a clinical psychologist also volunteering for the helpline, said most questions raised cannot be fixed with some definitive advice.

On the contrary, he said, mental health issues prompted by the Mideast crisis often reveal a “more deeply-rooted malaise, which may not have been on the surface, but which, in view of the dramatic situation we’re experiencing, triggers something … that deserves, and even requires, specialized long-term care.”

He cited the example of a nine-year-old girl who became so anxious she didn’t want to go to school anymore, and an 18-year-old student who was in Israel when the war started and had to return urgently, traumatized by what had happened.

The trauma from the war has also deeply affected the Palestinian diaspora across the world, including in France where the community is estimated to number a few thousand people. Many feel a sense of helplessness and hopelessness as they struggle to hear from loved ones in Gaza.

Palestinians fear a repeat of the most traumatic event in their tortured history — their mass exodus from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.

Palestinians discuss with it as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the prewar inhabitants — fled or had been expelled from what’s now Israel in the months earlier than and all the way through the war, in which Jewish opponents fended off an assault by a number of Arab states.