Before the October 7 attacks, Omer Rafaeli taught psychology and civics at the only high school in the Gaza envelope, and as the massacres unfolded, the father of three sheltered in his safe room, watching his phone “buzz nonstop” with messages from terrified teenagers.

“The texts poured in — ‘My house is on fire,’ ‘Omer, help me’ — and after that, silence. I lost five young people I cared about very much,” he said.

When a student is murdered or kidnapped, you’re not given a roadmap for how to mourn them. You’re supposed to return to class and prepare for matriculation exams — this isn’t just hard to do, but impossible.”

Omer Rafaeli

JDC Employment Initiative Participant

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.

Shlomo Biton, right, meets with his JDC community caseworker.

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.

She takes care of me the same way my daughter does — from her soul.”

Shlomo Biton

Israeli Evacuee

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.”

There are no words to describe the success of this program and JDC’s contribution to Israeli industry.”

Racheli Avraham

Talent Acquisition Manager, Flex

A JDC-trained engineer shows his work in northern Israel.

But even when programs have a national scale — like the suite of JDC-vetted digital mental health resources that have reached more than 200,000 Israelis — their impact is perhaps felt most deeply by everyday people in need.

Galit Gurevich, a Hadera mother of two whose husband’s multiple deployments to Gaza led her to experience panic attacks and depression, said she’s come to depend on Dugri, an anonymized peer-to-peer support group app that “gives me peace.”

“These initiatives, without exaggerating, are saving families,” she said. “It’s priceless. JDC is doing truly holy work.”

digital mental-health resources

Forging a Resilient Future for the Hardest-Hit Israelis