This article presents processes of coping and posttraumatic growth (PTG) as elicited both from an open-ended questionnaire administrated to 52 Jewish Israeli mothers as well as in-depth interviews conducted with 16 of them, following exposure to either long-term or a short period of threat in the form of rocket attacks on their homes. This comparison revealed that all mothers described the same coping mechanisms and perceived themselves as coping well with the threat of terror. However, with regard to PTG, only those who were exposed to rocket attacks for a long duration disclosed a manifest potential for PTG both in relation to self and in relation to others. Concurrently, because of the parental decision to live in an area exposed to missile attacks, the mothers expressed guilt feelings toward their children, fearing for their mental wellbeing. The differences between the two groups of mothers and possible applications for mental health professionals working with such populations are discussed.

The goal of this study was to explore the contribution to reflexive learning about conflict reality when encountering narratives of the other in intragroup dialogue. That is, dialogue within one national group in the context of a binational conflict. This dialogue was with a group of Jewish-Israeli undergraduate students. The study explored the contribution of the dialogue to the capacity to relate to ongoing conflict relations from perspectives that go beyond binary and oppositional assumptions and positions. This research is based on detailed observations of the dialogue, interviews with group members, and a field diary kept by Michael Sternberg. Findings indicate that, without the immediate need to close ranks in the presence of the outgroup, the intragroup setting supplied opportunities to explore diverse identities, narratives, power structures, and related collective assumptions and to examine alternatives to existing types of conflict engagement. Furthermore, findings indicate the contribution of such processes to the readiness to challenge hegemonic perceptions of conflict reality and cope with the challenges of becoming an active bystander toward the abuse of power relations.

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.

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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.