Forging a Resilient Future for the Hardest-Hit Israelis

Rafaeli and his family spent six months as evacuees in Eilat, and though he tried to continue teaching online, something fundamental had broken for him. That’s when he began pivoting from education to physical fitness — helping young people in the hotel lobby with strength training and resistance bands as a way to relieve stress and cope with anxiety and PTSD.

When he returned to his kibbutz, he continued his new project but was unsure of the right next steps until he connected with Back on Track, the JDC employment program that has paired personal coaches with hundreds of returning evacuees, reservists, and more seeking to rejoin the workforce and restart their lives.

“JDC allowed me to turn my passion into my life’s work,” said Rafaeli, who now runs Yotam Studio, a fitness center named after the slain hostage Yotam Haim, a resident of his kibbutz. “With them by my side, I’m now studying movement therapy and receiving expert guidance and trauma support. JDC has helped me forge a path that feels authentic and healing one I continue to walk today.”

Even as it works to make a national impact, JDC stays committed to an essential focus on people — the individual Israelis suffering as a result of the ongoing war who need our assistance to survive and thrive, and since October 7, JDC has provided more than 1 million with direct emergency aid and services.

It’s that specialized attention that is at the core of the Community Caseworkers initiative, a program operating in more than 50 cities that pairs vulnerable people with disabilities and isolated seniors with dedicated professionals who can offer emotional support, access to vital services, and help securing medical care and benefits.

For Shlomo Biton, 76, his caseworker Hila was a “life-saver,” helping him navigate government bureaucracy connected to property taxes, social security, and more.

“I can’t describe the joy and how it fills a man’s heart,” said Biton, who was forced to flee his home in Avivim, a northern Israeli town just 200 meters from the border with Lebanon.

Residents of more than 50 cities have benefited from the initiative, which expanded to hard-hit Bat Yam, Bnei Brak, and Tamra after the June 2025 Iranian missile attacks.

Often, JDC programs help to close critical gaps — developing innovative solutions to complex national challenges that both address individual concerns and effect positive systemic change.

For example, when companies in the North were struggling to recruit employees after the start of the war, JDC developed a framework that both “up-skilled” hundreds of jobseekers struggling to find work due to a lack of experience or skills and placed these local residents directly into roles in fields facing critical shortages.

“If I had encountered their resumés without this program and without the training you gave them, we would have simply moved on — we’d have had nothing to offer them,” said Racheli Avraham, talent acquisition manager at Flex, a global manufacturing and supply chain company in Migdal HaEmek. “Instead, we have 21 new practical engineers, all of them skilled and amazing.”