Communication and care

© Goethe-Institut

As well as care duties, their field of activity also includes researching archives, working at memorial sites, women’s refuges and youth villages, on Jewish-Arabic communication projects, in establishments for people with disabilities, and other social projects. Today up to 25 volunteers a year participate in a twelve-month peacetime service placement organised by Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste (ASF; Action Reconciliation Service for Peace) in Israel. They work in the cities of Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as well as in Bustan Hagalil, in the Hasorea Kibbutz, in Afula, Ben Schemen and Rahat.

Learning the language is part of the programme, as is immersion in the complex conflict reality that prevails locally. The play “The Peace Syndrome” by Torge Kübler is about the engagement of German volunteers in general – in other words including beyond the Green Line for Palestinian NGOs. The German author and director consolidated detailed surveys completed by voluntary helpers during a research trip in 2011 and created a fulminant drama from them. It was also performed in the ZOA Theatre in Tel Aviv in 2012 – with German and Israeli actors, in Hebrew, English and German.