Time heals all wounds, they say. In the context of the Holocaust or October 7, that has a hollow ring to it. As the horrific events recede chronologically, perhaps the immediacy of the emotion they evoked dims a little, but the psychological blow they inflict on the survivors continues to fester beneath the outer veneer.
That is, unless it is addressed in a professional and caring manner, which, it must be said, often does not solve the problem entirely but can at least help alleviate some of the symptoms and offer the survivor a healthier take on life.
That is part and parcel behind the thinking of the initiators of the Edut 710 (710 Testimony) program. It will also come across in clear and emotive fashion on January 27 and 28 when the Tel Aviv Cinematheque hosts an important event in the context of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The first day, Monday, features screenings of testimonies given by survivors of October 7 in three clusters, beginning at 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 5 p.m., each lasting between three-and-a-half and four hours. Entrance is free, although the organizers recommend registering ahead of time on the Cinematheque website.
The following day centers around the screening of Hamakshiv (The Listener), which profiles the remarkable groundbreaking work of Ukrainian-born Israeli-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dori Laub, who founded the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.
The repository is located at Yale University, where doggedly determined and unassuming Laub also worked as a clinical professor. It was established, by Laub and television journalist Laurel Vlock, in 1979 and was the world’s first ongoing vehicle for the recording and storing of the stories of Holocaust survivors. Laub, who died in 2018 at the age of 81, had been through the Holocaust himself as a child.
There will also be a panel discussion on the day with two of the founders of Edut 710, Dr. Ohad Ufaz and Micha Livne.
Ufaz also contributed to the making of Hamakshiv, which was filmed over the course of the last four years of Laub’s life, and subsequently inspired the creation of Edut 710, with Ufaz bringing the invaluable experience of empathetic listening he gained with Laub to the initiative’s work. Ufaz’s eminently pertinent 2021 Hebrew University doctoral thesis was named: “Camera of Encounter: On the question of documenting and bearing the Other’s testimony in film.”
Ufaz and his colleagues swung into documentary action in a flash, just two days after the Hamas attacks. Gil Levin, one of the founders of Edut 710, says the ongoing political unrest helped set the scene for the new venture.
“The general atmosphere around the country, in the two months before the Black Shabbat, was of protests characterized by social and civil engagement. When the war broke out, most of us naturally looked for a way to volunteer and to express activism. What set us apart is that most of us come from the media, photography, engaging in testimonies, cinema, and that sort of thing, so we were looking to contribute in our fields of expertise.”
That begat Edut 710, which sets out to listen to survivors and document the story of their survival, as inspired by Laub. Thus far, the team of volunteers, which includes filmmakers, social workers, and psychologists – who were recently hosted at the President’s Residence – has accrued over 1,400 video testimonies.
Several hundred have been made available to the general public, both on the Edut 710 website and on YouTube. They appear in several languages, including Hebrew, English, German, and Arabic.
The latter two seem particularly apposite. German, naturally, conjures up thoughts of the Holocaust and how Germans might react to the testimonies. Ufaz does not believe comparisons between the Holocaust and the Hamas attacks can be justified.
“These are two different and separate events, and the documentary does not try, in any way, to equate them.” The common ground here, he feels, lies in the method. “We can learn from the testimonies that emerged in the wake of the Holocaust, and from Laub’s approach to listening, and the way in which one should describe the testimonies of the survivors of October 7.”
Levin says that he has no idea how the firsthand witness interviews will go over in the Arab world. Then again, presenting them in Arabic is, for him, a given. “There were a lot of Arabic speaker victims of October 7. They also rescued people and fought [against the terrorists]. As they speak Arabic, we want there to be testimonies in their language too.”
Listening to aid the curative process
As anyone who has been to a professional caregiver, or even just bent a friend’s ear in a time of need, will know – having someone listen to your tale of woe, in an attentive and accepting manner, can help with the curative process.
Levin says that was in the Edut 710 conceptual mix from the off. “We quickly understood we were not interested in, or equipped for, engaging in the traditional sort of international advocacy endeavor which started right from that Shabbat.” That, he says, requires quick action and a cherry-picking rapid impact mindset. That didn’t suit the testimony gathering ethos. “We prefer to work slowly and professionally, and not pressurize any of the survivors who are immersed in the deepest and most powerful trauma of their lives.”
Once again, Laub’s guiding figure looms large. “We approach our work with the utmost caution and care, and it is crucial for us not to cause any harm to anyone. That merges well with the method Ohad brought from Prof. Dori Laub, which we complement with consultations with professionals from the spheres of trauma and post-trauma.”
This is a definitively non-prime-time TV approach. “We are not looking to generate tearjerker dramas, and we don’t want to break the person sitting in front of us. We come from a position of leaving control of the situation in their hands, so we will not put out anything the witness does not want to come out.”
The Edut 710 team members tread a thin line between helping the interviewee tell their painful story while staying on the lookout for detrimental fallout. “The personal-individual therapeutic element follows that philosophy,” Levin continues. “We also see that, even if it is a challenging experience, it is also a good and cathartic one. However, it can also be a tough and traumatic experience, and it is important to us to obviate that.”
It is sometimes a matter of soldiering through regardless and taking one for the team. “In Edut 710, we encountered people who knew the interview would bring back the bad dreams they had [following October 7]. Nissan De-Kalo, who was one of the soldiers who saved Kibbutz Nahal Oz, knew he would have to endure several sleepless nights after talking to us. But he took that into account in order to share [his experiences] with the community, to pass his story on to the next generations and to preserve it for them.”
Levin says this sits well with both professional practice and tradition. “The road to healing from trauma passes through memory, not suppression or forgetting. We also see that in the field of psychology and emotional care and even in spiritual and religious spheres. For example, there is ‘Tell it to your children’ in the Pesach Haggadah. That means relating the bad history and remembering it, so that it doesn’t repeat itself.”
The principal message of Edut 710, and Hamakshiv, appears to be the importance of allowing others to tell their tale of woe and offload some of the emotional burden, and listening to them attentively and non-judgmentally, in a supportive manner.
In a day and age when we have constant instant access to oceans of information, the vast majority of which is either irrelevant or trivial, the documentary about Laub and the work of Edut 710 remind us of the importance of just listening. With all of us carrying some degree of trauma in the wake of the barbaric Hamas attack and the rising cost of the fighting in Gaza, that could be a boon for us all.
For more information about the events: Tel: *6876 and cinema.co.il/en. To watch the testimonies: edut710en.org and youtube.com/@Edut_710