OCTOBER 26 • 2023 | 23
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will happen to their dreams of 
visiting Israel one day. 
“There’s solidarity in knowing 
other people are experiencing 
a shared response and feeling 
emotionally affected by this,
” 
she says. “
Also, I like the kind 
of strategy of how you’re going 
to limit yourself in watching 
the news and not just put your-
self in that space where you’re 
thinking about all these traumas 
all the time.
” 
The event came together 
in just a few days, says Aliza 
Plotkin, The J’s 
senior director 
of community 
partnerships, to 
support caregivers 
in the community, 
welcoming some 
120 participants for 
a noon session on Wednesday, 
Oct. 11. 
“This felt really important to 
us, for our grandparents and 
parents of children 0-18 who 
felt like it was their responsibili-
ty to talk to their children about 
what was going on,
” she says. 
“We wanted to give people that 
space — we knew people would 
want to have those conversa-
tions soon because it was pretty 
pressing.
” 
Plotkin adds that she hopes 
people came away with a com-
fort level with having hard 
conversations and knowing they 
weren’t alone in those conver-
sations. 
“Sometimes it can feel really 
lonely,
” she says. “So not only 
did we want to give them the 
actual resources, but we want-
ed them to see that there were 
other people who 
had these same 
questions and 
these same feel-
ings.
”
Evie Lynn 
Breuer, senior 
director of com-
munity outreach & wellness at 
JFS, talked about self-coping 
skills and regulation, and then 

therapists Rina Sabes, Kerri 
Lanoue and Aliza Bracha Klein 
facilitated breakout rooms by 
kids’ age levels. 
Lanoue, director of behav-
ioral health at JFS, let parents 
and caregivers know about 
the essential role they play in 
helping children cope in times 
of crisis, and the importance of 
checking in on their own reac-
tions as well. 
“During these times, anx-
iety is high or physical stress 
responses can manifest, and 
some of us as adults feel 
increased agitation and with-
draw emotionally. We react in 
the same ways our kids react — 
there may be fear, sadness, anxi-
ety, difficulty focusing,
” she says. 
“Identifying those reactions in 
ourselves in order to regulate 
helps our children cope, too.
” 
Seeing what kids know and 
fixing misunderstandings is 
also key, she says. “We cannot 
assume that their worries are 
the same as our own,
” she says. 
“Once you understand what 
their fears and worries may 
be, you can provide them with 
education and learning around 
what’s happening with the event 
to reassure them that they’re 

safe.
”
JFS has a crisis response team 
that’s currently making its way 
around the community provid-
ing support to students, parents 
and families, she adds. “We’re 
prepared to respond, unfortu-
nately, to tragic events. At this 
level, we needed to respond 
quickly and try to give people 
tools and support, to let them 
know that they’re not alone 
amid all of the fear and confu-
sion,
” Lanoue says.
Dini Peterson, chief program 
officer, mental 
health and safety 
net services at 
JFS, adds that the 
event had layers of 
benefits, including 
the sense of unity 
it created. “There’s 
power through 
community, people coming 
together; it really helps build 
resilience,
” she says. “I think so 
many parents and grandpar-
ents came because they didn’t 
know what to do, but just them 
showing up is a sign that they’re 
on the right path, by taking the 
time out of their busy day, when 
everyone was already stressed 
enough.
”

She adds that it was and 
remains significant for people to 
hear calm-minded advice from 
professionals on how to talk 
with their kids. “There’s a lot of 
noise right now about what to 
do and what to say,
” she says. “It 
can be really important, as peo-
ple are bombarded with social 
media or the news, to find a 
source of information they can 
trust. Having a space that feels 
comfortable and safe for Jewish 
community members is crucial 
as well.
”
Peterson adds that the JFS 
Resource Center is currently 
offering free one-time conversa-
tions with therapists or trained 
members of the crisis response 
team by request. “We encourage 
anyone who’s feeling that they 
would benefit from support to 
reach out.
”
Emily Korotkin of Bloomfield 
Hills attended the Zoom event 
to see if there was anything she 
could bring back to her kids, 
ages 3 and 5, and also as a way 
to process some of it herself, 
she says. Korotkin adds that 
she was proud to see the event 
attract people invested in kids 
of all ages and found it help-
ful to know that they were all 
attempting to navigate similar 
situations and figure out what 
is appropriate to talk about, and 
how to do so. 
“I learned some key ways to 
begin the conversation with my 
children without worrying them 
or scaring them,
” she says. 
“I have little, little kids so 
they’re not exposed to social 
media or the news, but they’re 
hearing us talk about it, so 
talking about it with them in a 
way that is sort of just broach-
ing the subject — and I also 
learned it’s OK not to talk about 
it with them if they’re not ask-
ing, that it doesn’t make us bad 
parents if we don’t talk about 
it with them simply because of 
their age. It was nice to have the 
option to do so.
” 

Tips from Jewish Family Service

1. Do more listening than talking, especially at first, to 
learn what your child already knows, what they have 
heard and what they are confused about. 

2. Be mindful of your own emotional state and whether 
or not you are emotionally resourced enough to be a 
source of reassurance and safety for your child. Kids 
pick up on our tone and body language, especially our 
youngest children who don’t understand what is hap-
pening at an intellectual level and need plenty of reas-
surance. 

3. These are not one-time conversations, talking about 
the Israel-Hamas war and the collective trauma we are 
all experiencing will be with us for a long time in differ-
ent ways. Don’t feel the pressure to do all the process-
ing and information giving and getting all at once. Think 
of it more as planting the seeds of safe, open, ongoing 
dialogue and communication. 
Aliza Plotkin

Kerri Lanoue 

Dini 
Peterson

