In the aftermath of October 7, Noam Green intensified her efforts to provide mental health resources to Israel's Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community. A graduate of the Mandel Programs for Leadership Development in the Haredi Community, she leveraged her expertise and her connections with other Mandel graduates to address urgent mental health needs that emerged within the community following the Hamas attacks.

A neuropsychologist in training, Noam created "Nefashot V'Chesronan" (Souls and Their Needs), the only independent podcast focused on mental health in the Haredi community, as her individual project during her time as a Mandel fellow. The podcast, which has garnered some 20,000 listens and 5,000 downloads in the last year and a half, establishes standards for professional therapy and makes knowledge directly accessible to members of the Haredi community.

"Our society has gone from zero to a hundred in terms of demand for therapy," she explains, "but the supply of professional therapists is not large, and some people don't even know it exists." Noam’s podcast hosts mental health professionals who have completed formal, ethical, and recognized training, bringing them to the awareness of the Haredi community.

The podcast addresses sensitive topics that are rarely discussed in Haredi media, in a manner that makes them accessible to the Haredi public. Recently, she completed a season on "protection" (a euphemism for sexual abuse), which included episodes about treatment for perpetrators – a subject almost never addressed in Haredi discourse. The episodes opened with a trigger warning, and the content was presented in a manner that was adapted to the cultural, spiritual, and halakhic norms of the community. Because many people in the Haredi community cannot access podcast apps due to restricted internet access, Noam uploaded the episodes to a website and created a bot that bypasses internet filters and enables episodes to be downloaded.

Since October 7, Noam has spearheaded two significant initiatives. The first, launched in collaboration with fellow Mandel graduate Fainy Sukenik, was created after they realized that young members in the Haredi community were exposed to damaging video content documenting the events of October 7 and did not have the tools to deal with it. In response, they created videos on the topic of emotional resilience for distribution in ultra-Orthodox digital spaces. The project, named "Makshivim LaNefesh" (Listening to the Soul), produced three one-minute videos that reached 130,000 views within two weeks of their creation. The videos were created in partnership with an initiative founded by Mandel graduate Michael Nachtiler and his wife Tamar: “Akshiva​” – a platform where individuals from the Haredi community can ask questions on any topic anonymously and receive answers from a team of volunteer professionals, spiritual leaders, and halakhic authorities.

Noam's second initiative, partly funded by a graduate grant from the Mandel Foundation, provides mental health support to rescue workers. When the war began, she was approached by other women’s organizations from various sectors and quickly assembled a team of certified therapists trained in trauma treatment to assist ZAKA emergency response volunteers who experienced difficult situations in the field. After a week of activity, the Israeli Trauma Coalition received the mandate to treat all rescue workers, so Noam’s team did not expand its activities, but it continues to provide care to those who initially sought help.

Noam sees her central challenge as having three parts: maintaining professionalism, upholding ethical standards, and achieving broad impact. "Funders want widespread influence and are sometimes willing to compromise on other fundamental principles," she notes, "but I would never refer someone to therapists who haven't completed full training."

Regarding the rabbinic leadership's response to her work, Noam describes a complex landscape. Many community rabbis eagerly seek professional advice and consultation, while the broader leadership shows a mixed response of both openness and resistance. In one case, a leading rabbi in the Lithuanian Jewish community spoke out on the matter of sexual abuse at a meeting of Haredi therapists but was not willing to talk about the topic on her podcast. Rather than focusing on institutional recognition, Noam focuses on reaching people directly. "Change comes from the bottom up," she says.

Looking ahead, Noam hopes that her initiative will continue to create accessible, clear, and easy-to-use content focused on mental health and wellbeing that speaks directly to Haredi youth, and that the channel will branch out from addressing resilience and anxiety to identifying risk situations, healthy sexuality, relationships, and more. It is her hope to create video content that will parallel the extensive information that she has made available in audio format through her podcast.