A Sample Letter from Rebecca Cherniak ('06) Describing Her Experiences on the YJ Shevet Year in Israel

Shalom Lekulam,

So everyone has been asking me about my new place here in Netanya, and I’m dying to tell you about it, so here goes. A little more clearly and comprehensively this time.

Our program is divided into three parts: Jerusalem studies, Israeli Experience and Bat Yam Community Volunteering. Currently, we are in the second week of Israeli Experience. In early November, we chose various different options for this three-month period. Some of the options were Magen David Adom (being a paramedic in Israeli ambulances), Marva (3 months of army training and Sar-El), various youth aliyah villages, veterinary rescue centers, therapeutic horse riding centers for the disabled, nature preservation in Ein Gedi, Israeli Fire Department and more.

I am now with 4 other girls (including Becca Silverhart) and 2 boys (including Aaron Rosenberg) here in Netanya working at a place called Bet Elazraki Tirat Hayeled (www.elazraki.org.il), an amazing place. It is a two-part children’s home for children from troubled homes or who were abused, or have parents cannot take care of them for whatever reason. The children are turned over to the centre by the police and other social agencies. One part of the center is for children who come from homes that are so troubled or so unsafe that they cannot live there at all. This includes a house for the babies and a dormitory for the kids, all of whom range from the ages of infancy to 18 and going to the army. These kids are provided with therapy and activities and tutoring and counseling – the works – at our place, and even when the kids leave the home and go to the army, the center still has a home for soldiers to come home to on weekends and on their ragilim (vacations from the army). There are such horrible stories of kids who come here; Becca works in the tinokia, the baby center, with a little girl whose parents are both in jail for killing her older sister, and the mother is pregnant with a baby who will end up here in Beit Elazraki. One boy that I deal with is the son of a Jewish mother and the leader of the Druze mafia in Hadera. Many kids come from abusive households; a 10-month-old baby just came having been taken away from his parents when he arrived at the hospital with a broken foot and blue marks all over, and his parents still claiming that they love him. Crazy stuff goes on here. But there are also amazing success stories. One of my co-madrichot (counselors) for my group of girls is a graduate of the system. She came to the Beit Elazraki and lived in the dormitory since she was six, and now she helps with other kids and is going off to the army in two weeks. Another graduate of the system is now married with children and serves in a secret unit in the army.

The second part of the center is the pnimi’at yom, the day care center. The eighty kids that come here are also from bad homes but it is possible to work with their families to fix their problems, whereas the kids in the other center came either without parents or from an irreparable situation. These kids go to school everyday, but instead of going straight home afterwards, they come to the center to eat nutritious lunches and suppers, to do homework and be tutored, and to have after-school activities that their families cannot provide for whatever reason. I lead a group of 6-9 year-old girls with two other sherut leu’mi girls my age (instead of army service, religious girls do 1-2 years of community service). The girls are unbelievable; I have 3 Ethiopians, two of whom are twins, and they are beautiful. I have a couple girls with learning disabilities and it’s so interesting to work with them and try new strategies of getting them to understand, and the sherut leu’mi girls that I work with (one of which I told you about, the graduate of the system) are so sweet and so fun to work with and are quickly becoming close friends. (In general, for Israeli girls, your placement for sherut leu’mi is based largely about your bagrut, Israeli standardized testing at the end of high school and how well you do on those tests. To get into working at this place, not only do you have to do very well on your bagruyot, but you have to succeed in a series of interviews. It seems they only take the best of the girls here, they are just such a pleasure to work with and so passionate about what they are doing).

A typical day here goes as follows. I wake up at whatever time I want because the first thing I have is at 12:30 in the afternoon. This allows me to do tons of things in the morning; I have time to do extra religious learning that is being set up for us, I have time to explore Netanya, I have time to go for a run, and daven, and hopefully write articles and other stuff. And I have time to go to the shuk, the market, which is the most unbelievable place, so colourful and full of the most delicious fruits and vegetables I have ever seen, in addition to all the knickknacks you need and clothing and shoes. Also, there is the Netanya beach… picture the Tel Aviv beach if you have ever been there, but much cleaner and less clutter and just vast and the most beautiful sunset. It’s so peaceful just to walk along the beach with your bare feet in the shallow waves, or to sit in the sand and watch the sunset at the end of Shabbat. Right above, there is the tayelet, the boardwalk, with tons of fun restaurants and stores and just a really nice promenade that is conveniently a 15-20 minute walk from our place.

