Aid Project for Israeli Therapists: Prestigious Shimon Peres Prize Goes to North Rhine-Westphalia
Award for the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Witten for the project “Exchange and Time Off for Israeli PSEC Staff”
On Sunday, December 7, 2025, in Tel Aviv, an aid project by the Witten branch of the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund was awarded the prestigious Shimon Peres Prize. Israeli professionals in the field of psychosocial emergency care (PSEC) were invited to Germany as part of the project to exchange experiences. The state government supported the project as part of the “Shalom Chaveruth” aid initiative, launched immediately following the Hamas terrorist attack. By strengthening existing partnerships and establishing new ones, North Rhine-Westphalia is contributing to the reconstruction of severely affected Israeli communities and organizations; to date, this has resulted in more than 35 initiatives.
Minister and Head of the State Chancellery Nathanael Liminski said: “The Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Witten has succeeded in sending a clear signal of authentic solidarity, true to its mission statement. The project is not only about expertise, but also about empathy. The guests from Israel are given the opportunity to draw new strength from their visit and take an important break. The award of this year’s Shimon Peres Prize also serves to honor the efforts of politicians and civil society throughout North Rhine-Westphalia to help the people of Israel rebuild after the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas.”
The minister continued: “October 7 has left a nation-wide trauma in its wake, which has inevitably led to the development of new approaches to strengthen the resilience of the population in extreme crisis situations. These lessons learned are also of the utmost importance for us in a Europe at a turning point.”
The attack by the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, claimed more than 1,200 lives. As a result of the terrorist attack, the number of Israelis suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder has doubled. Nearly half of the population suffers from depression and generalized anxiety disorder as a result of the attacks.
The Witten District Association of the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund supports capacity-building in psychosocial emergency care (PSEC) through concrete aid measures and is particularly committed to underserved regions in the immediate vicinity of the Gaza Strip. The award-winning project “Exchange and Time Off for Israeli PSEC Personnel” is primarily designed to offer professionally supported time off and a recovery period to highly stressed professionals. The Israeli partner is the volunteer organization “Meshiv HaRuah.” Since its founding after October 7, Meshiv HaRuah has organized workshops on resilience and post-traumatic growth for thousands of participants from Israeli emergency services.
Shimon Peres Prize
Since 2017, the Federal Foreign Office and the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation have presented the Shimon Peres Prize annually to preserve the legacy of former Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres. The prize honors initiatives and projects by committed young people who contribute creatively to shaping democratic and diverse societies and to promoting German-Israeli relations. At this year’s award ceremony, in addition to the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund, a project by the inclusive Na Laga’at Theater from Tel Aviv-Jaffa and the theater collective Possible World from Berlin was also honored.