SUBHEAD Glenn Cohen, who oversaw the debriefing of all surviving hostages, says their fortitude should inspire Israelis who’ve been enduring challenges from the war with Iran and Diaspora Jews facing a different adversity

Given his up-close involvement with former hostages, starting immediately after their release from Gaza, former Mossad Chief Psychologist Glenn Cohen often thinks of how they’re coping, especially in recent weeks during the war with Iran, now in an uneasy, tenuous ceasefire.  He sometimes sees for himself how they’re faring as he’s in touch with many of them, some of whom continue in therapy with him.

Having overseen the initial debriefing of all the hostages upon their return to Israel, either personally or by fellow psychologists under his guidance, Cohen is extremely familiar with each of the 168 men, women and children who survived their nightmarish confinement.

“For some of the former hostages, the booms and explosions from Iranian and Hezbollah missile and rocket attacks have been a trigger, startling them and bringing them back to the scariest part of their captivity, which was the bombing of Gaza by the Israeli Air Force,” Cohen recently told me. “After their release, almost all of them described how they literally felt the earth shake under their feet while the bombs dropped, often fearing for their lives. Now that they’re free, many of them are able to regain their lost respect and admiration for the Israeli Air Force, no longer perceiving it as a potential threat, but as the protector.”

Just like the physical and mental rehabilitation hasn’t been the same for all former hostages following their release, such is the case with how they’ve handled challenges connected to the Iran war, including frequent air raid sirens and the need to quickly take cover.

“Spending time in underground bomb shelters reminds some of them of the time they spent underground in captivity, but some of them relate to it humorously,” adds Cohen. “A video on social media shows [former hostages] Ohad Ben Ami and Elkana Buchbut together in a bomb shelter during a missile attack, and they reminisce and joke about their time in the tunnels in Gaza.”

As former hostages have demonstrated, overcoming extreme adversity usually makes one better able to face new predicaments, even those potentially life-threatening.

“The ones who came out of captivity, viewing it as an experience of personal growth, describe how after surviving captivity, anything else seems so much easier to cope with,” says Cohen. “So they weren’t fazed by the present war with Iran.”

Of course, those not in Israel are the least affected by the situation.

“Quite a few of the hostages are still travelling the world, enjoying their freedom by living it up on exotic beaches, or others busy doing lecture tours,” adds Cohen. “They’re following the news from afar, but enjoying that they could maintain a safe distance from the war.”

For all the darkness in the agonizing story of those kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023 – most tragically, the death of 83 of those brutally abducted – Cohen sees glimmers of light. A leading expert on how former hostages survived their hellish Hamas captivity and how they’re faring post-release, he speaks of them with great affinity.

After the Hamas-led slaughter of 1,200 people and seizure of 251 others, Cohen began emergency reserve duty in the IDF Hostage Negotiation Unit, which eventually selected him as the first mental health professional to meet released hostages, affording him a unique perspective. In public presentations and in the book he’s now writing, Cohen shares reassuring, even uplifting, insights gained from engaging with those many feared would never return alive.

In speaking about them to Jewish communities abroad, he delivers a message of hope and resilience.

“My main takeaway from speaking with many former hostages and knowing intimately the stories of all 168, is that we’re capable of much more than we imagine,” says Cohen, during my earlier interview with him at the Israeli American Council’s recent annual conference outside Miami. The session he spoke at, titled Unbroken: Inside the Journey Back to Life, included former hostages Keith Segal and Omer Wenkert.  “What’s amazing is that while none of the returnees had any training, they did almost exactly what we teach our top commandos in POW survival training. It shows we have an inherent ability to cope, an innate resilience we’re not aware of until pushed to our limits.”

In his serious yet approachable manner, Cohen spotlights different ways hostages adapted to their captivity.

“Most of them adjusted to the difficult new reality they suddenly found themselves in,” he explains. “Despite being 150 feet underground in a dark tunnel, many obsessively kept track of the calendar and time of day, based on different clues, such as seeing when their captors prayed five times a day and when they went to sleep. Part of their adjustment was recognizing which captors were more sadistic and which ones less so, and how to engage with them.”

