![\"Ephraim](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_9211.JPG\")
Ephraim Shwartz (left), Gideon Igra and Tal Atzmon at Wizo\u2019s Beit Hakerem headquarters in Jerusalem[Missing Credit] <\/p>\nIn January, the IDF reported a nearly 40 per cent increase in PTSD cases among\u00a0soldiers since September 2023 and predicts the figure will increase by 180 per cent by 2028. Of the 22,300 personnel being treated for war wounds, 60 per cent suffer from post-trauma, the ministry says.<\/p>\n
Wizo, Israel\u2019s largest social welfare organisation, found one in 10 men in Israel had witnessed physical violence by another man towards a partner or child and nearly 70 per cent say the security situation has increased their stress.<\/p>\n
The organisation\u2019s work combatting domestic violence means that supporting men is part of its work protecting women and families, and breaking that cycle of violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more we invest in prevention, the less we will need to deal with the consequences,\u201d said Michael Orion-Sagi, Wizo\u2019s director of emergency services, treatment and rehabilitation, when she gave the JC a tour of one of its shelters that supports mothers and children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that men are not born violent, they become violent. So we offer therapy or treatment for men and invite them to deal with the problem. If he stays the same as he was, the next relationship will be the same,\u201d Orion-Sagi said.<\/p>\n
A Father is Born is\u00a0an\u00a0eight-week, facilitated group programme that helps new fathers and military reservists balance active duty with early parenthood and family life.<\/p>\n
At Wizo\u2019s Beit Hakerem headquarters in Jerusalem, the JC sat down with men attending the programme.<\/p>\n
One of them was Shwartz, who\u00a0described the impact of the war on his family.<\/p>\n
Ephraim Shwartz (left), Gideon Igra and Tal Atzmon at Wizo\u2019s Beit Hakerem headquarters in Jerusalem[Missing Credit] <\/p>\n
\u201cOn October 7 I said goodbye to my nine-month pregnant wife and two children, not knowing what I was going into. I was very disconnected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He has alternated between months of fighting and periods at home, with his longest deployment lasting six months. His fourth child, a daughter, arrived a week before the 12-Day War.<\/p>\n
Like many men, he struggled with anger issues when he returned home. \u201cI felt like I had to remove myself [from some situations] because I was not able to control my anger.\u201d<\/p>\n
He realised he needed \u201csome sort of therapy to understand what is going on\u201d and his wife sent him the details of Wizo\u2019s programme \u2013 that\u2019s often how the men find out about A Father is Born.<\/p>\n
Tal Atzmon, 45, also struggled with anger, and\u00a0said it was\u00a0easier to speak about this with men from A Father is Born\u00a0than with friends, family or men from his unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them will always be in a mood of showing off. I feel safer to talk about difficult issues with people that I do not know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Atzmon, an architect, served as a reservist in an Israeli prison which housed some of the perpetrators of the October 7 attacks. Unlike a soldier on the front line, he could return home most nights. But coming back to his three children, he struggled to leave the demands of his work behind.<\/p>\n
![\"Tal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_9213.jpg\")
Tal Atzmon[Missing Credit] <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was difficult for me, [my children] did not brush their teeth as I taught them. An hour ago, I was in a jail of Palestinian prisoners, now I am with my children, seven and four years old, how come they don\u2019t know how to brush their teeth? I couldn\u2019t bear it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing on the base is a lot easier that being off base,\u201d he said, and sometimes he asked if he could stay the night on duty.<\/p>\n
The journey between prison and home was short, but the emotional adjustment took much longer, with ordinary challenges of parenting provoking\u00a0out-of-proportion reactions.\u00a0Soon, Atzmon realised that his children had become afraid of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t just go back to your life, your office, your family, when you are so emotionally charged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and no longer serves.<\/p>\n
Therapy, as well as A Father is Born, has helped Atzmon learn how to recognise the point at which anger begins to build and confront it. Now, when he feels that wave, he has an opportunity to choose: \u201cWhether you\u2019re going to yell or scream, or breathe deeply, listen to music, wash your face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gideon Igra, 43, a social worker, reservist and father of two, facilitates A Father Is Born. Even without war, he says, becoming a parent can unsettle a family.<\/p>\n
![\"Social](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_9214.jpg\")
Social worker and reservist Gideon Igra is spearheading Wizo’s efforts to address men’s mental health[Missing Credit] <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a child is born, it is a blessing and gift. But it\u2019s also a crisis for the family and the relationship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our generation, a lot of men want to be different from their dads, but they do not have a role model. When we combine this with the war, it is a really hard transition.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Itiel, 26, fatherhood and military service are\u00a0connected. Both of his children were born since the war began and he has completed more than 300 days of reserve duty in that period.<\/p>\n
Serving, for him, is part of his decision to protect and defend his family, but it has meant spending months of time away from them.<\/p>\n
