From September 3 to 10, 2026, an international youth music exchange took place in Berlin, where teenagers from four cities and four countries met simultaneously: Rivne in Ukraine, Ashkelon in Israel, Kołobrzeg in Poland, and Berlin’s Pankow. The Ukrainian side reported on the trip on September 20, after the delegation had returned home. The German administration of Pankow announced the project on August 28 and detailed the program for the entire week.
Author: Victoria Katsman
For the Israeli reader, there is a detail that is easy to miss in the Ukrainian news: it was not just a foreign trip for students from Rivne. Israel was represented by the Ashkelon Municipal Conservatory, and the exchange is a continuation of a project in which the youth of Ashkelon and Rivne first met simultaneously in Berlin back in September 2024. In 2026, Polish Kołobrzeg joined them.
Who came from Ukraine
Rivne was represented by teachers and high school students from the city’s children’s music school No. 2. The Ukrainian delegation brought two folk ensembles.
The folk music ensemble “Perepilonka” included Mykola Holubenko, Nazariy Zhitkovsky, Roman Lesko, Oleksiy Polyukhovych, and Orest Pastushenko. The ensemble’s leader is Svitlana Pekarska. In the exemplary folk ensemble “Ulyanochka”, Eva Novak, Vladyslava Pekarska, Anastasia Dubrovik, and Inna Plisyuk performed, led by Iryna Tataryn.
The Rivne participants focused on the culture of Polissya, traditional melodies, and works by Ukrainian composers. But the program was not limited to a scheme where each country came, performed its number, and left. Participants rehearsed together, attended master classes, and, according to the Ukrainian side, united in a large international music ensemble with peers from Germany, Poland, and Israel.
This continues a familiar line for NAnews readers, where Ukrainian music becomes a language of contact with the Israeli environment. Recently, we talked about the Kyiv ensemble “Bou Nashir”, whose members perform songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, thus building a completely different but similarly meaningful musical bridge between the two countries. “Kyiv students sing in Yiddish and Hebrew” — NAnews material
What musicians from Ashkelon, Rivne, Poland, and Germany did
The host was the municipal music school Béla Bartók in Pankow. The week included not only music activities. The program featured joint rehearsals and discussions, intercultural evenings, joint cooking, walks, and excursions around Berlin. The German organizers explicitly explained the project’s concept as follows: the city union exists on paper until people from partner cities start meeting in person.
The first public performance took place on September 4 in Einsteinpark. The program was called BÉLA TANZT, and the audience was presented with music from four countries.
The next day, September 5, Rivne musicians participated in the opening of the Pankow museum exhibition “Pankows Partnerstadt Riwne – Persönliche Berichte vom Alltag im Krieg” — “Pankow’s Partner City Rivne: Personal Accounts of Everyday Life During the War.” The exhibition emerged after a trip by Museum Pankow staff to Rivne and specifically told about the life of the Ukrainian city under war conditions.
The main musical event of the week was the “Concert of Friendship” on September 7 in the large hall of the educational and cultural center Peter Edel in Berlin’s Weißensee. On one stage, the Béla Bartók music school, school No. 2 from Rivne, the Ashkelon Municipal Conservatory, and the state music school of Kołobrzeg met. Organizers described the program as an evening of musical traditions from Germany, Ukraine, Israel, and Poland.
What is known about the Israeli side — and what is still unknown
Ashkelon Municipal Conservatory is a specific city institution, not a private group invited by the organizers. According to its official page in Hebrew, the conservatory has existed since 2004 and was established after the merger of two music centers. Today it operates in the Gan Ha-Vradim area as a division of the city’s culture, youth, sports, and leisure company. They teach playing, singing, and performing skills on about 15 types of instruments.
The conservatory has several ensembles. The representative ensemble — הרכב ייצוגי — is led by Yevgeny Razikov and Ella Galfgat; there is a representative choir, keyboard and guitar ensembles, and wind ensembles. The director of the conservatory in Israeli municipal reference data is listed as Gil-Ad Bardo.
But there is a boundary between what is found and what is assumed. In the open project documents, there is no list of Ashkelon children who traveled to Berlin, and no confirmation that Razikov, Galfgat, or Bardo were part of the delegation. Therefore, attributing leadership of this specific trip to them is not possible.
The full concert booklet for September 7 with the titles of the pieces performed by the Israeli side has not yet been found. The German program speaks of music from four countries, the Ukrainian one about joint rehearsals and an international ensemble. This is enough to understand the format but not to speculate on Ashkelon’s repertoire.
These are the details NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency tries to separate from the beautiful overall picture: where organizers provided a specific fact, we use it; where there is a gap in open sources, it remains a gap, not filled with assumptions.
Israel helped finance the project
There is a fact that is almost invisible in the Ukrainian publication. The Pankow administration separately thanked the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, which “again this year” supported the music exchange with a substantial donation. This wording indicates that it is a continuation of support, not a one-time contribution.
The Verband deutscher Musikschulen, the GESOBAU foundation, KulturMarktHalle, and public associations supporting Pankow’s partnerships with Ashkelon, Rivne, and Kołobrzeg also participated in the financing and organization.
