Young runaways hang out in a scruffy city park. Instead of going to school, they get daily lessons about drugs, illicit sex and street violence.
It’s a familiar scene played out in San Francisco and Tel Aviv — and plenty of places in between.
Aware of that unfortunate bond, a delegation of five youth professionals from Israel’s Upper Galilee came to the Bay Area in early February to meet their local counterparts.
In a series of gatherings, the teen specialists exchanged stories about their troubled young clients and strategies for reaching out to them.
“It’s just an opening, I hope, for professional dialogue and sharing experiences,” said Tami Nir-Peretz, executive director of a youth center in Kiryat Shmona, the northern Israeli town that is the partner city of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation.
Over the four-day trip, she and other Israelis visited such youth centers as San Francisco’s Delancey Street and Lyric House, a Castro district program for gay and lesbian youth.
They stopped by the Jewish Family and Children’s Services’ Club NooN for teen Russian emigres and talked with Jewish youth educators and camp coordinators.
While their communities may be thousands of miles apart, “kids are basically kids,” observed Nir-Peretz, who runs a drop-in counseling center for alienated teens. The Hafuch al Hafuch Youth Center draws Israeli Jews, Arabs and immigrants from Ethiopia, Russia and other countries.
“Twenty years ago, no one thought there were teens on the streets in Israel,” said Nir-Peretz, who estimated their current number at about 14,000. Many of those homeless are new immigrants and Palestinian youngsters who feel trapped between cultures.
The delegation’s visit was coordinated by the JFCS’ Living Bridge programs, a project aimed at strengthening connections between the Bay Area and Israel.
The JCF provides funding to Nir-Peretz’ program as well as those run by the other Israeli visitors.
By holding direct meetings with the Israelis, “It’s like a ripple effect,” said Caron Tabb, director of the Living Bridge program.
While getting first-hand knowledge about the local Jewish community and general teen scene in San Francisco, she said the Israelis started a “dialogue between peers that we hope will lead to continued programs” between youth workers here and in the Upper Galilee.
Organizers also think the visit could trigger new connections between Jewish teens from both countries.
“Realizing that the teens are not going to Israel in mass numbers as they used to, there’s a void created and we’re trying to see how that void can be filled,” said Tabb. Once a rite of passage, travel to Israel by American teens has dwindled dramatically in past summers because of safety concerns during the ongoing intifada.
Nir-Peretz and fellow visitor Adi Yekutieli suggested that ties could be made even without face-to-face encounters.
After visiting Club NooN, for instance, Nir-Peretz suggested that Russian youngsters who visit her center could contribute articles to the newspaper published by the San Francisco club’s members.
“It’s like relatives who can’t get together,” said Yekutieli, the founder of a program that unites teens from different backgrounds on joint art projects. “Do you give up the relationship?”
He thinks not, noting that “one can’t exist without the other.”
As part of his visit, Yekutieli described a “Face to Face” project currently under way by his Foundation for Art in the Community and Cross-Cultural Dialogue.
The effort is designed to smooth the culture shock for youngsters who come to Israel on their own to attend high school from the former Soviet Union.
Working with young Israelis, the immigrants are creating artwork that explores their adjustment hurdles. This year, more than 200 Israeli and immigrant teens from the Upper Galilee will work together on a series of mosaics, which will be donated to local communities.
An earlier mosaic was started in 1997 in workshops that ultimately involved about 250 Jewish youngsters, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. “The theme of this mosaic was a vision of the future without fear,” explained Yekutieli.
Originally envisioned as a kilometer-long mural, the mosaic was destroyed during an intifada attack, said Yekutieli.
Nonetheless, he remains hopeful that future projects will unite youngsters from different and often conflicting cultures. “I’m very optimistic about making peace,” he said.