The war with Iran added yet another layer to the adjustment returnees have faced following the extreme traumas they suffered – that of the Oct. 7 massacre when kidnapped at gunpoint and their torturous time in Gaza.

“Each one went through hell and suffered some type of abuse – physical, psychological, emotional or sexual – to some degree,” says Cohen, who lives in Kfar Uria, a small village between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  “They’ll carry the trauma for the rest of their lives.”

Their regained freedom presented challenges.

“The euphoria of being alive and suddenly free was complicated,” he adds. “For many, it was coupled with feelings of survivor’s guilt and of grief in learning of lost loved ones.”

Cohen is encouraged by the coping he’s observed among many hostages, especially since the return in late January of the last hostage (the late Ran Gvili) brought a sense of closure.

“Most hostages are moving along, gradually getting back on track, and finding new meaning,” he maintains. “They’re doing a lot better than most of us expected.”

The public’s warm response has been a factor.

“The hostages have received the biggest hug possible, not just from Israelis, but the entire Jewish world,” says Cohen, in his calm, soothing voice. “That sense of togetherness is a Jewish thing that’s helping their transition. In some cases, it’s the difference between PTSD or PTG, post traumatic growth.”

Unquestionably, the transition process is more arduous for some.

“Certain hostages are reporting different symptoms – flashbacks, nightmares, being fearful, startle responses from different triggers, difficulties hearing Arabic,” says Cohen, who studied psychology at Hebrew University and Bar-Ilan University. “But those with PTSD are relatively few. Others are enjoying PTG, as they discover new things about themselves, feeling now more capable than they imagined after overcoming such adversity. They have a stronger sense of self and a meaning to life.”

Clearly, he has considerable respect and compassion for the former captives, for whom he asks that people not pity them but view them as survivors, rather than victims.

“Most people imagined anyone coming out alive would be crushed for life and suffer terrible PTSD,” says Cohen. “It’s important to stress that’s mostly not the case. Many are living their lives, not just bouncing back but bouncing forward.”

He marvels at their fortitude.

“I’ve asked the hostages, ‘If you could go back to October 6 and choose not to go to the kibbutz or the Nova Festival and avoid hundreds of days of personal suffering in captivity, would you?,’” Cohen recounts. “Quite a few told me, ‘I wouldn’t change a thing,’ It’s hard to believe, but a surprising number of them said that. Of course, if they could save the people who perished, yes, but in terms of their own suffering, many say, ‘I’m now a more developed, stronger version of myself. I’ve discovered things I had no idea I was capable of.’”

The implication is pertinent.

“When you encounter a traumatic event or situation, as bad as it is, it’s also an opportunity for growth,” he adds. “We can learn that from the 168 hostages, including in how we’ve dealt on the home front with Iran. Many of their coping techniques while in captivity are relevant for handling the uncertainty, lack of control and fear that have overwhelmed many of us during this war. Of course, we can’t compare what we’ve been enduring with the atrocities hostages experienced in captivity.”

Nearly two weeks after Oct. 7, when the first two hostages were released, Cohen was sent to meet them [mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan] with an intelligence officer.

“Just after they crossed into Israel, the intelligence officer and I sat with Judith and Natalie,” Cohen recalls. “They hadn’t even met with their family yet. I realized then there was no protocol on how to best receive hostages.”

Cohen hadn’t forgotten what happened to the POWs from the Yom Kippur War, and how upon their return from Syria and Egypt in 1974, they were confined to a compound in northern Israel and interrogated for two weeks.

“I had that in my mind and I wanted to get it right this time, to ensure the hostages got a proper welcome,” he explains. “The day after the first two hostages returned, I created a protocol which outlined how to seek useful intelligence but in the most humane, kind, gentle and sensitive way.”

Cohen oversaw this delicate process which required respecting the hostages’ psychological well-being and the need to glean information about remaining captives. Within an hour of their arrival, after an initial reunion with their families, returnees would meet with Cohen or a member of his team at the hospital.

