Rebuilding Careers After Captivity: How Hostage Families Find New Paths
Families of Israeli hostages and captivity survivors are facing profound career and personal transitions after years of trauma, prompting programs like 'Way of Your Own' to help them rebuild their professional lives.
For two years, every morning began with the same agonizing thought: perhaps today something will happen. Families of hostages and survivors of captivity are discovering that returning home does not mean returning to the life they left behind. The trauma of October 7 and the relentless struggle to bring their loved ones back fundamentally reshaped who they are. Now, a joint initiative known as "Way of Your Own" (Derech Sheloha), launched by the "255" association and the training company Elevation, is helping them navigate this profound professional and personal transition.
Finding a New Professional Identity
Vicky Cohen, whose son Nimrod was abducted on October 7 and returned after more than two years in captivity, speaks candidly about the impossibility of simply going back to her former employment. "You have to understand that we are not the people we were before the kidnapping," Cohen explains. Having published a book titled A Mother's Journey documenting her harrowing experience, she realized that returning to a standard corporate job as an employee was no longer viable. Through the "255" association and Elevation, she acquired the practical tools needed to build an independent path, despite facing significant health and emotional hurdles that she feels receive insufficient state support.
Similarly, Inbar Goldstein—whose brother Nadav and niece Yam were murdered on October 7, while other family members were abducted and later released—found herself utterly disconnected from her former career in high-end advertising. "Advertising is a nice luxury for capitalism, but the world moves on without it. After dealing with life-and-death situations, how can you return to a client screaming about a banner?" Goldstein asks. Facing unsympathetic corporate reactions and profound personal changes, she joined the program to reinvent herself professionally, focusing on social projects and consulting.
Tailored Training for a New Reality
Alya Kadish, head of personal and family support at "255", emphasizes that the disruption to these families' lives altered their professional identities, skill sets, and sense of purpose. The "Way of Your Own" program offers two main tracks: an entrepreneurship track for those wishing to turn personal insights or community projects into independent businesses, and a professional development track focusing on modern workforce skills, digital marketing, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Avi Snir, CEO and founder of Elevation, notes that the program was designed to address the reality that trauma and prolonged absence from the workforce require completely new tools. "Being the family of a hostage is not something that just passes," Snir says. Funded entirely through external resources, the hybrid program combines small group workshops with personalized mentoring, empowering participants to rebuild their capacity for growth and self-determination.
"The course gave me the confidence that even if my head is still scattered and I don't know exactly where I am going, once I arrive I will know what to do. It gave me the peace of mind that it is okay not to have all the answers," reflects Inbar Goldstein.