“If they can do it, so can we.”
That was the message Glenn Cohen delivered speaking at a Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces benefit dinner April 28 at Green Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill. If the 147 hostages released from Hamas captivity can recover from the unimaginable trauma and anguish they had to endure and go on with their lives, then so can the rest of us whose issues can’t possibly resemble anything close to that.
And he should know, being a clinical psychologist and debrief team leader, meaning he’s the first person those hostages meet with upon their release.
“I met 147 as they came out and was struck by their incredible resilience,” said Cohen, a New Yorker who moved to Israel after high school, where he became an air force pilot and served 30 years in the Mossad as a training officer and chief psychologist. “We can draw inspiration from their coping skills. To this day, I train our top commandos in POW training. What’s surprised me is the civilians. The 80-year-old ladies and 10-year-old boys did almost the exact same thing we teach our commandos. That means we all have this inherent resilience and ability to cope. We can also apply that to whatever challenge or trauma we encounter. They’re Jewish civilians just like we are, and we all have the same collective consciousness of Jewish people as a people who’ve known how to survive for thousands of years.”
Yet, he confesses, hearing their heartbreaking stories has impacted him.
“You have to just focus on the mission,” he said. “But every once in a while, allow yourself — you know they talk about a power nap going a long way — well, I came up with the term ‘power cry.’ Every once in a while, I let off some emotional steam.”
Cohen went into great detail during his speech, the conclusion of Green Valley’s “Golf and Game Day” event, which raised over $100,000 for the FIDF. FIDF’s motto has been, “Their job is to protect Israel. Our job is to protect them.”
Among the topics he touched upon was how the hostages learned that, as horrible as they could’ve imagined it, captivity was still better than death, and their captors weren’t “monsters.” They were human beings like themselves who sometimes could be persuaded to do positive things.
He refers to those as “small wins,” which are often accomplished through what he calls “E.Q.”
“One of my conclusions is that your E.Q., your emotional intelligence, is much more important than your I.Q.,” said Cohen. “People with emotional intelligence but average I.Q. get further in life than those with high I.Q. and no emotional intelligence. And that’s in every walk of life, business, even captivity. I tell my commandos, ‘Captivity is a traumatic interpersonal situation.’ A lot of people find it hard to wrap their minds around that. ‘What do you mean interpersonal? Hamas, they’re animals.’ But once you realize there’s a person there, that means that you can influence them. I call that captivity bonding reaction. I want to reframe it in a positive way to say, for the people who bonded with their captors, that’s a healthy survival method. Instead of seeing the captor as a demon, see him as a person who may help you.”
At the same time, he stressed that being held hostage was an unimaginable experience for them all.
“The fact is that, what they went through in captivity is hell,” said Cohen, who was in the midst of a weeklong speaking tour and is writing a book about his experiences. “It’s terrible. Every single hostage went through some type of abuse, whether it be psychological, sexual, physical. But 147 of them went to hell and came back to tell the tale. And not a single one of them will say they would’ve been better off dead. So let’s give them credit. Don’t look at them as victims. Don’t pity them. Look at them as survivors who have strength and coping abilities and believe that ability will allow them to continue to grow.”
Part of that coping ability, though, came from knowing how much the outside world cared.
“One of the other things that helped the hostages cope is the sense of togetherness and to know that they’re not alone,” he said. “Even in the deep dark tunnels, they saw the news and they knew that they weren’t alone; that people around the world were rallying for them, and that gave them a lot of strength. Therefore we need to continue to rally for them and be united as a Jewish community.”
We must remain united because, as Cohen reluctantly pointed out, antisemitism isn’t going anywhere.
“The 7th of October was a huge wake-up call for all of us,” he said. “In a way, it was a gift to make us understand we’re going to be fighting for a long, long time. They want to destroy us. They’re not deterred, and they don’t want peace with us. So, you need to realize antisemitism is not back. It was always here. And no matter what we do, the world is going to be against us.”
Hearing that struck IDF reserve soldier Dveer Ofar.
“I think there’s a lot of misinformation going around,” said Ofar, who’s here studying for his MBA at the Wharton School. “We need to do a better job speaking to the right people, explaining our situation. People have been attacking Israel for years, so we need to try to gain more political and military power so the world can’t dismiss the Jews. But seeing the support the IDF gets here gives me hope.”
Jon Marks is a Philadelphia-area freelance writer.
