Student exchange between Germany and Israel...a channel of humanitarian communication that is going through a “deep crisis”

"If we had not worked with so much love and devotion for this cause, we would have given up," Frederike Klee told DW. Klee and her colleague Axel Schlüter are teachers at the Margareta Roth High School in Hamburg. This school bears the name of a woman who participated in the resistance against oppression and dictatorship during the Nazi era in Germany. The teachers at this school feel obligated to remember this history. Since 2015, the school has been organizing student exchange programs with Israel.

Every year until a few years ago, 15 to 20 students traveled from Germany to Israel in the spring. This summer, the same number of young Israelis made a corresponding visit to Hamburg. But the last real exchange took place before the Corona pandemic.

Mehmet Can, a department head at the Campus Rütli School in Berlin, is also a committed educator and considers the exchange with Israel an important part of political education. He also says: “In 2021 we had to cancel our trip because of Corona, in 2023 because of the October 7th [terrorist attack on Israel], and in 2025 because of a travel warning.” There are currently no plans for trips, he says. This is what is now said in almost all schools whose destination is Israel.

Every trip represents an organizational and financial effort

The Campus Rütli school is located in the Berlin Neukölln district and the Margareta Roth school is in the Hamburg-Barmbeck district, where the parents are typically not wealthy and most of the students are Muslims. In both schools and similar schools, every student exchange trip to Israel represents a difficult effort for the participating teachers. Participants state that preparing content is one of their simplest problems.

In this regard, teacher Frederike Klee says: “My students know that I am pro-Israel and the Palestinian students feel my pulse, but even though we have a large number of Muslim children, there have been no conflicts so far.” She adds that what is much more difficult is obtaining funding for trips and organizing everything.

Her colleague Axel Schlüter adds that they often need about five donor institutions, and sometimes they also need the Directorate of Education, as well as revenues from selling cakes in schools and donations from friendly relatives. Due to rising prices, costs are now rapidly exceeding one thousand euros per student. If the trip has to be canceled at the last minute due to a travel warning, then most of the money will have been wasted.

For Eric Lindner, CEO of the Axel Springer Foundation (Germany's largest newspaper publishing and distribution company), which supports such trips with a maximum of 150 euros per student, the work has completely changed, he told DW. In 2022, his foundation supported 46 trips to Israel as well as 46 visits by Israeli student groups to Germany. In 2026, only three applications were submitted for this. No request was submitted to finance a trip from Germany to Israel. Now on Lindner's desk are requests for trips to monuments and memorial sites.

When Israeli students come, alarm bells ring

While the German Foreign Ministry warns against traveling to Israel, the Israeli authorities advise their citizens not to travel to Germany. Rising anti-Semitism and physical attacks on Jews in Germany are putting pressure on schools and families hosting exchange students.

Religious education teacher Axel Schlüter from Hamburg says that they do not publish news of these trips on their website until after the group of Israeli students has finished visiting. Eric Lindner of the Springer Foundation, which supports such trips, says he learned during his conversations with schools: “In order to ensure the safety of Israeli students, private buses or security guards must be hired. This is not only a huge effort, it also requires huge costs. Often only schools with wealthy parents can afford it.”

“Love is the best way to combat anti-Semitism”

Muhammad Jan says he wants "not to overestimate the importance of trips to Israel, and also not to underestimate them." He adds that it helps combat anti-Semitism. The Campus Rütli school in Berlin-Neukölln has gone from being described as a “social time bomb” to an exemplary model. Mehmet Can also trains teachers on the topics of Middle Eastern conflict, religion and anti-Semitism. “We must ask ourselves: How are chemistry teachers prepared to explain such a long and controversial conflict?” he says.

The Campus Routley School had communication networks, training programs and routine experiments in place when the events of October 7, 2023 led to intense polarization in the school grounds. They were ready. Trips to Israel also contributed to this, as “field meetings led to a better understanding of the issue in its complexity and lack of confidence in the validity of some information.”

After the trips, the students could say: “We never saw it like that there.” Muhammad Jan says that the students lived a very powerful experience, especially in Jerusalem, where many religions and extremist movements meet. He jokingly adds that it would be very cool if one of his students fell in love inside Israel. This also usually occurs in young adults.

Love helps, as Friederike Klee and Axel Schlüter also say. They add: “The best way to combat anti-Semitism is when people get to know each other, and perhaps even when they love each other.” They believe that there is a cognitive side and an emotional side at play. “When people see each other as human beings, then we have achieved a lot,” emphasizes Friederike Klee.

Paula nevertheless travels to Israel

Likewise, there is no longer any real exchange worth mentioning, even outside the school field. Many organizations also avoid making trips to this crisis area. But the German peace organization “Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste” wants to maintain the exchange programs as much as possible. A number of young people are currently going as volunteers to Israel, including a young woman from Berlin named Paula Weitzel. She had just finished high school and was looking for an opportunity to learn more closely about the state of Israel and its society. She found her opportunity in the “Year of Voluntary Social Service” program with the peace organization “Aktion Sühnezeichen‌.”

Regarding this, the young woman, Paula, who is 20 years old, says: “Because of this, I did not face any hostility or insults within my circle of friends, but those around me wanted to know why I chose this particular country.” She adds that she was often asked whether she considered traveling there morally acceptable as long as there were right-wing extremists in the Israeli government who determined its policies.

She says this sometimes distracted her mentally, but she doesn't want to reduce Israel to just that aspect. She is convinced that "criticism is part of a good friendship." The security situation is not a source of concern for her. She visited Israel for the first time when she was twelve years old, and then visited repeatedly because her mother’s boyfriend was Israeli. That's why she knows very well when she needs to go to a shelter.

Historian: German-Israeli exchange is in deep crisis

In Jerusalem, Uriel Kashi takes care of the volunteers of the organization "Aktion Sühnezeichen" and has been running the "Beit Ben Yehuda" youth meeting center in Jerusalem for two years. This center has 48 beds and is intended for young people who wish to participate in exchange programs. But now its rooms are often empty.

For Uriel Kashy, this indicates that the German-Israeli exchange is going through a deep crisis. “In the past, there were a lot of spontaneous, relaxed get-togethers between choirs, school trips or fire brigades,” says historian and tour guide Uriel Kashi. “Holocaust stories receded into the background, and the focus became more on life now, on the beach, the LGBT community and music.”

He adds that Israel's association with the war now primarily shapes its image. Many Israelis feel left alone due to the boycotts and the reluctance of people to visit Israel - including critical people. Cashy says that exchange programs are not a priority for the current Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. He hopes that this will change, perhaps after the Israeli parliamentary elections at the end of October 2026.

There are teachers who refuse to give in to despair

In good times - before the Corona pandemic, before the terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 and the war with Iran - there were an estimated 10,000 exchange flights between Germany and Israel every year. Most of these trips were organized outside the formal school framework, and each trip formed an important cornerstone in promoting mutual understanding.

Now the schools must find on their own a partner school in Israel. Reduced state budgets for school trips also make student exchange programs more difficult.

However, teacher Friederike Klee and her colleague Axel Schlüter from Hamburg do not want to give in to despair. They may travel to Israel at their own expense to search for a new partner school. That's their plan right now.