Community Resilience of Civilians at War: A New Perspective

A new concept of community resilience pertaining to the community’s post adversity strength to vulnerability ratio was associated with five determinants: individual resilience, national resilience, well-being, community size, and sense of coherence. The data was collected four months after Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip in 2014. Participants were 251 adult civilians living in southern Israel who have recently been threatened by massive missile attacks, and 259 adults living in northern Israel, which has not been under missile fire recently. The investigated variables predicted community resilience, and their effects were mediated by sense of coherence. Results which were similar for both samples were discussed in terms of the nature of resilience and in terms of proximal and distal exposure to war.