To continue with the typical day (sorry, I totally got side-tracked on how great Netanya is), we have a staff meeting at the day-care center. This starts the all-Hebrew day where, after ten minutes, you start to forget all your English (until, of course, you start to think of the word for negative reciprocal or obtuse angle). The meeting is run by the menahelet, the principal, who is the epitome of every Israeli female teacher you have ever met: dressed so Israeli, tall, unbelievably loud, and charismatic and just such a personality. Everyone here is such a character and it’s so amazing to get to know all the members of the staff, the co-ordinators, the social workers, the therapists. The meeting discusses who has meetings with which social workers, or what events are happening during the week, or which kid is having a particularly hard time, whether with peers or family or multiplication tables, or whatever, etc. It’s a great feeling to be able to sit through a meeting all in Hebrew and understand everything and be able to participate and voice my own opinion like any other member of the staff. Then the kids come and we check their bags to see what homework they have to do and check this notebook of communication from the teacher to the madricha to see what to focus on. Then we eat lunch together (which is no small feat since table manners are skills that also must be taught) and then we start homework together, sitting down with all the girls and tutoring and helping and guiding. My first day, I was doing that subtraction when you have to borrow from the neighbour (don’t know how else to describe it) with one girl, and Hebrew grammar and learning how to read with another girl. My Hebrew has skyrocketed and it’s so rewarding to see that I am able to help these girls and how much I am able to learn from them. At 4:00, after we finish our homework, we all sit together for a group activity and a snack. Since we are in the spirit of Chanukah for the past couple weeks, our group activities have been trivia and memory games all dealing with Chanuka. After lunch, we have two chugim (activities), such as jazz dance, choir, sports, gymnastics, computers, movies, and a small pet therapy corner they have in our center with birds and chinchillas and more. Then we have dinner at 6:00, and then we have a daily sikkum (summary), where we say who were the mitztynot (the distinguished, the girls who behaved the best that day, or worked the hardest, or the star of the day) and give prizes and we have little dance parties then we brush our teeth and do the bedtime shema, which is my favourite part of the day. We turn off the lights, and sit down in a circle on the floor and have this whole routine of this cute poem that leads into the shema and then some of the other parts of the bedtime shema (like HaMalach Hagoel) and these girls sing their hearts out and it just like makes you so excited and the first time they did it – I’m not going to lie – I had some tears in my eyes because they get so much at this place – it really is their home.

Then the girls all pack up and go on chartered buses to go back to their homes. After work, we go and walk around Netanya and visit our friends in apartments on Weizmann, the main street, who are doing Magen David Adom and working in hospitals and other Israeli Experience choices, or we go out for dinner or a snack and just walk around. But most of the time we are so tired we just go to our rooms, have some of the fruit we bought at the shuk, hang out a bit and then just pass out from exhaustion.

Today was the big Chanukah party and all the kids’ parents came for a big carnival and dinner. It was so nice to see parents having some bonding time with their kids and doing fun things together with us.

I can’t believe I’m still awake. This shabbes, we had a group shabbaton in Efrat (in the West Bank) where we were assigned with different families and all got together for an oneg to reunite after a couple weeks of separation. It was so nice to see everyone and eat delicious food that we haven’t had in months (like broccoli and asparagus, and roast beef) and just have a really family-like Shabbat. But now, all 5 girls here at our place are sick, not from Efrat but I think from our girls at the center and all their germs. So tonight we just hung out here and ate a pommello, and then a grapefruit, and then a pomegranate, and now I’m on my fourth cup of peppermint tea and we are watching Erutz 2 on television in this lounge that I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to be in. Anyway, I’m here until March and I just love it.

Anyways, it’s time to go to bed. I have a long day tomorrow because one of the girls isn’t coming to work so I’m working with her girls tomorrow and they are 9-12 and hyper and crazy.

Happy Chanuka to everyone and I hope everyone is doing well.

I miss you all very much and love hearing about how you guys are doing.

Love,

Beck