Advancing Tolerance through Mental Health Week 2019

World Mental Health Day is commemorated every year on October 10. The Nefashot (souls) team has been working for the past 3 years in Jerusalem to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental health issues, and has created a whole week of events in Jerusalem. The week of 27.10-2.11.2019 included many diverse events, all of which were initiated by Jerusalem activists, organizations, and cultural institutions, all who have a common goal: to raise public awareness of mental health issues in the city, and to reduce stigmas. Events included lectures, performances, tours and more.

We’ve been working with the Nefashot team since the beginning, and are so proud of their accomplishments, and so proud to watch – and be a part of – their development. Here’s a summary of that fascinating and important week.

Here are what team members wrote, introducing the events:

So why do we make this big a deal of this? And are we calling it a festival, if we’re talking about people’s struggles? And what are we so excited about? After all, are there many art and publicity events that raise awareness of the issues we are talking about? It’s true, we’re not making huge breakthroughs. We’re just inviting everyone to make ‘positive noise’ together, in a big, loud voice that proves once again that the whole is greater than its parts.

Because we believe. Believe that the more our society gets to know people who are dealing with mental health issues, the more we’ll be able to look around and identify when someone close to us is suffering and in need of help, and we will know that when we’re suffering, we should seek help and treatment, just as we do with physical suffering. And we’ll know we’re not alone in this story – it’s just normal. And we won’t be ashamed – because there is no reason, and we will not hide it – that we will then lose the support that our community can give us. And we believe that art and culture are our means because art in its expression is a language. A language of the soul, a language of the heart. That is why we can all connect with her through ideas, inner experiences, and meet with ourselves, and with each other, precisely.

Among the events: a card workshop for acquiring tools and improving the communication and relationships between family members, lectures by parents, community karaoke, tour of the Israel Museum and the Old Yishuv Court Museum, playback theater, evening reading of poets and therapists and memorial evening for friends who committed suicide.

There were very emotional reactions from the participants and the organizers. Here are a few:

When you see so many people talking and sharing their point of view about dealing with mental health issues with others … It’s hard to be stigmatized about it. The more we talk about it, the more we’ll understand that we can’t be stigmatized about something that affects one third of the population personally and directlry. It’s not a matter of mental illness but mental health, something every person should strive for.

And from Michal Miriam Waldiger, who led one of the activities:

How can one not join a project so correct and so precise, that its purpose hits the bullseye – reducing the stigma, raising the issue and normalizing it. Last night I led a discussion in an Ulpana in Israel and one of my two subjects was mental health and the girls. Listen well and it seems that we’re on the right track, the ground is fertile for change.

Towards the end of the week of the “Making Souls” festival, and as Shabbat was coming in, the Nefashot team called the general public’s attention to the link between the upcoming Torah portion, about Noah and the Ark, to mental health issues:

Shabbat Parshat Noah, Shabbat ‘Making Souls’

What is more appropriate than this parsha to describe the collective and personal sense of “after the flood”. We had a week full of events – emotional, funny, painful and especially, connecting. A fantastic spectrum of people who listened, hugged, cried, laughed and were simply part of the experience. So on Shabbat we rest, and each of goes back home to say something about the soul. You can chat with the children, or with friends at a meal. You can share experiences from the events of the past week that you attended. There are those who wrote a column in a weekly newsletter published for Shabbat, some who will come to share a personal story, lecture at the end of the synagogue services, or give a sermon. Whatever you choose – it’s appropriate.

Here’s the Facebook post in Hebrew:

 

Ruthie Levy, who focused on the families of those dealing with mental health issues, wrote the following moving words:

“On maternal loneliness. As a mother, I respond to Nefashot’s request, as Saturday’s Torah portion of Noah and the Ark nears, in order to increase awareness of the circles of loneliness circles in areas of mental health. Mothers of those with mental health issues often feel lonely. My experience has been that loneliness is felt in the questions in which the answers are very personal and no one can offer me the answer. In this writing I want to describe to you one facet of maternal loneliness – when you are alone in the search for the answer, how much to support and how much … not to support.

Faced with the struggling son who is fighting for his balance, I, as a mother, seek my balance. My maternal movement for my coping son is characterized by a step forward, a step back. Step forward looking for closeness, connection, giving and contribution to advancing his recovery. A step back that seeks to differentiate, respect for the son’s freedom of choice, his different preferences, his independence, his subjective recovery journey. I’m careful not to go too far forward, I’m careful not to go too far back. Like a daredevil on a tightrope holding a balancing pole, trying to identify the balance point at any moment according to the situation

Here’s an overview of the entire week in Hebrew, from Nefashot’s Facebook page:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Natan Fund and the Schusterman Family Foundation for helping us to advance tolerance in Jerusalem.