“The goals of the debriefing, involving also an intelligence officer, were twofold, requiring seemingly contradictory skillsets,” he explains. “One was to give them the soft landing they deserved and to treat them with kid gloves. The other was hardcore, very operational, to quickly get vital, potentially lifesaving intelligence about the other hostages left behind.”

Born and raised in New York City, Cohen, whose grandfather was a rabbi, attended Jewish Orthodox schools.  In 1982, he came to Jerusalem for a one-year yeshiva program. Rather than return to the US to attend Brandeis University on a basketball scholarship, he enlisted in the IDF during the First Lebanon War. Cohen graduated from the Israel Air Force Academy, serving as a helicopter search-and-rescue pilot for seven years before working at the Mossad for 25 years. As Chief Psychologist, he helped select and train elite operatives in captivity endurance. His role extended to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Yamam (National Counter-Terrorism Unit) SWAT teams, for whom he advises commanders on resilience, peak performance, and operational excellence under extreme conditions. In addition, for decades, Cohen has also overseen POW (prisoner of war) training, for which he leads one-week workshops for special forces, commandos and pilots.

“I went through training like this as a pilot before becoming a clinical psychologist,” says Cohen. “It’s considered the most intense and difficult in training because while not necessarily the most demanding physically, such as carrying 100 pounds on your back up the tallest mountain, it’s extremely challenging emotionally and mentally. We plan this POW training very carefully, for which we take top commandos who’ve been chosen meticulously and put them in simulations of extreme situations of captivity.“

In the US military, such training is called SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape). It prepares trainees to deal with the situation of being captured, held in captivity and being interrogated.

“At the beginning of training, I ask, ‘What’s your association with captivity?’” Cohen explains. “Most invariably say, ‘It’s better off being dead than being in captivity,’ That’s a classic response. My mission is to provide tools to convince them otherwise.”

He cites another case he studied – that of James Stockdale, the highest-ranking American POW during the Vietnam War. After surviving more than seven years in captivity, which included torture, the aviator’s coping strategy for survival became known as the Stockdale Paradox.

“As part of the training I do, I teach the principles of the Stockdale Paradox,” says Cohen. “When asked which of his fellow POWs survived and which ones didn’t, Stockdale said that, surprisingly, the ones who didn’t survive were those who were often too optimistic, the ones who believed they’d be released by Christmas but it came and went, without their release. They died heartbroken. Stockdale’s takeaway from that, and this is the Stockdale Paradox we teach in leadership training, was that when you’re faced with difficult times, no matter how bad, don’t be too optimistic. Start with realism. Say, ‘you know what? This is really bad and paradoxically, at the same time, hold the belief that it will be okay, I will prevail, somehow, some way, somewhere.’”

During the hostage crisis, Cohen’s past work, training and knowledge of other POW stories gave him a different perspective from many Israelis.

“I’d learned one can endure many years of captivity, and not just survive but even thrive,” he explains. “Look, Stockdale went on to become US Navy Vice Admiral and was a vice-presidential candidate while fellow former American POW John McCain became a senator and ran for president. I was very familiar with all these stories and came to the hostage situation with that in mind.”

Given the horrors of what Hamas did on Oct. 7, many Israelis, in imagining the conditions of captivity, concluded it’s preferable being dead.

“There’s faulty logic in that thinking,” Cohen continues. “Hamas slaughtered, raped and maimed as many people as possible on Oct. 7 because that was their goal that day. People assumed this would happen to those in captivity. But Hamas needed to keep the hostages alive to trade them for Palestinian prisoners. Realizing they were an asset gave the hostages hope, strength and resilience and had a calming effect. It was hell for them but most quickly grasped that the Hamas plan was not to kill them.”

But, clearly, not all captors adhered to Hamas guidelines as, tragically, dozens of hostages were killed in captivity. 

“There were a few terrible cases where captors went rogue and didn’t follow instructions and killed hostages for no apparent reason,” says Cohen. “There were also cases of captors killing hostages because the IDF was approaching. Captors were told if the IDF came too close to rescue hostages, they should kill the captives and flee. We managed to rescue eight hostages, but dozens were killed in the context of the IDF getting too close.”

The appalling physical conditions weren’t necessarily the hardest part of captivity.

