HAIFA, Israel — Picture 500 teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds, many of them orphans. One-third are Ethiopian, one-third Russian and the rest from such places as Cuba, Bosnia and Chechnya.
Many are abandoned, insecure and maybe even violent.
To many, this would seem like a recipe for disaster. Chaim Peri, though, takes this “boiling pot” and creates what some might call magic.
For more than 20 years, Peri has been the director of the Yemin Orde Wingate Youth Village, located just south of Haifa in the Carmel Mountains.
By examining “every methodology that has worked well for children in need” and helping each child “feel he belongs,” Peri said his Israeli village is “not just making success stories, but making leaders for change.”
Graduates from the youth village include the chief commander of the Israeli border police force, high-ranking commanders in the Israeli army, the deputy mayor of Tiberias and partners in Israel’s first Ethiopian law firm.
Peri, who is 58, said the framework for Yemin Orde centers on making the child “happy and content.” The village program is influenced by everything from experts in child psychology to former Boys Town leader Father Flanagan.
The children also receive a religious education, even though Peri emphasizes that Yemin Orde is non-denominational. “We have a Jewish identity…but we don’t impose anything on anybody,” he said.
In fact, half the children at Yemin Orde, many from Russia, come in with no Jewish background and, in some cases, are not even considered Jewish under Israeli law. They are “exposed to a totally new idea of what Judaism and Israel is about,” Peri said.
According to Peri, the five elements of a Yemin Orde education include:
*Relating to the divine and “having a dialogue with it.”
*Living in a place “that accepts you as you are” and provides a “beautiful environment.”
*Anchoring oneself in the past and the future, which means connecting children to their own heritage while also having a plan for life.
*Talking about what is happening “eyeball to eyeball.”
*Reaching out of one’s ego and serving society.
Yemin Orde is receiving international attention. The Dalai Lama has asked Peri to start a pilot program to bring Tibetan youth to Yemin Orde for a semester.
Running the village is a constant challenge, Peri said, because there are always new immigrants coming to Israel.
“Every decade is another culture,” he said. “In the ’70s it was Iranians, in the ’80s Ethiopians, in the ’90s Russians.”
There is always tension when the groups first mix, he said.
But he pointed out that two former residents of the village, a Russian and an Ethiopian, returned recently to celebrate their wedding there.