Review By Gavriel Aryeh Sanders
On October 7, 2023, the world saw evil uncloaked. But what many haven’t seen—what Extreme Trauma: October 7 as an Outlier in the Range of Human Potential demands they do see—is the unimaginable power of the human spirit to rise, protect, rescue, and recover.
In this powerful volume compiled by Dr. Moshe Kaplan, a psychoimmunologist and founder of the Be A Mensch Foundation, readers confront the darkest expressions of barbarism—and the brightest flashes of human moral clarity. The book is blunt, heartbreaking, and unflinching. It’s also astonishingly hopeful.
“This is not a book about trauma,” Kaplan says. “It’s a book about what happens after. It’s a call to memory, and it’s a call to action.”
What Makes This Book Different?
Unlike other October 7 retrospectives, Extreme Trauma doesn’t fit a clean genre label. It’s not just survivor testimony, though several are here. It’s not academic, though it includes leading voices in psychology, policy, and theology—people like Dr. Abraham Twerski, Miriam Adelson, Noa Tishby, and Douglas Murray. It’s not only political, though it pulls no punches in naming the enablers of terrorism and the collapse of Western moral clarity.
“It’s eclectic,” Kaplan says. “But the theme is constant: this is what happens when evil meets unshakable human spirit.”
A Book That Hurts to Read—and Must Be Read
With eyewitness accounts like the heroics of Aner Shapira, who threw back eight grenades in a bomb shelter before dying to save others, and the near-mythic courage of Oz Davidian, a farmer who rescued 120 young people under fire, the book spares no detail. But it also offers something far rarer: meaning.
“People today forget fast. Attention spans are short,” Kaplan notes. “We didn’t want this day to fade into just another headline. It must stay raw if it’s going to stay real.”
The Uncomfortable Truth About Media and Morality
The book also addresses head-on what many still shy away from: the moral distortion of the postmodern West. In a chapter titled “The Silent Cry,” Kaplan and others expose the weaponization of sexual violence by Hamas and the willful blindness of media outlets, NGOs, and even women’s rights groups.
“This book doesn’t sanitize,” says Kaplan. “It names names. It confronts cowardice.”
Resilience, Not Just Rage
Despite the pain, Extreme Trauma also maps a road forward. The final chapters showcase stories of unity, healing, and purpose—from the amputee soccer team rising from the ashes to secular and religious students breaking down barriers in facilitated dialogue.
It’s no accident this book emerged from the Be A Mensch Foundation—an Israeli nonprofit working to build bridges between secular and Haredi Jews, between estranged parts of a nation in need of repair.
“On October 6, we were a divided people,” Kaplan says. “By October 8, something galvanizing had happened. Extreme Trauma tries to capture that.”
For Whom Is This Book?
For educators. For clergy. For activists and students. For Jews and Christians and everyone else who feels the world has turned upside down and needs anchors of truth.
This book is not available in stores—it’s an educational tool and all profits go to support unity initiatives in Israel. It’s available worldwide via Amazon: https://a.co/d/1inclG0.
