Young people of Yemin Orde in a victory pose after winning first place in an Israeli robotics competition.
Photo courtesy Friends of Yemin Orde
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September 2, 2009
Since 1953, when a village called Yemin Orde opened its doors to young survivors of the Holocaust, the residential facility near Haifa has been housing, educating, and serving as a second family to 500 orphans, immigrants, and other young people in distress.
More than a half-century later, Yemin Orde’s director of outreach and development is urging New Jersey’s Jewish community to offer the institution moral support.
Standing in the living room of a home in Livingston on Aug. 26, Susan Weijel described the population of the youth village. “The majority come from Ethiopia,” she said. “Others come from the former Soviet Union, from Brazil, and from 20 different countries, and a lot of them don’t have family in Israel.”
She spoke to some 25 supporters of the Friends of Yemin Orde in the home of Andrew and Barbara Hutter. The couple, said Andrew Hutter, “were really blown away” when they visited Yemin Orde during a recent mission sponsored by Israel Bonds.
“It is a place that really shows what Israel is,” he said, “taking kids from other countries, giving them a home, giving them a family, and allowing them to be Jewish.”
The youngsters range in age from six to 19, Weijel explained, and “from the moment they arrive, we tell them something that is not an easy thing: ‘We know that this is not your favorite place to be. The best place to be is with your own family. But we are committed to make this the best possible alternative.’”
About 15 percent of the children have no parents. Others have been abandoned and are officially classified as “homeless within Israel.”
“The kids who come to our village are scared,” Weijel said. “There’s a lot of pain. A lot of them have gone through places that are very hard. These kids have been kicked out of everywhere…. They are testing us all the time.”
Yemin Orde operates on a $2.5 million annual budget, with 70 percent of funding from the Israeli government, the rest from private American and Israeli donations.
The organization is on a quest to increase its donor base to maintain “its high level of care and service to the children,” according to a Yemin Orde fact sheet that was distributed at the gathering.
Joining Weijel in Livingston was recent Yemin Orde graduate Mazal Genatech, a 24-year-old sabra of Ethiopian ancestry.
The two told a story of success based on inspiring ambition and confidence in the village’s troubled young people. Likening the Yemin Orde approach to a water irrigation system, Weijel said, “We are trying to drip into their heads a few messages: ‘You can be great’ and ‘We believe in you’ and ‘We are going to be there for you. This is our community, and you are part of the line of Jewish history.’ There is a feeling of optimism.”
Weijel told of the visit to the village by the deputy mayor of Tiberias — a graduate of Yemin Orde. “One of our boys asked, ‘Who wants to be deputy mayor? I want to be prime minister.’ That is the type of chutzpa we are trying to breed in the village.”
Speaking with confidence — but not chutzpa — Genatech said her experience at Yemin Orde helped her create a career path.
During the last year as a student, she spent time working with a boy who had lost his mother. “When the year ended and I had to leave, it was really hard for him and hard for me, too,” she said. “But I gave him hope. I was like a big sister for him. That day, I knew I wanted help kids.”
Genatech is about to begin studying for a degree in social work at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Making a guest appearance at the meeting was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood, an author, blogger, and frequent TV and radio talk-show guest.
Joining him were his two teenage daughters, Hannah and Shterny, who spent the summer as volunteers at Yemin Orde.
“I sent my kids to Yemin Orde for the most selfish of reasons…,” said the rabbi. “I wanted them exposed to heroes of the Jewish people, to bring up their altruism.”
“We have enough kids in America who are self-absorbed, enough kids who put all their time into video games, enough kids who put all their time into television,” he said. “To teach our kids they should extend themselves to others, to be moved by the plight of others, to not be distant from others, that is very significant. So I got so much more out of Yemin Orde by sending my daughters than anything they themselves gave, because they walked away inspired.”
After the meeting, Weijel told NJ Jewish News how Yemin Orde copes with the potential problems of racial and ethnic tensions among its young and multinational population.
“What we are trying to create is a society inside a society of how we want the world to be,” she said. “If there is any act of violence — racial or otherwise — the village stops. We make a really big deal of it. Our message to the kids is ‘You don’t have to become friends, but we are teaching respect.’
“Just as they believe we are giving them a chance, they are being open-minded to the fact that different people come from different places,” said Weijel. “When they are learning the beauty of each other’s heritage, they realize all of us in the world are alike. We are judging people by what they can be, not where they came from — and that’s our message.”
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