Thus, Israel’s presence here was at several levels: children from Ashkelon, a municipal music structure, a long-standing city connection Pankow—Ashkelon, and support from the Israeli diplomatic mission in Germany.
This did not start in 2026
The history of Ashkelon and Pankow is much older than the current concert. The official partnership with the Israeli city appeared on July 7, 1994 and became the first city connection of its kind between a municipality of the former East Germany and an Israeli city. Now the interaction includes youth, sports, culture, and education.
Rivne joined this structure much later. At the end of 2022, Pankow and Rivne formalized a solidarity partnership after the start of the full-scale Russian war, and on July 12, 2024, the relationship received official partner city status.
And it was in September 2024 that the Ukrainian and Israeli lines first crossed within a music project. Youth from Rivne and Pankow then played together in an orchestra, and participants from Ashkelon and Pankow created a joint jazz group. The final concert took place on September 17 at the same Peter Edel. Official photos from Pankow show the mayor of Ashkelon Tomer Glam, the leadership of Rivne, and the head of Pankow Cordelia Koch with the youth ensembles.
After that meeting, participants of the multilateral city seminar separately agreed to expand precisely the musical youth contacts. Two years later, this decision no longer looks like a protocol after a meeting: in 2026, the music exchange took place for the second time and grew to four cities.
There is now even an Ashkelon-Platz in Berlin
The connection between Ashkelon and Pankow is so noticeable that there is now an Ashkelon-Platz in Berlin. Israeli local media described its opening as a symbol of more than 30 years of city partnership and specifically mentioned sports youth exchanges and music meetings.
In May 2026, an information stand was installed on the square, telling about the partnership with the Israeli city. The German administration again emphasized that the relationship covers youth, educational, sports, and cultural projects.
Back in September 2024, the Israeli publication כאן דרום — אשקלון reported on ten young athletes from Ashkelon who went to Pankow for an eight-day exchange. They not only engaged in sports but also discussed anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and current events with their German peers. The publication noted that such trips are held regularly.
Thus, music did not arise separately from other contacts. It became another channel of the same relationships.
Why this is almost unheard of in Israel itself
There is a strange detail. In openly indexed Hebrew-language materials that could be checked, a separate publication about Ashkelon’s music trip September 3–10, 2026 could not be found. Meanwhile, Israeli local media regularly write about the partnership with Pankow, Ashkelon-Platz, and other youth exchanges.
This does not mean that the municipality or conservatory definitely did not publish anything: a post could remain on Facebook or Instagram and not be indexed by search engines. But as of today, the most detailed confirmed information about Ashkelon’s participation is provided by official German documents, while the Ukrainian side detailed its delegation.
For NAnews, this is precisely the case when a Ukrainian regional news story reveals an almost unnoticed Israeli plot within Israel.
We have already reported on other situations where children and youth from Ukraine and Israel find themselves within one international project. For example, in the spring, Israeli Nahariya represented the country at a youth football tournament in Berlin along with teams from Ukraine and other European countries. “Ukraine and Israel on the same field” — NAnews material
And within Israel itself, Ukrainian cultural infrastructure is becoming increasingly noticeable — from events and exhibitions to the permanently operating Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv. What is happening at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Tel Aviv
Explanation for Israeli readers
Pankow is one of the administrative districts of Berlin. It is the district administration, not the federal government of Germany, that manages the system of city partnerships with Ashkelon, Rivne, and Kołobrzeg.
Rivne is a regional center in western Ukraine. The city is far from the front line, but like other Ukrainian cities, it lives under war conditions, air raids, and Russian strikes. The partnership with Pankow began as a form of solidarity after the Russian invasion and became official in 2024.
Polissya, whose music was represented by the Rivne children, is a historical and ethnographic region of Ukraine, Belarus, and part of Poland with its own musical, song, and folklore tradition.
Peter Edel is a cultural and educational center in Berlin’s Weißensee district. It is here that the youth music exchange concerts took place in both 2024 and 2026.
Ashkelon Municipal Conservatory is a city music school operating since 2004. Its participation means that Israel was represented by an official cultural and educational structure of Ashkelon, not a randomly assembled group of musicians.
What was achieved in the end
If you only look at the message from Rivne, the story looks like a successful foreign trip for two Ukrainian folk ensembles. If you add German and Israeli sources, the picture changes.
We have a project that for the second time brings together children from Ukraine and Israel in one Berlin, not abstract “delegations of two countries,” but specific cities — Rivne and Ashkelon. Their own relations with each other are not yet formalized as a city partnership. The connecting link is Pankow.
In 2024, these were the first parallel music meetings. In 2026, it was already a week-long international program with four cities, rehearsals, concerts, conversations, an exhibition about the war in Ukraine, and support from the Israeli embassy.
And this project does not seem to be ending. The Pankow administration has already stated that it wants to further connect schools, music institutions, and public organizations with its partner cities. Therefore, the meeting in September 2026 looks not like a finale, but another link in a program that gradually turns formal lines on the map — Berlin—Ashkelon, Berlin—Rivne, Berlin—Kołobrzeg — into connections between specific teenagers, teachers, and families.
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