"הרבה נשים רוצות להתגרש אבל זו ממש לא המטרה שלנו": תמיכה מדינתית בנשים המבקשות להיפרד מבן זוג אלים

The outbreak of Covid-19 interrupted the daily routine of millions of families around the world and in Israel. The imposition of the first quarantine to break the chain of infection led to physical separation from family members and sources of support, this caused a stressful situation that had not been experienced before,with short and long-term psycho social and mental consequences for families.The purpose of the present study, conducted in the midst of the pandemic, is to understand how families in Israel experienced forced sheltering at home during the first lock down. Semi-structured in-depth telephone interviews were conducted with twenty-six families purposefully sampled to represent diverse households in Israel.Family members were asked to describe their experience of shared isolation. The interviews were analyzed using the interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)method. The analysis revealed three central themes: conservation amid change—referring to changes in family life and the subsequent stress alongside the task of adaptation by maintaining a routine; hope amid worry—maintaining an optimistic approach toward the situation and compensating for worries; and connection with in disconnection—dealing with the experience of disconnection from wide circles of support and the strategy of relying on family “togetherness.” The findings reflect a process in which families sought to balance pressures and hardships with there sources and coping methods available to them, emphasizing the important role of the family as a source of support in response to extreme pressures.