This paper is based on the results of the second stage of a research study entitled “Living in Mandatory Palestine: Personal Narratives of the Galilee from the 1940’s to 1967” (Greene, Hantman, Seltenriech, Abbasi, & Greene, N. (in press). Forty (40) qualitative interviews were collected from diverse older adults who lived or where born in the Galilee, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and thereafter. Using the Resilience-Enhancing Stress Model (RESM) that describes how people respond effectively to stress following adverse events while still maintaining competent functioning, we explored the effects of individual narratives on community resilience (the grand narrative) in one of the settlements. Initial results point to the importance of individual narratives on forging community resilience. Applying the narrative approach, the four levels of resilience were analyzed through individual’s narratives of a specific critical event (the drying up of the lake adjacent to the village) that occurred at the personal, interpersonal, sociocultural, and societal levels. Personal-level narrative themes spoke about internal feelings. Interpersonal-level narrative themes such as continuity, personal responsibility to each other, coping, modesty and acceptance addressed relationships between people. Sociocultural-level themes express the beliefs and mores of family, tradition, religiosity, Zionism, modesty and leadership of the time. Societal level narrative themes such as relating to belonging to persons, places, and ideologies are indicative of the work of societal institutions. Settlers reported a sense of relief and closure when given the opportunity to share their pain with each other in an open meeting.
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