Seaside museum becomes resilience hub for Israel's war-scarred survivors

On the beach, staff from the Sea Museum greet them quietly. This is not therapy. It is a day designed to help these young men breathe.

The morning begins with free-diving training. Standing on the sand, the commanders learn slow, controlled breathing: how to lower the pulse, how to stop the body from bracing for impact. At first, they laugh awkwardly. But then they close their eyes and inhale together, and something in each of them softens.

One by one, they slip beneath the waves, testing how far their lungs and nerves will carry them. Some emerge grinning; others are shaking. But the shared effort creates something immediate: trust, humor, relief.

The day ends with a circle on the sand. A social worker guides the conversation as the men speak openly about returning to routine after months of reserve service, what motivates them, what pulls them under, how they are coping, and where they are not. It is simple, unforced, deeply human. When they leave Palmahim, returning to families and to real life, they feel lighter than when they arrived.

And with that, the museum’s staff members are reminded again of what they have been learning since October 7: Healing can begin at the water’s edge.

As war raged to the South, school visits to the museum halted. Staff members found themselves questioning their place in a country suddenly full of raw trauma. They took early cues from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which had declared that cultural institutions must take their messages outside traditional walls and “meet the people where they were at.”

Sea Museum teams brought existing educational programs into schools and displacement centers to provide children with routine and content.

But soon, they realized the sea itself was calling them back.

“People come here, and something in them settles,” said social worker and surf instructor Ido Rom, one of the architects of the museum’s new approach. “The water quiets whatever is loud inside.”

Within weeks, the museum began shaping what would become the By the Sea Resilience Center, blending heritage work with movement-based and water-oriented practices. The aim was not to replace clinical services but to create a place where people could reconnect – to themselves, to each other, and to the land and water that shape their identity.

Their support reaches all sectors of Israel’s population who were affected by the war - soldiers with PTSD, bereaved parents and siblings, teens from devastated Gaza border kibbutzim, Supernova survivors, and freed hostages, to name just a few.

There is no bureaucracy, no criteria. Activities are designed according to need. The support is neither loud nor large-scale, but it is steady. And in the words of several participants, it is “a lifeline.”

What emerged was not a formula but a rhythm.

For participants in the activities, most days begin inside the museum, grounding them in centuries of human survival along this coastline – ancient pottery, shipwreck fragments, letters etched by early settlers, stories of communities rebuilt after devastation.

“It surprised us,” said curator Hilla Stern. “We were worried that the history part might feel heavy for people in shock or grief. But instead, they found orientation in it. Continuity is stabilizing.”

From there, the participants move to the water. Some free-dive, like the artillery commanders. Others surf, kayak, or simply walk along the shoreline. What matters is the combination: controlled breathing, physical movement, and the sensation of being held lightly by the waves.

“You see someone come in tense, barely talking, and by noon the body language changes,” Ido said. “It is not magic. It is nature doing what it has always done.”

Musician Omri Glickman arrived and began to play. Evyatar quietly picked up a guitar and joined him. One mother later described watching her freed son “open up like a flower.”

There were others.

Bereaved parents who began volunteering with at-risk youth after finding unexpected meaning in the sea-based activities. Teenagers from a destroyed kibbutz who reunited after months of displacement to build a raft and take it into the water. Bereaved mothers of those murdered at the Supernova music festival who screamed into the waves, then surrendered themselves to the buoyancy of the sea.

The resilience center is powered by a partnership few could have imagined before the war.

Since October 7, SPIHS, with the support of Jewish National Fund - USA, has been running a Resilience Program which funds activities such as these across the country.

The Ziv Neurim Association leads sea-based experiential activities, gently pushing participants beyond their comfort zones. The Derech Institute facilitates post-activity dialogue: what helped, what hurt, what surprised them, what still sits heavy. Museum educators and heritage specialists frame the entire experience within the long arc of Jewish history along the coastline.

Sea Museum manager Noga Efraim often reminds her team that this is not a departure from their mission but an expansion. “Heritage gives people a sense of responsibility and belonging,” she said. “Palmahim is part of that story – and so are we.”

Ofri Neuyer, CEO of Bet Miriam, which oversees the Sea Museum, described the emotional load as both real and meaningful. She recalled a movement workshop led by a visiting dancer, where bereaved mothers moved as if carried by the current. The dancer ended the session sobbing in Ido Rom’s arms.

“There are days when the grief is overwhelming,” Neuyer said. “But we are grateful to be doing something that meets people where they are.”■