Kaphan, Johanna

Johanna Kaphan was born on 25.1.1892 in Berlin and died on 8.12.1969 in Haifa. She graduated as a teacher from the teacher seminary of the Viktoria-Luisen School in Berlin in 1911. Subsequently, she received further training in Judaism while also working as a teacher in a private school. From 1915, she taught at Berlin’s Jewish community’s middle school for girls. In addition, she studied at the Seminary for Individual Psychology in Berlin and was a guest student at a University of Berlin, where she studied German studies, psychology and theology. Between 1929 and 1939, she directed the girl's elementary school of the Jewish community in Berlin-Auguststr and worked from 1932 until 1933 in the Ahawah Jewish children’s home, then led by Beate Berger, who transferred the institution to Palestine in 1934. In 1939, Johanna emigrated from Germany to Sweden, where she headed a newly-established hachschara or training camp for youth and founded a home for emigrants. Johanna also directed a large refugee camp there. In 1949, Johanna emigrated to Palestine, where she worked as a social worker at the municipality of Haifa until 1957. In 1974, her friend Hanni Ullman named the children’s home in Kiryat Gat Neve Hannah after her. Neve Hannah was innovative, being the first children’s home based on small family units. Hannah was part of the planning phase of the home and contributed all her inheritance to the project after she died.