2025 marked the tenth anniversary of the youth exchange between Wiesbaden and the Israeli children's home Neve Hanna. To mark the occasion, Spiegelbild - Politische Bildung from Wiesbaden conducted an interview with Antje C. Naujoks. In 2025, the Israeli children's home Neve Hanna looked back on 50 years of educational work - and on an even longer history that is linked to the Berlin orphanage Ahawah, which was established in the 1920s. Founded for children from broken homes, Neve Hanna is a place of diversity and social cohesion. For the past ten years, the home has had a partnership with the Wiesbaden-based education provider Spiegelbild. In an interview, Antje C. Naujoks talked about the origins and the special profile of Neve Hanna and what the youth exchange will mean after October 7, 2023 - in the midst of a world that seems to be falling apart at the seams.

Spiegelbild: Antje, how did you come to Neve Hanna - and what exactly do you do there?

Antje C. Naujoks: Perhaps the question should rather be: How did Neve Hanna come to me? The children's home was looking for someone who spoke German, among other things. I grew up in Germany and came to Israel at the age of 20 to continue my studies, where I have lived for almost 40 years - in other words, most of my life.

I worked here for a long time in the academic world, including at Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial. At some point, my department was downsized and I said to myself: now is the right time for a new start. I wanted to get away from my desk anyway, back to meeting people.

A friend told David (Dudu Weger), the head of the home for many years, and Chaim Appel, the chairman of the board, that I was looking for a new field of work. That was a good 23 years ago. Hanni Ullmann, the founder of Neve Hanna, had died just a few months earlier - an impressive woman who, as a German Jew, had emigrated to the then British Mandate of Palestine at the end of the 1920s. She had cultivated the German-speaking contacts of the children's home and was thus a central bridge between Israel and Germany.

When I started working for Neve Hanna in February 2003, I was given hundreds of business cards - collected loosely, without a system. No digital archive, no e-mail directories. Hanni Ullmann knew every single person behind such a card personally and maintained all contacts until shortly before her death at the age of 94. It was impressive - and challenging at the same time.

I started as a public relations officer. Other tasks soon followed: Writing funding applications and looking after the German volunteers. The latter became a core part of my work. Today, together with my colleague Ishay Talmi, who runs our therapeutic petting zoo, I am the coordinator of Neve Hanna's German volunteer program. We are able to offer this program as a recognized International Youth Volunteer Service (IJFD) thanks to the voluntary commitment of our German friends' association "Neve Hanna Kinderhilfe e.V." and funding from the German government.

Spiegelbild: When you think of Neve Hanna today - what makes this place special for you?

Antje C. Naujoks: To be honest, the place as such doesn't matter. What makes it special are the people. Neve Hanna is a home for children from highly stressed backgrounds - characterized by neglect, impoverishment, hunger and hardship, as well as physical and psychological violence and often abuse. The Israeli social welfare authorities refer children to us whose physical and mental well-being is at risk at home and whom we can help with the therapeutic measures we provide.

You have to put your heart and soul into it. People like Dudu, who took over the management of the home in 1981 for almost 40 years, have exemplified this. Today, a new generation has taken over under the leadership of Itzik Bohadana, who also lives Neve Hanna, so to speak. Many employees have been at Neve Hanna for years. It's not just "care" that is provided here, because Neve Hanna is not a job where you look at the clock to see when it's closing time. It is a task, a way of life.

Spiegelbild: You have already hinted at a few things - perhaps you would like to explain in more detail what distinguishes Neve Hanna from other residential youth care facilities, both in Israel and in comparison to Germany?

Antje C. Naujoks: With pleasure. Neve Hanna is indeed a pioneer among children's homes in Israel, which we owe above all to Hanni Ullmann. She had an extraordinary vision that went far beyond the standards of the time.

As a young woman, she was part of the educational team at Ahawah in Berlin in the 1920s. In 1929, she and her husband emigrated to pre-state Israel out of Zionist conviction. Ultimately, she dedicated her life to building a new social infrastructure for children in need. At that time, so-called "youth villages" dominated - facilities with dormitories and dining rooms where many children were accommodated, often orphans or refugees who had been brought here to safety from Nazi persecution. In later years, it was child or adolescent Shoah survivors who found a home here. Hanni Ullmann soon realized that this type of "mass care" did not come close to meeting the children's needs. The psychological and emotional requirements for healthy development are difficult to meet in large groups.

Spiegelbild: That sounds like a real educational innovation.

