It Takes a Village

by Barbara Sofer

Liz Arbet, a tall, attractive Israeli stood on the platform of the Hadassah National Convention in Washington last July and presented First Lady Hillary Clinton with an award for her work with children. Liz, 17, spoke in English before 3000 members, diplomats and journalists. To anyone who knew her story, the poised, charming young woman on the stage was a wonder, if not a miracle. Clear-eyed about her past and her future, Liz put it this way: "Mrs. Clinton, you wrote a book called "It Takes a Village. Well, it took a village to raise me."

Not a global village. A Youth Aliyah Village. Remember those old black and white photos of children dancing on the lawn in special villages for young refuges from Europe? Remember the scene from the movie Exodus with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint when the children were smuggled out at night from Kibbutz Dafna? The actual historical event was transposed from a Youth Village named Ben Shemen, not far from Ben Gurion Airport.

That village and the others still exist. Scattered around Israel are seventy rural boarding schools inhabited by some 12,500 teenagers. Fifty years after Israel's youth villages first served as sanctuaries for homeless children who arrived with the traumas of the Holocaust, Israeli youth villages are still providing asylum, schooling, and life skills to needy Jewish youth: teenagers from the former Soviet Union, from Ethiopia, from Cuba, from Yugoslavia, and from Israel itself. A third to half of the children in Youth Villages are second and third generation of Israelis from disadvantaged homes There may be swimming pools on gorgeous lawns, but there is nothing countryclubish about the villages. The teens live in no-frills dormitories and carry out village chores be they milking cows or peeling potatoes. At the heart of each village is a High School catering to the teens' special needs.

Liz Arbet, now 18, is one of those kids. "I owe my life to the Village," Liz says. "Simply speaking, I wouldn't have survived on the street."

Here are the bare bones of Liz's story : She was born to a sabra unwed teenage mother. Her father, whom Liz has never met, is in prison for murdering his brother. Liz lived with her grandmother until the older woman died of cancer. Liz's mother, determined to get government housing, set up a tent, threatening the authorities that if they didn' t provide an apartment, she wouldn't send her daughter to school. Liz winces at the memory of being paraded as a homeless child. "I went maybe once a week," Liz said. Finally, in third grade, social services placed her in an orphanage. In eighth grade, she was returned home to her mother and her mother's boyfriend. The situation was intolerable. "I went to the women's counseling center in my town and threatened a social worker that either they found a solution to me or I'd leave home and support myself by prostitution." Liz said. The social worker took her seriously and sought a solution among the tens of residential villages, each with its own personality. Some -like Ben Shemen, Yemin Orde near Haifa or Mikve Israel--have stronger academic programs; others are strictly remedial like Kiryat Yearim, near Jerusalem, Ben Yakir, near Hadera, and near Nazareth, Ramat Hadassah Szold with its pet-therapy program. About a quarter are "religious" where more emphasis is placed on Judaism, a modest dress code is maintained and Shabbat is observed according to the Halacha, although all the villages have kosher kitchens and holidays are celebrated in a traditional fashion.

The social worker chose three villages she thought might suit Liz and took Liz to see them. When she came to the Meir Shfeya Youth Village on a verdant hillside south of Haifa, near Zichron Yaakov Liz found her home. "It was peaceful, quiet and beautiful. I happened to see a staff member hugging one of the kids, and my heart contracted. That's what I wanted. You see, I didn't really know what it meant to have a mother or a father who would hug me. I remember thinking: that's something I want."