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Abstract Background A vital stakeholder in the successful management of the COVID-19 pandemic is the public. The degree of involvement of the population in managing the pandemic, and the leadership perception of the public, had a direct impact on the resilience of the population and level of adherence to the issued protective measures. Main body Resilience refers to the ability to 'bounce back' or 'bounce forward' following adversity. Resilience facilitates community engagement which is a crucial component of combating the COVID-19 pandemic. The article highlights six insights recognized in studies conducted in Israel during and following the pandemic concerning the resilience of the country's population. (1) Contrary to varied adversities in which the community serves as an important support system to the individuals, this type of support was substantially impaired during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the need to maintain isolation, social distancing, and lockdowns. (2) Policy-making during the pandemic should be based on evidence-based data, rather than on assumptions made by decision-makers. This gap led the authorities during the pandemic to adopt measures that were ineffective, such as risk communication based on 'scare tactics' concerning the virus, when the highest risk perceived by the public was political instability. (3) Societal resilience is associated with the public's behavior, such as with vaccine hesitancy and uptake. (4) Factors that affect the levels of resilience include, among others, self-efficacy (impacts individual resilience); social, institutional, and economic aspects as well as well-being (impact community resilience); and hope and trust in the leadership (impact societal resilience). (5) The public should be perceived as an asset in managing the pandemic, thus becoming a vital part of the 'solution'. This will lead to a better understanding of the needs and expectations of the population and an applicable 'tailoring' of the messages that address the public. (6) The gap between science and policymaking must be bridged, to achieve optimal management of the pandemic. Conclusions Improving preparedness for future pandemics should be based on a holistic view of all stakeholders, including the public as a valued partner, connectivity between policymakers and scientists, and strengthening the public's resilience, by enhancing trust in authorities.

The ultra-Orthodox population in Israel was heavily impacted by COVID-19; it is important to understand the factors that contributed to this. There may be a friction between religious versus governmental guidelines that may reduce adherence to COVID mitigation guidelines, such as social distancing and masking. The purpose of this study is to explore this tension and the extent to which it existed in the surveyed sample. The study identified attitudes of ultra-Orthodox individuals concerning religious and public health measures to mitigate COVID-19 infection. A closed-ended questionnaire was completed by 405 ultra-Orthodox Jews. Most respondents believe that religious learning protects from harm (91%); 74% believe that periodically there are inconsistencies between religious guidelines and medical guidelines; 59% believe that preventive medicine may clash with "Divine protection". Some public health measures applied to contain the pandemic threaten religious lifestyle; this is a source of dissonance among ultra-religious populations, which may substantially decrease willingness to comply with public health measures.

Coping with adversities has been explained by two major theories: the fear appeal theory and the hope theory. The predictability of hope with that of fear of threats as variables explaining coping with two major adversities, the COVID-19 pandemic and an armed conflict, was compared. Participants were approached via an internet panel company in two different times: (1) January 2021 (N = 699; age range: 18–82; 330 women), during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel and (2) May 2021 (N = 647; age range: 19–83; 297 women), during an armed conflict between Israel and Hamas. Participants self-reported on hope, four perceived threats (health, economics, security, and political), well-being, individual resilience, societal resilience, and distress symptoms (anxiety and depression symptoms) were collected. Hope was found as a more consistent and stronger predictor of the following expressions of coping: well-being, individual and societal resilience, depression, and anxiety. It can be concluded that hope is a better and more consistent predictor of coping, as well as coping suppressing expressions, compared with fear of threats, in the face of the current adversities. The innovative nature of these findings, the importance of hope as a coping supporter, and the need for replicating these innovative results are discussed and elaborated.

The present study investigated predictors of psychological coping with adversity responses during the COVID-19 pandemic and an armed conflict. Two paired samples that represented the Israeli population that was exposed to both adversities were compared. Respondents rated five different psychological coping responses associated with the two adversities, such as anxiety or individual resilience. Perceived security, pandemic, economic, and political risks, as well as level of morale, were rated. Two major findings were disclosed by two path analyses. Morale improved the predictions of the varied coping responses in both the pandemic and conflict and was the best predictor of four out of five responses and the second-best predictor of the fifth response. Contrary to previous studies, our findings revealed that the concept of a single major predictor of coping responses under distress is an overgeneralization. In both cases, the coping responses were better explained by other perceived risks rather than by the risk of the investigated adversity. Rather than assume that a perceived security threat accounts for low levels of public moods, it is vital to study the antecedents of coping responses and to empirically examine additional potential predictors.