Antje C. Naujoks: Exactly. She advocated a family-like model that does justice to every child's right to a caring, stable environment. In 1974, when she was already retired, she founded Neve Hanna, the first home in Israel to consistently focus on small groups with a family atmosphere. Every child has privacy here. Two children share a room with an adjoining bathroom. Each residential group with a maximum of 14 boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 18 is a family with its own apartment, which has a living room and a large kitchen with a dining area, as well as a laundry room and a computer corner - everything is designed so that the children do not feel like they are in an institution, but like they are at home.

Spiegelbild: So it's a deliberate balance between professional support and family-like security?

Antje C. Naujoks: Exactly. And that has a profound effect on the children's quality of life. This closeness and continuity sets Neve Hanna apart from many other facilities - also in comparison to residential youth care in Germany. I have already mentioned that many of our employees have been with us for a very long time. They not only bring expertise, but also life experience and personal stability. Despite the intensive responsibility and close daily supervision of the children, the house parents can lead their own family life. Unlike in comparable German concepts, they do not have to be childless or live under the same roof as the children in their care. And yet the relationship is not strictly separate: the children from Neve Hanna also know the children of the house parents well - all of which creates familiarity and a safe, stable environment, which is so important for children as challenged as the severely traumatized Neve Hanna children.

Around 65 employees from very different areas, from social work to therapy to housekeeping, accompany our 80 children living in Neve Hanna and the 30 children in the two day care groups who are with us in the afternoons. This holistic care is part of our concept, which, as mentioned, also includes German volunteers as part of the IJFD as well as Israeli volunteers who spend a year with us before their military service.

Spiegelbild: How does the religious profile of the institution affect everyday life?

Antje C. Naujoks: Neve Hanna is a Jewish home that is affiliated with Conservative Judaism. This means that we live the religious traditions - from holidays to kosher dietary laws - as part of an ethical value system. We endeavor to teach our children values such as awareness, justice and equality, but also social responsibility, also by setting an example ourselves.

Israel has a very heterogeneous society. Although the majority is Jewish, Jews immigrated to Israel from many nations around the world. At Neve Hanna, we have children whose families come from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and Arab countries. In addition, Arab citizens make up over 20 percent of Israeli society. Neve Hanna has been consciously cultivating relationships and cooperation with the country's Muslim Bedouins for a long time. This interreligious exchange is not a "nice to have", but an integral part of our religious understanding and our educational concept. The concept of peaceful coexistence characterizes Neve Hanna, which is why we offer youth meetings for the Jewish children living with us with Arab children from the Muslim-Bedouin community. The adults also maintain friendly contacts.

Spiegelbild: And what does this attitude mean in practice - for you, for the children, perhaps also for international cooperation?

Antje C. Naujoks: 2025 is a year of anniversaries: 100 years of Ahawah in Berlin, 50 years of Neve Hanna, 50 years of volunteers from Germany - and 10 years of German-Israeli youth encounters with you in Wiesbaden. But numbers alone mean little. It is the people who give them life - their stories, their commitment, their relationships.

Getting to know something new comes first. Not only for the 18 to 19-year-old volunteers who come from Germany to Neve Hanna for a year, but also for the young people from Neve Hanna and Wiesbaden who take part in our exchange. This wonderful program has been running for ten years. Sometimes the young people move closer together, sometimes more loosely. But the encounter always sets something in motion. Young people from Israel and Germany meet, ask each other questions and suddenly discover new perspectives. Strangers become interlocutors who are no longer strangers to each other, but have an understanding for each other.

Mirror image: When we look back on the last ten years of our cooperation, we can't get past October 7 - a massive turning point for Israel. No group from Wiesbaden has visited you since then. What did this day mean for Neve Hanna?

Antje C. Naujoks: October 7 is deeply engraved in our everyday lives. We feel it every hour, every minute. Neve Hanna employees have lost relatives. Children who live with us come from the embattled region in the south of Israel. We have all experienced the constant rocket alarm and, above all, the uncertainty of what might come next.

That day - the biggest pogrom against Jews since the Shoah - left deep wounds in Israeli society as a whole. Neve Hanna is part of this society, so we are also directly affected.

There were children among the hostages - this has particularly shaken our children. When some of the underage hostages were released in November 2023, it was a moment of relief. But at the end of February 2025, the news came: Kfir and Ariel - nine months and three years old when they were kidnapped - did not survive. For our children, it was as if their own siblings had been murdered. And they understand: These children were killed because they were Jews. That hits them to the core.

And then there is Shimi. He came to Neve Hanna at pre-school age and stayed with us until he was 18. He was 29 years old when his life was taken from him at the Nova Festival, along with 360 young people who just wanted to enjoy music.

Spiegelbild: How did you experience the consequences in your day-to-day pedagogical work?

