What Two Hebrew Words Reveal About Israeli Democracy
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For years, I hid my mental health struggles out of fear and shame. Today, I share them publicly and find compassion and understanding. As a community, we must address the mental health crisis.
As a teenager in a vibrant Jewish community, I showed up to shul, joined in celebrations, and kept up appearances. But beneath the surface, I was unraveling. At 15, I was diagnosed with depression and prescribed Prozac. By 17, I was sitting across from my first psychiatrist, who labeled me bipolar within minutes. It felt like a secret I had to carry alone—despite being surrounded by people who cared.
In Judaism, we hold sacred the values of truth and the infinite worth of every human soul. These are not just lofty ideals; they are urgent calls to action, especially during May, Mental Health Awareness Month. Today, those values demand that we face a painful reality: there is a mental health crisis sweeping through the Western world, and it’s not sparing our Jewish communities. It’s here, among us, hiding in plain sight—just like I once was.
I spent two decades on a rollercoaster of psychiatric treatments, including seven hospitalizations. With God’s help, I was able to function enough to live an observably “normal” life: marriage, four children, and a steady career for part of this time. I moved to Israel where I established a beautiful life.
Over these years, I diligently adhered to medical advice, believing compliance with psychiatrists would bring about my healing. Yet, after my seventh hospitalization in 2022, I came to the chilling realization that conventional treatment was not working for me. I was dubbed “treatment resistant,” but through extensive research I discovered that this was not the full story. That summer of 2022, at 41 years old, a mother of four, an immigrant living in Israel, I knew I had to reclaim my life—not just for myself, but to fulfill my responsibilities to God, family, and community.
As I began my search for truth and my quest for vitality, I also started sharing parts of my mental health story publicly in blogs, podcast episodes, and at conferences. I was warned by well-meaning mentors that by exposing my story I’d also be risking my reputation for the rest of my life. But because of the severity of the struggles I was hearing about, specifically in the Jewish community, I made the conscious and whole-hearted decision to be radically honest with myself and with the world.
I’ve received messages, on a near daily basis, from Jews around the world who relate to my story or who are in need of better help. It has only increased since October 7.
I am constantly taken aback by the gravity of what people share with me: children contemplating and committing suicide, self-harm, severe depression, anxiety, drug addictions – even among highly functioning community leaders – that are hidden for years, and a mountain of side effects from prescription drugs, not to mention the weight of shame that can come along with all of this.
People trust me because I’ve come out with my story, but most of them don’t share their stories publicly or even with their social circles. For years I, too, was afraid to speak out. But as I’ve learned that mental health symptoms reflect unmet needs (physiological, psychological, social, spiritual, or environmental), I’ve realized that this was never about something being “wrong” with me, but rather indicative of the circumstances that I and so many have been subjected to.
We are in the midst of a global mental health epidemic, in which suicide is the second leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 44. Even higher than the number of suicides is the number of deaths at the hands of addiction, to both illegal and increasingly to legal, prescription drugs. Most people are, or will be, eligible for a mental health diagnosis, according to new data from the World Health Organization.
The Jewish community is not immune to this. Compounding our current risk factors, we are in a vulnerable moment. Right now, Jews in Israel are collectively traumatized from October 7 and the ongoing war, and Jews around the globe are dealing with the traumas of rising rates of antisemitic violence and discrimination.
A 2022 study of 4,000 people conducted by the Institute of Jewish Policy Research found that 55% of Jewish people under the age of 25 reported negative mental health symptoms, trauma, or distress in the three months prior to being surveyed. Across all ages, 26% reported similar challenges with mental health, highlighting a significant concern, especially among the younger generation of Jews.
In 2024, looking at the mental health impact of October 7th and the ongoing war, a study published in the Lancet found that rates of PTSD, depression, and anxiety among Israelis doubled as a result of the war.
Beyond the statistics, there’s a hidden layer to this crisis within our communities, varying in degrees of secrecy, where far too many people are hiding their mental health challenges out of fear of ostracism.
As science is advancing, we’re understanding more and more that mental health challenges can be circumstantial in nature. Exposure to trauma, chronic stress, poor diet, sleep disturbances, and substance use (illegal, legal, and even some prescriptions) can increase risk factors for developing mental health symptoms.
Even for Jews who are physically removed from the war in Israel or antisemitic incidents are still at risk for exposure trauma. One scroll through Instagram at the breakfast table can be enough to set the nervous system off for rest of the day and beyond. The emotional effects of looking at photos and videos can be traumatic in and of themselves, and have even been linked in adolescents to both PTSD and depressive symptoms.
Dr. Victor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and wrote Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote: “An abnormal response to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” During a time that feels abnormal, to put it mildly, we can heed to Dr. Frankl’s words.
Experiencing a full range of human emotions and ‘abnormal’ behaviors through difficult times does not reveal disordered people, but rather disordered circumstances that are creating increased levels of need and care for everyone affected.
One way that we can begin coping with all of this as a community is through awareness. By understanding potential risk factors for mental health symptoms, we can contextualize the struggles that so many are facing. Through developing a broader understanding of what’s causing our current crisis, we can ensure that our communities offer support and not shame.
My own experience in sharing my struggles with Jews across several communities has been incredibly positive, far more than I ever anticipated. While I initially feared being met with judgment or ostracism, I ultimately found people extending their compassion as well as relating with my story far more than I anticipated.
Any time I was unwell, my communities both in the United States and in Israel stepped up with meals and visits, without ever inquiring as to the details of my circumstances. In more recent years as I shared those details, people still showed up – with acceptance, and to my surprise, often very much able to relate.