He was home from the front line for the birth of his first child, but moments after labour, he learnt that a comrade in his battalion had been killed. \u201cThat moment I realised, I had to go back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Taking away a printed photograph of his new baby, he returned to the army that day and stayed away for two months, warning his wife that he might not make it home.<\/p>\n
For Itiel, sitting with five or six other men who have been through the same thing has helped him make sense of his experience. \u201cIn the army, we don\u2019t always have time to sit and support each other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Like Shwartz, he said that while his family continued to grow and change, his life paused when he was called up on October 7.<\/p>\n
While one in five combat soldiers and 17 per cent of reservists in Israel are now women, in many families men have been away fighting while women have managed the home and, by the time fathers return, routines and relationships have changed.<\/p>\n
Itiel\u00a0said: \u201cBefore the war, we were a young couple with no kids.\u201d Six rounds of reserve duty later, they have two children, and his wife has built a home life while he has been away fighting.<\/p>\n
Each time he returns, the couple rebuild their relationship. \u201cWe rebuild trust,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the time they were away, the house just found a new status quo without them, so the reintegration is very hard. In military and reserve service, the mission is clear; your duty is certain,\u201d Igra explained.<\/p>\n
At home, the task is less straightforward. \u201cIs the mission for the kids to go to bed by 8:30? Or maybe the mission is to be a role model for how to be a man in the world? Things are more vague.\u201d<\/p>\n
The danger, Igra said, was\u00a0that fathers struggled alone and, in some cases, the consequences were violent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is hard to regulate all the emotions, the intensity. Lots of fathers report more anger. When I say domestic violence, let’s not only look at the extreme of physical violence, but also shouting, yelling, cursing,\u201d Igra said.<\/p>\n
Joining the group is a decision to take responsibility for those emotions. \u201cIt is the intervention, the choice we made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The first step is to talk openly. Before the war, he said, Israel, like much of the West, had made real progress in breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health. For some, the war has stalled that progress.<\/p>\n
Atzmon\u2019s willingness to discuss his PTSD was\u00a0\u201csomething that was very uncommon a couple of years ago\u201d, Igra said. Speaking up creates an opportunity to seek support before difficulties become entrenched.<\/p>\n
Atzmon\u2019s symptoms were still relatively recent, Igra explained, and \u201cclinically speaking, the sooner one faces the issue, the better the chances of getting better and develop a coping mechanism\u201d.<\/p>\n
The dangers of leaving trauma unaddressed are clear for all of the men.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of cases of suicide,\u201d Shwartz says, citing a recent high profile death of a reservist.<\/p>\n
An Israeli parliamentary committee found in October 2025 that 279 soldiers had attempted suicide in the period from January 2024 to July 2025, a steep increase on previous years. The report found that combat soldiers comprised 78 per cent of all suicide cases in Israel in 2024.<\/p>\n
Alongside the fathers\u2019 groups, Wizo runs a men\u2019s helpline offering emotional support to those dealing with violent thoughts. It is believed to be the only such line that takes calls from men teetering on the edge of being abusive.<\/p>\n
Tzahi Harahi, the helpline\u2019s media manager, explained:\u00a0\u201cYou cannot change the world like Wizo wants by helping only the women, you need to help the men too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thousands of men of different ages get in touch each year, as do their mothers and partners, for anonymous support without stigma. \u201cEvery call and email is so important, because we know that it could be their last hope,\u201d Harahi said.<\/p>\n
Harahi has encountered hostility from some men. He monitors online comments and some are negative. Then there are the\u00a0so-called \u201cmen\u2019s rights\u201d groups who are suspicious of a women\u2019s organisation helping men.<\/p>\n
But Harahi \u2013 who also creates online resources on male mental health \u2013 wants to persuade them that the line can help. It is staffed by men and Harahi himself draws on his own experiences of divorce and military service.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am also divorced, and I was a soldier 20 or 30 years ago. Now I am just a man in Israel dealing with the effect of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harahi believes the war has made people more willing to discuss mental health because so many are worried about their relatives. But the need for help can be urgent: the line also supports men at risk of suicide.<\/p>\n
Its helping to fill what some believe to be a gab in the state\u2019s provision. Soldiers and reservists have reported a shortage of mental health officers, and have noted that debriefings after combat are often too brief or non-existent.<\/p>\n
For Shwartz, who works in finance, the support from Wizo has been invaluable, but he thinks the army, which offers limited psychological support sessions for soldiers, should do more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re the ones risking our lives going off to war. Now I have to find out what the new normal is,\u201d Shwartz said.<\/p>\n
As the war enters its fourth year, that\u2019s a new normal that all of Israel must\u00a0contend with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In January, the IDF reported a nearly 40 per cent increase in PTSD cases among\u00a0soldiers since September 2023…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1031,85,46,77098,43,288237],"class_list":["post-638813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-idf","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mens-mental-health","tag-news","tag-wizo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}