For many years we have featured the activities and achievements of the many projects and programs run by Emunah.

For the next few months we would like to give you some insight into the personalities behind the scenes, the dedicated people who make everything happen.

This month we will introduce you to Yair Daniel, the Director of the Emunah Sarah Herzog Children’s Home in Afula.

Yair Daniel, Director of Emunah Afula, is an Israeli-born sabra whose parents immigrated from as far away as Afghanistan and Russia. Yair is 44 years old and has together with his wife Nava and their eight children, built their home on the Golan.

For the last twenty years, he has studied and worked with children at risk. After several years at the Dimona Hesder Yeshiva, Yair and Nava managed a ‘warm home’ for children and youth at-risk in Dimona. Then he moved on to lead other villages and educational institutions, such as Kfar Hasidim Agricultural Youth Village and Bnei Golan, a village for youth at risk, in Ramat Magshimim.

With much experience in managing educational frameworks for at-risk youth, Yair chose to come to Afula three years ago. Together with his team of counselors, mentors, therapists, and 20 girls doing their National Service here, Yair hopes to become an educational model on a national scale. His love and devotion for the children, alongside professionalism and excellent human relations, guide him to do the best to provide each child with his or her own wishes, and to reveal his or her own strengths and abilities. Yair’s dream is to give all the children here at Emunah Afula the same conditions and opportunities as other children have, knowing that “we can never replace a real mother and father, but we can try to be the best second-best”.