Hosen

Resilience concerns how a system responds to severe threat or damage, rather than whether it can remain unaffected by pressure.[2] The concept applies at several scales: an individual, organization, group, community, infrastructure network, or economic system can demonstrate resilience through flexible adaptation, containment of damage, and recovery toward normal functioning.[2] In this understanding, a temporary decline in activity does not by itself indicate the absence of resilience; the capacity to respond and recover is central.[2]

A 2009 conceptual framework defined successful passage through crisis in terms of adapting to changed conditions, minimizing casualties, maintaining a basic standard of living, and preserving core values and identity.[1] It distinguished resilience from “resistance,” understood as responding to pressure without internal change.[1] A later formulation, published in December 2023, combined reasonable functional continuity during disruption with rapid recovery, or “bouncing back,” and the possibility of reaching a higher level of functioning, or “bouncing forward,” while retaining basic identity and values.[3]

The introduction of the resilience concept into Israeli professional practice has been traced to the 1980s, when professionals in northern Israel recognized that terrorist attacks could continue despite extensive preventive measures.[4] Early responses helped individuals and communities cope with heightened risk through therapy and strategies that fostered togetherness.[4] This work, alongside subsequent studies, contributed to a broader systemic approach to human-made and natural disruptions, with community programs using social capital to strengthen resilience.[4]

The term became widely used in Israeli media and political discourse during the period beginning with the Second Intifada of 2000–2004.[2] This usage drew on the English concept of resilience, which became prominent in public discourse in the United States and elsewhere after the September 11 attacks.[2] Academic and professional definitions nevertheless distinguished resilience from the looser language of immunity, toughness, or fortitude.[2]

Institutional work on home-front resilience expanded through trauma-care and preparedness networks.[1] The Israel Trauma Coalition, founded in 2001 at the initiative of the UJA Federation of New York City, was described in the 2009 framework as representing 50 community-based organizations providing trauma-related care and preparedness training.[1] Work on the framework brought together the coalition and the Reut Institute, whose attention to resilience followed an assessment of the home front as a weakness in Israeli national security after the Second Lebanon War.[1] A preliminary version was adopted by a government committee in November 2008, and the collaboration producing the framework was initiated by UJA in December 2008.[1]

The proposed “Civil Resilience Network” organized preparedness around individuals, households, businesses, organizations, and other social units capable of acting independently or together during a crisis.[1] It was intended to operate alongside emergency authorities, not replace them.[1] Its accompanying “culture of preparedness” consisted of values, priorities, behaviors, and habits that help people cope with disruption.[1]

The framework divided crisis management into four stages: preparedness before a crisis; an immediate response covering approximately the first 24–48 hours; a crisis routine lasting days, weeks, months, or years; and “the day after,” involving debriefing, repair, and reconstruction.[1] During a prolonged crisis, continued functioning by public institutions, businesses, and nonprofit organizations, together with civil-society mobilization, was treated as especially important.[1]

National resilience was understood as developing from resilient individuals, households, communities, businesses, and organizations, together with capable public institutions, leadership, and a shared sense of purpose.[1] Its foundations included preparedness and realistic expectations, solidarity and conduct, purpose, and leadership.[1] The 2009 framework used social-service networks and connections among communities around the Gaza Strip as examples of local resilience, identifying Gvanim in Sderot and resilience centers in Sderot and the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council.[1] Its assessment at that time was that some communities had become stronger through their responses to years of living under fire.[1]

A 2015 study examined social resilience in the Eshkol and Sha’ar Hanegev regional councils during and after Operation Protective Edge in 2014, drawing on interviews with council employees and residents and on media reports.[2] It covered evacuation and return, psychosocial services, education, employment, economic activity, and communication.[2] The Gaza envelope received 2,248 of approximately 4,500 rocket and mortar attacks launched against Israel during the operation; a separate dataset used in the study recorded approximately 1,600 attacks on localities in the two councils, which also faced offensive-tunnel threats.[2]

The study reported that residents made evacuation decisions without a clear government, IDF, or council directive.[2] Eshkol council head Haim Yellin generally supported those who chose to leave, whereas Sha’ar Hanegev council head Alon Shuster conveyed a message that could be understood as encouraging residents to stay.[2] Many residents left amid frustration at the absence of a government decision, and the study connected that experience with reduced trust in the government and IDF.[2] Almost all evacuees returned promptly after the August 26 cease-fire.[2] Temporary departure in response to danger, followed by return, was treated as an example of flexible adaptation and recovery.[2]

The study presented Kibbutz Nahal Oz as a particularly sharp case of decline followed by renewal.[2] Before the operation it had approximately 70 households and 330 residents, following years of social and economic difficulty.[2] During the fighting it was hit 269 times, and most members evacuated.[2] Four-year-old Daniel Tragerman was killed after families had returned home, and 17 families subsequently left the kibbutz.[2] After the fighting, Nahal Oz welcomed new families, planned housing expansion, initiated communal and educational activities, and held its first communal Passover Seder since 2000.[2] Renewed belonging, cohesion, shared vision, trusted local leadership, and government funding were identified as contributors to this recovery.[2]

Schools served as a communal anchor and supported functional continuity.[2] On September 1, five days after the cease-fire, 99 percent of students and teachers returned for the new school year.[2] This rapid resumption of education provided an important measure of behavioral recovery, although participation in school trips remained reduced and students continued to need therapeutic support.[2] Approximately 25 percent of children aged 4–18 were estimated to need therapy after Protective Edge, compared with approximately 15 percent after the preceding major round of fighting examined in the study.[2] Treatment needs were expected to continue into the 2015–16 school year.[2]

Economic continuity supplied another measure of recovery.[2] Regional industrial plants continued operating during the fighting, generally at reduced levels, and work resumed fully in most sectors after the cease-fire.[2] No industrial plant in the region closed or relocated during the period examined.[2] Government compensation and a multiyear development plan contributed to recovery and local morale.[2] The councils also used media to distribute safety information, reduce uncertainty, maintain contact with residents, and communicate the continuation of communal life and recovery.[2]

Social cohesion, trust, governance, and leadership are central factors in Israeli applications of hosen, alongside the practical capacity to sustain services and livelihoods.[2][3] A December 19, 2023 analysis also identified the severity and duration of disruption, preparedness, prior resilience, optimism, hope, and social and economic capital as factors shaping recovery.[3] These formulations place community relationships and institutional performance within the same account of resilience as individual coping and material reconstruction.[1][3]

Nine weekly public-opinion surveys conducted after the outbreak of war in 2023 each sampled approximately 500 Jewish adults in Israel.[3] In the eighth survey, 82 percent of respondents said that social solidarity had strengthened.[3] The same analysis also identified low trust in government and disruption to daily routines, illustrating how different indicators of resilience can move in different directions during the same crisis.[3]

Behavioral recovery and psychological recovery need not proceed together: the 2015 study found generally high behavioral resilience in most localities examined, but lower and more complex psychological and communal resilience.[2] A Sha’ar Hanegev survey also found lower resilience indicators among evacuees than among residents who stayed, alongside the broader interpretation of evacuation and return as adaptive responses.[2] Rapid restoration of routine therefore did not mean that therapeutic needs or community difficulties had ended.[2]

The 2023 surveys covered Jewish adults rather than the entire Israeli population, and their positive findings did not establish a stable future trend or determine the eventual level of national resilience after the war.[3] Their mixed indicators supported a time-specific assessment rather than a definitive judgment about long-term recovery.[3]