“I reached the conclusion that you were better off underground in a dark, airless tunnel with others than held in a sunny apartment with lots of air, but alone,” Cohen explains. “The social aspect is extremely important. Lots of research shows one can survive illness and other problems better and longer if you’re with a support group. Togetherness is our oxygen.”

Some captives had an overarching sense of purpose, a concept Holocaust survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl shared in his celebrated book, Man’s Search for Meaning, after enduring the horrors of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.

“Many hostages told me they had read Frankl’s book and remembered his coping techniques,” Cohen remarks. “I’d say the most important was belief in something greater than oneself, not necessarily in God but something greater. That tool helped [hostage] Hersh Goldberg-Polin to survive, until he was tragically murdered in the tunnel with five other beautiful souls. Before he perished, he shared the spirit of survival, endurance and resilience with many others which he got from reading Frankl. Many said what helped them survive, was they had a sense of why, which they learned from Hersh.”

The longer hostages were held in captivity, having a greater sense of meaning was especially critical.

“For some of them, the why was to come back and see their family,” Cohen continues. “For others, it was to take care of somebody else, like Eli Sharabi who took care of Alon Ohel. As time went on, many of the hostages strengthened their belief in God and connected to religion. Many of them had spiritual revelations and transformations.”

Also helpful was a concept called small wins which is taught to commandos in POW training.

“Kids came back and said to me, ‘We made fun of our captors, we called them names,’” says Cohen. “One 15-year-old did a push-up competition with his captor and beat him. [Former hostage] Yosef-Haim Ohana was given a transistor radio tuned to the Muslim muezzin so he’d hear the mosque calling to prayer. After fiddling with it for hours, he managed to change the frequency to [Israeli station] Galei Zahal and heard his father on the radio. He felt, ‘Oh, my God, I’m winning.’  Another hostage, after taking his monthly bucket shower, put the shackles back on by himself. If the captor put them on, it would be much tighter and cut his skin. Putting his shackles on himself, he felt like a winner.”

Cohen lauds the significance Judaism gives to redeeming hostages.

“It’s not surprising the hostage issue became so symbolic for Jews everywhere,” he notes. “Pidyon Shevuim [redeeming captives] is the paramount Jewish commandment, according to Maimonides, a collective responsibility to protect fellow Jews, dating back to the time of Abraham.”

It showed in how Diaspora Jews responded.

“Every Jew around the world supporting the hostages’ cause should feel proud they had a part in helping hostages survive,” contends Cohen. “Many told me that feeling they weren’t alone, knowing that Israelis and Jews abroad were fighting for them, made a big difference. Rallies organized to influence decision makers actually influenced the hostages themselves, as many knew of the protests. They felt the support, which gave them incredible strength.”

He evokes Oct. 7 for its profound fallout.

“While it’s the worst thing that’s happened to the Jewish people since the Holocaust, it reminds us what we are capable of,” says Cohen, who also does executive coaching and leadership training for companies. “I’d never experienced anything so bad and where did I turn to draw strength from? The Holocaust and those who survived it. If we could survive the Holocaust, we could survive this. Meeting and debriefing the hostages validated that. It revived the spirit of Holocaust survivors, and Victor Frankl’s book.”

Cohen weighs its impact.

“For me, it’s an incredible awakening of Jewish history, of the worst of times, but the best of times,” he says. “This is what the Jewish people have been doing for thousands of years, struggling with hardship and existential trauma. In every generation, another enemy tries to destroy us but we keep on surviving, even thriving. That’s my personal takeaway from Oct. 7 and its aftermath. While I’m deeply saddened by the pain and grief we’ve all endured since then, at the same time, there’s been such a rediscovery of our incredible strengths and resilience.”

That includes the response of Israelis since the end of February to the war with Iran and everything it has entailed.

“The Jewish people have enormous experience with adversity, coping and survival,” adds Cohen. “I believe we have a collective consciousness that we draw from, maybe even a Jewish DNA which includes resilience and survival. Not that we’re better. It’s just that unfortunately, we’ve been put to the test more often than other people.”

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)