The hardest part of my struggle over the years was keeping it a secret from my friends and community. Now, in being open, I hear from people who are dealing or who have dealt with mental health challenges, proving to me that the numbers we’re seeing are real, and that a community focused solution is in order.
Addressing the mental health of our communities is at the core of ensuring our resilience in generations to come.
Research consistently demonstrates that environments prioritizing psychological safety, where people feel accepted, understood, and included, will foster more positive health outcomes, stronger relationships, healthier community members. When leaders normalize informed conversations about mental health, this empowers people to receive and to offer the support they need without unnecessarily suffering through shame or fear of isolation.
This doesn’t require massive overhauls, and it can be done with the cultural sensitivities of each particular community within the ‘big tent’ of our global Jewish community. It begins with acknowledging that mental health struggles are normal responses to the abnormal situations we’re dealing with. It continues by responding with compassion, and offering others the benefit of the doubt; our core Jewish principle of dan l’chaf zechut, judging someone favorably.
In having the openness and honesty to address the ongoing global mental health epidemic affecting our communities, we can honor the sacred Jewish principle: "Whoever saves a single life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world." (Mishnah Sanhedrin, 4:5).
A person's emotional health is just as important as their physical health, sometimes your emotional health cones out in your but and have stomach issues, also people emotional eat, from things in their life that is not going good
And if you are about to ask me if I considered therapy: ironically therapists damaged me further. Was forced into therapy in high school for not talking much. My parents were already abusive to me, hitting me and screaming at me. Life outside the home was also very cruel. Friendless. So now I had to deal with the subjective nature of talking. So my parents punished me when what I said was not to their liking. Or if I did not talk enough. I learned a lot of the wrong things and nearly got fired for saying the wrong things at work out of just wanting to be "social." Wanted to commit suicide while pregnant since I could not do anything right but I managed to save myself from being fired.
How I put most of my life together was by doing the exact opposite of what was forced on me in therapy. I now just have some deep resentment.
The issue I have is that it seems in the religious world we are expected to rise above our trauma. We get victim blamed for expressing our pain. We get victim blamed for not succeeding in "pulling ourselves by the bootstraps." We get bashed for saying we were hurt by our parents, by others etc. because we are told we cannot keep on blaming them, we have to overcome our burden.
Articles about saying how emotional pain is comparable to physical pain sounds nice but in real life no one really believes this. If a parent physically harmed a child, whether accidentally or on purpose, such as the child loses a limb, no one expects the child to regrow the limb, no one expects the child to regrow the limb back like an octopus. But someone who suffers mentally, we are expected to 100% heal as if the abuse never happened.
Aish dot com even has some articles here that state that no one can hurt your feelings without your permission. Nobody hurt your feelings. You choose to be offended. And they use "shall not covet" as proof we can control our feelings, conveniently ignoring the literal halacha of Onat Devarim (hurting with words) Absolutely disgusting.
Thanks. The Torah does seem to care about emotional health.
Yaakov was punished for causing Eisav to have a "loud and bitter cry" which led to the whole story of Purim and Mordechai having the "loud and bitter cry."
Yonah got depressed about his mission since idol worshippers repenting would look bad on the Jews and then he got depressed about the gourd tree dying. Yonah was not accused of not having enough Bitachon but Hashem himself seemed to help Yonah recover from the sadness slowly and helping Yonah understand that Hashem also cares about the nation of Ninveh.
Not to mention the Book of Job that Job's friends were in the wrong for rationalizing why Job got pain in his life.
So what happened in contemporary Jewish Society?
Wonderful!
Thank you for writing such an important article and for stepping up to open up this extremely important conversation. The shame (shanda) issue is needlessly taking lives. This article please God will save many.
Kol hakavod.
I really relate. I used to be so private about my struggle with OCD, but now I'm very open about my story and have shared it publicly. I also co-founded an organization called Lebainu Support so that no other teenage girl has to do mental illness alone.
Great article. One major conversation that's missing is about child sexual abuse. And yes, this happens in Jewish communities. It is still taboo to talk about it. But the ramifications from untreated trauma from SA leads to all kinds of problems -- addiction and mental illness especially when victims are silenced, shamed, not believed or receive any kind of family support.
I’m glad you mentioned this because that’s what I was thinking as I read this. I know so many women personally who are still trying to cope with trauma from SA as children and I can see their adult lives often unraveling. It’s heartbreaking and is happening at a much higher rate than people might think.
Unfortunately the men/boys are usually protected and the women who speak out are silenced and shunned from the community, like you mentioned.
As Father of a son now 35 who has had multiple stays in hospital and now lives in 24 hour Supported accommodation, I reflect the problem started with taking cannabis is israel
There are no warnings that 5% of people are left with a permanent psychosis after taking cannabis.
According to people that took LSD they say they had a bad trip, I never take anything like that but I heard since that experience they still have flashbacks of that experience, so in a nutshell the stuff your son took was not only pure cannabis, there was something stronger than that in his cannabis, it is so sad it happened to your son while in Israel
I’ve said years ago that we need to be as zealous about our mental health as we are about our dental health. Putting mental healthcare into the routine “basket” offered by clinics will help.
EDIT is TIDE backwards
This story has me thinking about how we can all change our lives for the better, now.
Perhaps if we try to EDIT some of the things we say and do, we can turn the TIDE,
in some aspects of our lives.
It occurs to me that in school, and in work, and in general, we are expected to know
exactly what to say and do. But that is nonsense. And perhaps, we can make some
EDITS, some corrections, now or at some time in the future.
(I look forward to reading the book. Hatzlacha Raba and THANKS MUCH)