Naama Bar: Fighting for the Women of the Western Negev

Social worker Naama Bar manages the support services for sexual violence survivors in the Eshkol Regional Council, located in the Gaza border region. She is also pursuing her PhD at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where her research has revealed a devastating truth: many women in the region experience dual trauma — both sexual and security-related.

“The lives of women in the Gaza border region are marked not only by the threat of violence from outside, but often by trauma from within,” Naama explains. “While providing services to sexual assault survivors, I noticed a clear pattern: each time there was an escalation in the security situation, there was a significant rise in requests for help related to past sexual trauma. It became evident that the threat to the home from external violence echoed earlier threats some women experienced in their childhood homes.”

The October 7 terrorist attack, with its unprecedented brutality inflicted on the residents of towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza border, brought these issues into stark relief. The invasion of homes, spaces we assume to be safest, shattered the sense of security for many. Women with a history of sexual assault were especially vulnerable to the psychological aftermath. Reports from sexual violence crisis centers indicated a dramatic rise, by dozens of percentage points, in calls to their hotlines. Many women described being overwhelmed by flashbacks and resurfacing memories of past assaults.

“My curiosity about how people cope with prolonged, violent threat was sparked by living in the Gaza border region,” says Naama. “In my clinical work, I saw that military escalations triggered unresolved trauma for many women, repressed for years but brought to the surface by new threats.”

Naama treats both anxiety disorders stemming from conflict and survivors of sexual violence at a regional resilience center. She began her doctoral research, supervised by Prof. Orna Braun-Lewensohn of the Conflict Management and Resolution Program and Dr. Stav Shapira of the School of Public Health, before the October 7 events. Her research focused on post-traumatic symptoms and protective resilience factors among women exposed to both sexual and ongoing security-related violence.

This work earned her a prestigious 2023 fellowship from the President of the State of Israel, awarded annually to outstanding doctoral students. The fellowship’s topic for 2023 was "Mental Health and Resilience: Theory and Practice." Receiving the award, says Naama, was deeply meaningful. “Winning the Presidential Fellowship reaffirmed, at the highest national level, the importance of this subject.”

Naama’s research entailed an extensive survey, conducted among 568 women across the country, through an online questionnaire. The survey, conducted before October 7, asked about experiences involving different degrees of sexual assault and exposure to military or terror-related violence. The findings were striking: Women who had experienced both types of traumas reported significantly more severe post-traumatic symptoms than those exposed to security-related violence alone.

“‘Double victims’ often describe how conflict-related events brought buried memories of past abuse flooding back,” Naama explains. “This re-traumatization can paradoxically open the door to healing. By confronting the pain they had long tried to avoid, many women found their emotional range expanding, allowing them, at last, to feel positive emotions again.”

One explanation for this process lies in the concept of ‘community resilience’ — a community’s ability to confront, recover from, and even grow in the face of crisis. Previous research has shown that community resilience can serve as a powerful protective factor against developing post-traumatic symptoms.

Naama grew up in Givat Ela in the Jezreel Valley and moved to Tel Aviv in her early twenties to study acting. But the deep psychological exploration required to bring characters to life soon made her realize she was more drawn to understanding people than to performing.

After two years, she left drama school and began a new journey at Ben-Gurion University, earning a BA in social work while performing in a Playback Theatre group — a form of improvisational community theatre she continues to this day. She went on to earn a Master’s in Drama Therapy at the University of Haifa, followed by training in treating sexual trauma, body-mind trauma therapy, and couples and family therapy.

Eventually Naama settled in Kibbutz Magen, offering individual, family, and couples therapy at the regional resilience center and helping to establish and run the Eshkol Council’s unit for survivors of sexual violence.

“Since the war began, I’ve been working with evacuees from the Gaza border region, including women with histories of sexual trauma who also witnessed horrific acts that day,” Naama says. “They are now coping with layered trauma. This makes the relevance of my research, and the need to apply its findings, very obvious.”

It is clear to her that this research will not conclude with a doctoral degree. Her life and work remain deeply rooted in the complex realities of the Gaza border region — and in a relentless commitment to those living with overlapping, often invisible, wounds.

Adapted from an article in issue 144 of Aleph-Bet-Gimmel, the University’s Hebrew language magazine. For the original article.