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It has been suggested that mindfulness training can provide teachers with coping mechanisms and influence their perceptions of self and others. However, how does mindfulness help teachers cope in a stressful security situation both as Israeli citizens who live in a war zone and as teachers who are responsible for their students&rsquo, lives? Fifteen female teachers, who lived and worked in the western Negev and who had completed two-years of mindfulness training, were interviewed. Interviewees reported that their coping skills had been heightened as result of being able to put aside intrusive thoughts and feelings that used to paralyze them and to focus on active coping, centered on what they needed to do promptly. Most also noted a more accepting attitude of themselves, without self-criticism or blame for what they should have or should not have done when facing the stressful situation. In relation to their students, they were more accepting of the behaviors and emotions expressed by their students and reported being more compassionate. The results will be discussed through the prism proposed by Lazarus and Folkman (1991). Educational implications of the outcomes of mindfulness training for those living in areas under the shadow of war will be suggested.

Four female Holocaust survivors were interviewed in order to investigate how they coped prior to the Holocaust, during the Holocaust years, following the end of World War II, and during integration within emerging Jewish society prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Antonovsky’s (1987) concept of sense of coherence (SOC) and thematic analysis were employed. The analysis suggests that their ability to navigate these life-changing circumstances as young women was the result of the elasticity of the SOC components and the meanings ascribed to them, depending on the situations encountered.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the educational discourse around collective narratives, and especially the other's narrative. The study assumed that members of groups entangled in a conflict approach the different modules of the other's narrative distinctively. Jewish and Palestinian teachers, Israeli citizens, answered questionnaires dealing with the narrative of the other, readiness for interethnic contact, negative between-group emotions and preferences for resolutions of the Israeli-Palestinian (I-P) conflict. Positive weighing of the other's narrative among Jewish teachers correlated with high levels of readiness for interethnic contact and low levels of negative between-group emotions, across the various modules of the Palestinian narrative. Preferences for a peaceful resolution of the I-P conflict and rejection of a violent one were noted in two of the modules. Among Palestinian teachers, positive weighing of the other's collective narrative was exclusively noted for the Israeli narrative of the Holocaust, and this stance negatively related to negative between-group emotions and preference for a violent solution of the I-P conflict, and positively related to readiness for interethnic contact and preference of a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Practical implications of these findings for peace education are discussed.

Scholarly attention has been directed to the spread and scope of online Q&A services, including the level of activity, types and messages and the social roles the members of these sites occupy. A content analysis was conducted of the answers supplied in response to questions aimed at identifying the reasons for Holocaust denial in Yahoo! Answers. The replies denoted the existence of two main opposing online socio-cultural roles adopted by these participants: online gatekeepers of history and online gatekeepers of pseudo-history. The activity levels of those filling these roles and the community’s approval of their answers were also assessed. Future avenues of research regarding these two roles are suggested.

The case of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma in the Jewish–Israeli context can serve as an example of how younger members of collectives use the Internet as a platform on which to commemorate a trauma. This study explored their willingness to establish an Internet site for the purpose of commemorating the Holocaust as well as the materials and messages to be included. The results suggest that the younger members of a collective who live in a cultural atmosphere colored by the memory of a cultural trauma view online commemoration as an appropriate base from which to keep its memory alive, that audio-visual materials more so than textual ones are the preferred modes of representation, and that online commemoration is intended to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the trauma by focusing on the personal stories of both those who survived and those who perished.

The paper presents findings obtained from interviews conducted with sixty Israeli grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, discussing their views regarding Israel and Europe as expressed by their intentions to live in Israel and acquire European citizenship. Analysis of the interviews revealed that the majority view Israel as the place in which they choose to live because of family and cultural bonds, as well as from the long-lasting impact of the Holocaust. Others felt less anchored and viewed the opportunity to immigrate to their forefathers’ European homelands more positively. Their reasons were based either on the unstable Israeli security situation, compounded by the anxieties elicited by the memory of the Holocaust, or as a result of perceiving Europe as a gateway to the globalized world and its financial gains. The emerging image of Europe for this third generation vacillates between two poles, each anchored in a different time and cultural frame. The first is the “Europe of the Holocaust”; image which emerged as a result of the events that took place on European soil during the period 1933–1945 together with current anti Semitism. The second is “Europe of the Globalized world”, that is, the Europe of the era beginning in the late 1980s, with its ever-expanding social, cultural and economic boundaries. Moreover, the willingness of the third generation to openly discuss the option of either staying or leaving Israel, represents a significant change in attitude from the first and second generation of Israeli Holocaust survivors. The change is seen, as part of a process of maturation of the Israeli identity which allows for multi voices to be heard on issues of belonging and citizenship.

While Holocaust related activities and educational programs around the world are growing in number, published reports on their impact are scarce, especially on the university level. The free responses of 94 Jewish‐Israeli university students who took the course “Psychology of the Holocaust” yielded eight themes. The results reflect a change of emphasis and movement from a mainly particularistic interpretation of the Holocaust to a more universalistic understanding of the Holocaust. This movement is explained by the occurrence of two reflective processes: situational and universal reflexivity of genocide and reflexivity regarding the personal and collective impact of genocide.

This study assessed how Jewish Israeli young adults perceive the impacts of the Holocaust on themselves, their family and Israel society. The written responses of 180 respondents, 90 of which were grandchildren of Holocaust survivors (GHSs) and 90 which are not grandchildren of survivors (NGHSs), connected the Holocaust with issues of security, education and culture, and the impact, or lack of it, on family and self. These responses also suggest that NGHS relate to the Holocaust only through sociocultural mechanisms and that GHSs are influenced by the same sociocultural mechanisms, yet are also divided by the perceived impact of intergenerational processes on their personal and family lives. The overall results of the study suggest that regardless of family connection to the Holocaust, in Israel there are sociocultural mechanisms at work that impact the perception of the Holocaust on the third generation of Holocaust survivors as a cultural trauma.

The perceptions of home, the significance attached to the home, and the reasons for the decision to continue living at home despite past and potentially future threats were investigated among Jewish Israeli mothers whose homes were exposed to long-term rocket attacks. Findings showed that the mothers expressed a firm attachment to their homes and to their physical and social surroundings and indicated that home attachment, in terms of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connected to home, contributed to the strengthening of their sense of coherence due to the comprehension, management, and the meaning that they accorded the situation. These components of sense of coherence served as assets and coping resources that helped the women handle their stressful situations.

Using the case of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma in the Jewish-Israeli context, some insights are suggested as to the ways younger members of collectives view cultural trauma as a symbolic boundary. The findings obtained from three groups of students, each expressing their views on a different facet of the Holocaust as a symbolic boundary, suggest that the major contributing factor that turns cultural trauma into a symbolic boundary is the way in which members of the collective categorize the modes through which others, within and outside the collective, relate to that cultural trauma.