Antje C. Naujoks: Very directly. Many children were with their families for the holiday - in towns like Sderot, Netivot or Ofakim. There they experienced the attack at first hand. Incessant rocket alarms, hardly any protection and street fighting. An example from our everyday life: there was a large construction site around Neve Hanna. The cranes there make a noise that for a fraction of a siren sounds like a siren going off to warn of approaching rockets. In the months following October 7, this always startled us - children and adults alike. Although we knew it was just a construction noise, our bodies reacted reflexively. A classic startle reaction caused by trauma.

The consequences for our children can still be felt today: bedwetting, nightmares, sudden outbursts of emotion that are discharged without a target, without an addressee - because what has happened, what we have experienced, can hardly be processed. This is part of our everyday life, as it is throughout Israel.

Mirror image: We actually wanted to fly to Israel with a group on October 14, 2023. But after the attack from the Gaza Strip, that was of course impossible. Our children followed the events closely - many wanted to help. They asked: "What can we do?" Some had made friends in Neve Hanna through a previous visit and kept in touch via Instagram, pictures and symbols.

Antje C. Naujoks: We know that the young Germans were stunned, many could barely comprehend what was happening; no wonder, we as the victims couldn't either. Our children were also at a loss for words. It remained with non-verbal signs - gestures, pictures, small messages. But this wordless connection was also important, it was balm for the soul.

In the summer of 2024, a group from Neve Hanna was able to travel to Germany again - a big step. In the middle of the war, our children were able to rest in Germany, at least for a few days. There were no rocket attacks. They could play outside, just be children. Meeting other young people with similar interests made an even deeper impression on them due to the circumstances at the time.

Even if only we can travel at the moment and no German groups come to us: These exchange programs still have great significance. They create safe spaces - even in uncertain times. Our children discover new religions, customs and foods. But they also experience that anti-Semitism is more present in Germany today than it has been for a long time. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to travel through Germany with a Jewish-Muslim group.

Mirror image: Empathy for Israeli society - in Germany and worldwide - is probably lower than it has ever been. How is this perceived in Neve Hanna?

Antje C. Naujoks: I first have to take a deep breath. It's a big, difficult issue. At the moment, most people in Israel are - by necessity - very preoccupied with themselves. The challenges on an infinite number of levels are immense.

And yet we are acutely aware of the growing anti-Semitism around the world. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. We often just shrug our shoulders - we knew it long ago. But the fact that slogans such as "Jews to the gas" are once again being openly chanted in Germany is so shocking that many people are at a loss for words. Shouts like this were heard for the first time in 2014, today it seems almost commonplace.

We Israelis do not feel directly threatened by this, even though we know that terror can strike us anywhere. If I may go back to October 6 ... In Israel, that evening was the start of a holiday. People sat together for a feast, celebrated with family and friends - and were brutally torn from their sleep the next morning. I will spare myself further descriptions of what lay between life and death - what was done to these people. There is no question that war is always cruel - for all sides - but the fact that Israel was attacked and had to defend itself was only noticed by the world for a short time. We victims were quickly branded as perpetrators. For an institution like Neve Hanna, which focuses on dialog, tolerance and respect, this blanket misrepresentation is difficult to understand, especially when anti-Semitic motives resonate in the arguments. May I add something else? Many Israeli Arabs were also murdered and injured in the attack. Among the hostages were Bedouin-Muslim Israelis, members of the community with which we are committed to respectful, peaceful coexistence. Many in Germany do not know that our Bedouin friends also paid a high price on October 7, 2023.

I would like to mention another aspect of Israeli reality that is also relevant for Neve Hanna: our young people are about to start their compulsory military service. Incidentally, this also applies to women, although they can do alternative social service under certain conditions. These young people are 17, at the end of their schooling. For most of them it is clear: "Of course we're going", because they feel the need to contribute to the defense of their country - and therefore their home - but at the same time, in these difficult days, everyone is tormented by the question: "What can I expect?" This is something we are very concerned about in Neve Hanna.

Spiegelbild: Despite all the challenges, is there anything you wish for in the coming period?

Antje C. Naujoks: Wishing for peace is utopian as long as there are people who - and I mean this in general - hold radical, extremist views and want to implement them by using weapons, thereby negating the right of other people to exist on the basis of religion, origin or similar. This is precisely why I would like to see more diplomatic peace agreements with our Arab neighbors. Such agreements are initially just paper. But if we fill them with encounters, as Neve Hanna does on many different levels, including, above all, our decade-long youth exchange with you, then treaties will be filled with life. I hope that such encounters will become the norm and that they will follow Margot Friedländer's call: People, behave like people.