Public compliance is paramount for the success of public health measures and decision making, such as lockdowns, in controlling the spread of diseases. The aim of this population-based cross-sectional study was to investigate the level of reported compliance with home isolation among the adult Israeli population (n = 940) during the first three national lockdowns, compliance with a potential fourth national lockdown if enacted, risk perception of COVID-19, vaccination uptake status, perceived effectiveness of the vaccine, and compliance with additional protective health behaviors (e.g., mask wearing and social distancing). Following widespread compliance with initial lockdowns (90.7% reported "high" or "very high" compliance), as few as 60.1% of participants indicated that they would comply with a fourth lockdown if the government decides to enact it. Non-vaccinated individuals reported the lowest levels of compliance with previous lockdowns, compared to participants who received one or two vaccines and participants vaccinated with three doses. Adjusted for gender and age, the results suggest that fearing being infected with COVID-19, perceiving the vaccine to be effective, and reporting being compliant with other health behaviors—such as mask wearing and maintaining social distance from others—are predictors of lockdown compliance. Considering the effect of pandemic lockdown fatigue, there is little support for additional lockdowns among the Israeli public, unless dramatic changes occur in the characteristics of the COVID-19 pandemic. Compliance with lockdowns is reduced among individuals who are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19, therefore rendering this non-pharmaceutical intervention even less effective in reducing the spread of the disease.

The ultra-Orthodox population in Israel was heavily impacted by COVID-19; it is important to understand the factors that contributed to this. There may be a friction between religious versus governmental guidelines that may reduce adherence to COVID mitigation guidelines, such as social distancing and masking. The purpose of this study is to explore this tension and the extent to which it existed in the surveyed sample. The study identified attitudes of ultra-Orthodox individuals concerning religious and public health measures to mitigate COVID-19 infection. A closed-ended questionnaire was completed by 405 ultra-Orthodox Jews. Most respondents believe that religious learning protects from harm (91%); 74% believe that periodically there are inconsistencies between religious guidelines and medical guidelines; 59% believe that preventive medicine may clash with "Divine protection". Some public health measures applied to contain the pandemic threaten religious lifestyle; this is a source of dissonance among ultra-religious populations, which may substantially decrease willingness to comply with public health measures.

The current study measured national resilience (NR) in three different time frames during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Israel (N = 804). We investigated two main issues: first, the direction and extent of NR changes during the crisis, and second, the predictors of NR. The results show the following: (a) the average NR score declined significantly across the three repeated measures, with a medium-size effect. (b) Three of the four identified NR factors declined significantly across the three measurements: belief in the government and the prime minister (large effect size); belief in civil society; and patriotism (medium effect size); while trust in Israeli national institutions was the lowest and did not weaken significantly. (c) Analyzing the prediction of NR factors indicated that the levels of the three NR factors mainly reflected one's political attitudes, sense of political and economic threats, rather than health threats. One conclusion concerns the importance of trust in leadership as the most sensitive component in the decline of national resilience following a crisis.

The current study uses a repeated measures design to compare two-time points across the COVID-19 pandemic. The first was conducted at the end of the "first wave" [T1] and the second was carried out on October 12-14 2020 (the last period of the second total general lockdown) in Israel. The participants (N = 805) completed the same questionnaire at both time points. The study examined the predictions of hope and morale at T2 by psychological and demographic predictors at T1. Results indicated the following: (a) The three types of resilience (individual, community, and national) significantly and positively predicted hope and morale. (b) Well-being significantly and positively predicted hope and morale. (c) Younger age significantly and positively predicts higher hope, but not morale. (d) A higher level of religiosity significantly and positively predicts higher hope and morale. (e) More right-wing political attitudes significantly and positively predict higher hope, but not moral. (f) More economic difficulties due to the pandemic, significantly and negatively predict hope and morale. We concluded that hope and morale can serve as significant indicators of the population's ability to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, they can serve as a "thermometer" for the general mood of the population and can be used by decision-makers to assess coping ability at varied stages of the pandemic.

In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, maintenance of protective behavior is a continued challenge in the effort to contain the spread of the virus. A cross-sectional study via an internet questionnaire was utilized to elucidate changes in compliance to protective behavior among the Israeli population (n = 1120), after the beginning of the vaccination campaign. Comparison was made between individuals who were previously infected with the virus, those who received one dose of inoculation with the vaccine, and individuals that were neither infected or vaccinated. The study results indicate that those who were previously infected with the COVID-19 virus were less careful about mask wearing (18.8%) and social distancing (29.7%), as compared to the other examined groups (regarding mask wearing, 8.2% and 11.6% respectively, and with regard to social distancing 12.8% and 19.2%), and may require targeted risk communication campaigns to address this population. Furthermore, the study revealed that those that were non-Jewish (as compared to Jewish study counterparts) or that were older (19+) were more vigilant in their protective behavior (29.6% vs. 11.2% respectively for social distancing and 29.6% vs. 11.1% respectively for mask wearing). Despite a successful initial vaccination campaign in Israel, public health officials need to engage all members of the public to unremittingly observe compliance to directed health guidelines, to ensure that the results of previous governmental efforts in fighting the pandemic (such as lockdowns) will be effectively sustained, and the road to containment will be hastened.