Gutman, Leslie Morrison;
Landau, Samuel D.;
(2024)
Collective Trauma and Resilience for the Jewish People in the Aftermath of 7th October.
In:
Responses to 7 October: Law and Society.
(pp. 59-67).
Routledge: Abingdon, UK.
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Abstract
For many Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora, 7th October represents the most devastating collective trauma of their lifetime. Collective trauma refers to the psychological distress that an entire group of people experience in response to a shared calamity. Aside from the loss of life and security, collective trauma represents a cataclysmic event that invokes a crisis of meaning. Over time, a collective trauma becomes a collective memory; involving an ongoing reconstruction of the event to understand its significance and reinforce the group's existential purpose for subsequent generations. A modern-day collective trauma for the Jewish people, the Holocaust has attracted more research than any other collective trauma in recent history. For contemporary Jews, the Holocaust is a lens, magnifying an existential threat but also strengthening their collective identity and cohesion. Collective traumatic memories such as the Holocaust provide an important context for understanding the Jewish response to 7th October, evoking transgenerational feelings of insecurity, victimisation and antisemitism as well as being reminders of the collective resilience that encapsulates Jewish history and its teachings. The following chapter considers the potential responses to collective trauma and then postulates a conceptualisation and the mechanisms of collective resilience in the aftermath of 7th October. The chapter concludes with future implications for collective resilience and the pursuit of peace.
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