Swiss children’s village near violence: ‘Director and employees were called up as reservists’

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The war in Israel also has an impact on the Swiss children’s village of Kiriat Yearim. It is located just five kilometers from the border with Palestine.

The village is home to traumatized and socially disadvantaged children and young people. It was originally founded in 1951 for children who had escaped the Holocaust. Now the war is practically on our doorstep.

The situation is calm, but the security situation is precarious, says Amir Bernstein (54), co-chairman of the Kiriat Yearim association. Together with his wife Daniela Gnägi Bernstein (53), he heads the Swiss aid organization for underprivileged children and young people in Israel. “Several rockets hit the area. “But fortunately the village itself was spared,” he tells Blick.

Village leaders and team members were drafted into the army

Because they were celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles with their families when the violence broke out, the children were not in the village. “Our village leader Yedidya Hazani and numerous employees have been called up as reservists and are in military service,” says Bernstein. The interim management would be in constant contact with the children.

There are online meetings twice a day where children and young people can ask questions and talk about their feelings. Special attention is paid to the twelve students who live in the immediate vicinity of the Gaza Strip.

“Trauma for generations”

“We were shocked, horrified and completely helpless,” Bernstein said. Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been murdered in one day. “And that in our own country. This will be a trauma for generations.”

The images circulating on social media make the situation more difficult: “It is difficult to imagine what this does to children and young people who already come from a difficult background and have psychological problems.”

Even adults don’t understand war yet

The hardest part is explaining war to a child, says Bernstein: “The adults don’t understand it all themselves.” It is important “that the children can talk about their fears and feel coherence in the classroom despite the current distance.”

The board of the Kiriat Yearim Switzerland Children’s Village has already approved a special budget to strengthen the psychological team and hire additional guards. If necessary, children and their parents who have to flee the war are welcomed to the village.

Source: Blick