After a Hezbollah missile struck a soccer field in Majdal Al Shams, massacring 12 Druze children, the villagers of Majdal Al Shams are in desperate need of therapy, which prompted Rania Dean, a prominent Druze activist in the United States, to work with the nonprofit group Maman to start a fundraiser to help the people of the village to get therapy. Rafiq, a manager of a school in Majdal Al Shams, stated in the webinar that his school did an evaluation after the missile attack and found that 55 children in his school suffer from severe PTSD, while 80 suffer from moderate PTSD: “We need to provide treatment in every school. We work with the psychological department of the Ministry of Education.”
To donate, visit Trauma Therapy for Druze of Majdal Shams.
However, Dean noted that the bureaucracy is a big issue in Israel and for this reason is working privately to provide for the psychological needs of the villagers of Majdal Al Shams: “We are focused on providing mental health support to the victims’ families and survivors of the recent Majdal Al Shams kids massacre, carried out by Hezbollah. In the wake of the October 7 crisis, despite their own challenges, the residents of Majdal Al Shams showed remarkable solidarity by sending trucks and trailers full of food and supplies to support those in the southern region of Israel, including the Gaza vicinity. Now, it is our turn to reciprocate their generosity and aid them in their time of need.”
She added: “The massacre has caused severe emotional and psychological trauma for the community. Many families are in urgent need of mental health support, including counseling and therapy. As a small minority community, the Druze in Majdal Al Shams have limited support networks compared to other affected regions.”
Mendi Safadi, a prominent Israeli Druze diplomat, noted that only 10% of the psychological help that was promised arrived in the village. Safadi added: “This is the village where I was born and grew up. This is the soccer field where I played in my childhood years. These are the children whose parents and their families I studied with and today I hurt with them every moment. Majdal Shams today lost the peace that characterizes her and this adversely affects my family.” He stressed: “We united after the tragedy in Majdal Shams to respond to the needs of the children of the village and their families for the trauma that befell them, and we decided to launch an initiative to strengthen the existing teams so that we could respond to the therapeutic needs necessary after a trauma of this magnitude, and we need the people of Israel and the Jewish communities in the world to mobilize and contribute to help the children of Majdal Shams.”
According to Safadi, “The target audience that needs treatment is divided into more than one circle. There are the dead and their immediate families, there are the physically injured and their immediate families, there are all the other children who were on the field at the time of the impact and were not injured (those affected by direct trauma) and their parents, there are the people who come to the scene of the incident immediately after the explosion and were exposed to the harsh sights, and to all this, we will add the flexible circles because we are talking about a village with a unique community/family way of life, which has never experienced a disaster of this magnitude or even half of it.”
Safadi’s wife Tania is an art therapist, who provided treatment to the children who survived the Dolphinarium suicide bombing during the Second Intifada. She is now providing treatment to 100 children in the Gaza envelope: “They went through a lot of tragedy. Therapy through art is the best way to treat children who experienced trauma.” She highly recommends this kind of therapy to the children in Majdal Al Shams.
Sara Raoof Jacobs, who heads Maman, stated in an interview how her organization can help the Druze children of Majdal Al Shams: “We are providing trauma relief. We recognize that they have gone through a crazy trauma and the municipality is not able to attend to everyone. Because we are a small non-profit, we can move quickly. Mostly everybody is a volunteer. I am a volunteer. Everything is led by volunteers, with heart and passion. We don’t have the red tape and we were able to start right away. We have been providing therapy to the kibbutzim near Gaza, at the Dead Sea hotels with AMEN. We provided therapy for Nova survivors and wives of soldiers. We brought 120 Nova survivors to LA. We had two or three injured soldier delegations. We brought over teens from the Gaza envelope. We are bringing a former hostage over soon as well. And now we are moving into Majdal Al Shams.”
According to her, “We have now found four Arabic-speaking therapists and one Hebrew-speaking therapist. When your heart is in the right place and there are no ulterior motives, God comes in and makes things happen.” Nechama Langer, a psycho-therapist, added: “Basically, I have been supporting the survivors of October 7 since the second week of the war. With the support of Maman, I have been asked to be the liaison to support Majdal Al Shams. I have been looking for therapists who speak Arabic and can go to Majdal Al Shams once per week.” And recently, her efforts have borne fruit.
She added: “I am speaking with the people to understand the needs of the population and to learn how the community is being supported, and what still needs to be done. Mary has been volunteering there and she is going to help me to get to community members that want support. I look forward to having this opportunity. I have been using meditative therapy. The body silently speaks to us and helps clients to issue their own intervention and be their own inner healing. That is what I am hoping to do with Majdal Al Shams and wherever I am called to.”
