A Chabad Rabbi Helped Traumatized Israeli Soldiers. Al Jazeera Called It a Scandal.

Two Israeli soldiers were haunted by the same nightmare: their friends had been killed beside them by Hamas, and they no longer wanted to go on living.

They ended up on a Caribbean island, at a Chabad house run by a rabbi who had been quietly treating traumatized Israeli soldiers for months. By the time they left, something had shifted. They had found a reason to continue.
“Because of the retreat they have here, they found the strength to carry on,” Rabbi Dudi Caplin, the Chabad shliach in Cozumel, said of the two soldiers in a discussion with Belaaz. “We have plenty, plenty of stories — people who got back to themselves, who could breathe again, who had really lost it and couldn’t sleep at night.”

Now Rabbi Caplin’s program is facing a different kind of battle. Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news network, published a report targeting the Cozumel Chabad house, accusing it of hosting soldiers it described as participants in “genocide” who come to the island to “heal their post-traumatic stress.” The piece spotlighted the retreat’s activities — meditation, therapy, diving, sailing and soccer — and questioned whether Mexico should be a sanctuary for IDF veterans.

Rabbi Caplin says the framing is a deliberate distortion of a mental health program. “Al Jazeera found out and wrote an attack against us,” he said. “It’s a big, big issue — but we continue with our project for those soldiers who need our help.”

Since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, the Cozumel Chabad house has become an unlikely refuge for Israeli soldiers struggling to reintegrate into civilian life. Rabbi Caplin says he has directly treated more than 50 soldiers suffering from PTSD, incluring many who are Torah observant, and that several thousand Israelis have passed through his doors since the attack.

Some arrive unable to sleep. Others cannot face their own families. “They didn’t want to go back to their wives and kids,” Rabbi Caplin said of several soldiers he worked with. “They went back, but their mind — it was very hard, going from Gaza back to the family, because they have a lot of post-trauma.”

The breakthrough, he said, often comes through community. When soldiers hear others sharing similar experiences, the isolation begins to lift. “When they understood that others also have it, and it’s a war that nobody wanted but was a must — something that needed to happen to protect the land of Israel — they decided to continue life with their family and to work on it and take care of themselves.”

Al Jazeera’s report does not allege any specific wrongdoing by Rabbi Caplin or the Cozumel Chabad house. Instead, it frames the existence of the program itself as newsworthy — even scandalous. The segment notes that while some IDF soldiers face prosecution abroad for alleged war crimes, others are spending days on a “paradisiacal Caribbean island.” It describes participants as members of elite IDF units and invites viewers to weigh in with their opinion.

For Rabbi Caplin, the Al Jazeera framing represents a straightforward attempt to weaponize the suffering of young soldiers for political ends. “They attacked Chabad Cozumel,” he said. “But the diversity in Cozumel is beautiful — the people here are very nice and accepting of tourists, accepting of everyone. And we continue, even with the lies and the attack from Al Jazeera.”

The post-October 7 expansion into formal PTSD programming reflects a broader reality: the Israeli mental health system has been stretched to its limits by the ongoing war, and many veterans have sought treatment abroad or through informal community networks.
Rabbi Caplin said he has no plans to scale back the program despite the publicity. “We continue with our project,” he said. He paused, then added: “Those soldiers need this help.”