Rabbi Benyaacov-Kurtzman and his volunteer crew have trained more than 150 London mental-health workers in the Israeli intervention techniques used to help traumatized citizens in the aftermath of terror attacks
HIGH ALERT Britain has been hit by three separate Islamic terror attacks in the last six weeks which have killed at least 37 people and injured more than 200. Despite a growing British BDS movement Israel has been the key provider of intervention training to UK officials struggling to prevent their citizenry from succumbing to trauma (Photos: AFP/Imagebank)
Rabbi Dov Benyaacov-Kurtzman earned a degree at Herziliya’s Interdisciplinary Center in political science specializing in counterterrorism but seven years ago he decided to transform theory into practice. It couldn’t have come at a more propitious time for terror-plagued Britain.
For much of the last two weeks the Scottish-born rabbi who made aliyah when he was 20 and served in the IDF the Israeli police and the prime minister’s security detail has been a fixture on the scene of the recent terror attacks in Manchester and London. He and a team of volunteers — many imported from Israel — are training more than 150 British psychologists and mental health workers in techniques fashioned out of Israel’s unique experience battling war and terror to counsel traumatized youths and parents.
Rabbi Benyaacov-Kurtzman and his crew were not difficult to spot in their distinctive orange T-shirts emblazoned with the logo and information about Heads Up CIO the UK nonprofit he founded with a goal of establishing “pop-up” trauma counseling centers wherever needed throughout the UK.
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