Heroes to Heroes participants (photo credit: Ariane Mandell)
Heroes to Heroes, an American non-profit organization, connects American veterans with Israeli veterans for non-denominational trips through Israel that combine “spirituality with peer-support” to help veterans with PTSD begin the process of healing and moving on with their lives.
Until now, these trips have been composed entirely of male combat veterans. But according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in 2014, female American veterans were 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide than females in the general population of American civilian adults. This difference is more than 10 times that for males.
So in September 2016, Heroes to Heroes launched a pilot trip exclusively for female veterans.
Read the full story by Ariane Mandell and published by The Jerusalem Post on 10/13/2016.