Krembo Wings founder Adi Altschuler wins the Israel Prize for young leadership

Educator and social entrepreneur Adi Altschuler received the Israel Prize at the national ceremony in Jerusalem on 22 April 2026, Israel's 78th Independence Day. She was the first person honoured in a new category for young leadership, which The Times of Israel described as recognising a special contribution to society and the state by young leaders. Other laureates that evening included the artist Yaacov Agam, the actor Gabi Amrani and the trauma surgeon Avi Rivkind.

Altschuler, born in Hod HaSharon in 1986, founded Krembo Wings in 2002, when she was 16. It is a youth movement where children and young people with disabilities take part in weekly activities with peers who do not have disabilities, as equal members of the same group. The idea came from her friendship with a neighbour who had a severe disability. The movement has grown to dozens of branches across Israel serving thousands of children, and it has won the Presidential Award and the Yigal Allon Award.

She has started other projects that spread well beyond Israel. Zikaron BaSalon, or Memory in the Living Room, invites people to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day in small gatherings at home, often with a survivor present. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in Israel and abroad. She also co-founded Inclu, a network of inclusive schools and kindergartens. In 2014 Time magazine named her one of six next-generation leaders, and she received the President's Medal of Honor in 2023.

At the ceremony, Education Minister Yoav Kisch spoke about his late son Matan, who had a rare genetic disease and was a member of Krembo Wings. Thanking Altschuler, he said she had built a bridge where others saw only difficulty.