Abstract
The unique ways of coping of elderly people during times of threat are examined here. The population were elderly Israelis who chose to remain in their frontier-location homes during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. Three semi-structured focus groups were held in three different locations, in September and October, 2014. Each three-hour group discussion included introductions and a conversation about the war and coping with it. An open question invited participants to tell their personal story of the operation. Content-categorical analysis of the transcripts yielded four main themes: (1) Together – ethical theme: individual vs. collective, worry about oneself vs. worrying about others; (2) I’m not afraid – emotional theme: expressing emotions that vacillated between lack of fear to fear, loneliness, failure, desertion vs. courage, uncertainly, anger and disappointment with the state and the army, pain, and bad conscious; (3) Glad the kids left – intergenerational theme: different generational perspectives of the operation and means of coping, and issues of continuity and faith in the ways of the kibbutz/community vs. the possibility of leaving; (4) We will not be moved – personal and communal resilience theme, personal vs. communal responsibility. The many elderly residents who remained at home during the operation raised personal, familial, ethical, and communal issues and dilemmas, which can be explained by (1) the developmental stage of the elderly people, (2) processes of change in the kibbutz/community, and (3) different coping patterns resulting from generational differences.