The Jerusalem You Do Not Want to Know, by David Ha’Ivri
“We are talking about many kids from good Jewish homes in the settlements, many who have become disillusioned and lost due to broken expectations following the destruction of Gush Katif and the pogrom in Amona.”
Sunday, 01 October 2006;
Last night at 11 PM Moztie Shabbat on the day before Yom Kippur, thousands of Jews were making their way to the Kotel to take part in the last gathering of slichot before Yom Kippur. As the police in Jerusalem where blocking main roads and re-directing traffic because of the congestion, I too made my way into the center of the Holy city for a very unique tour. Along with 20 of my colleagues, all youth directors in the Jewish towns of the Shomron, we set out for a very different experience, a special sight-seeing tour that should stand as a wake-up call to all of us.
We gathered at Zion square near midnight to meet our guide Simon. The area was packed with thousands of boys and girls between the approximate ages of 13 to 21. Shimon told us that usually there are more. Over the last few years Shimon has been working as a “hearing aid” for “youth at risk” who hang out at the “Kikar” (Zion square). We stood on the platform at the top of the steps leading to Bank Hapolim overlooking the Square like a group of tourists would stand with their tour guide overlooking some historical attraction (or in a zoo). Shimon pointed at specific groups of kids and areas of the square, giving the breakdown of who they are and what they are doing. There are groups of Russian “anarchists” who literally live in the streets, and drink cheap vodka that they buy with money collected by younger kids from our settlements. These youngsters tell passers-by that they are stuck and need money to get home. The alcohol bought with this money is then spilt between the two groups. Thus a partnership is born. The young “religious” kids are more appealing for their “fundraising” abilities and the anarchists are privileged with the ability to purchase alcohol because of their age. Shimon tells us these anarchists lying on the street in dirty torn clothes are very intelligent and when they are not drinking they spend their time reading literature and discussing sophisticated philosophies.
There was another group of kids we saw – also from settlements, but better categorized as “hilltop youth”. Like the other settlement kids, many were created by the Gush Katif destruction, when their rabbis and leaders told them that if they pray enough, their homes won’t be destroyed. Disillusioned and disoriented, these hilltop youth have drifted to this insane meeting place to drink these poisoned waters of the city. Many are regulars who meet here in the Square and drift to alleyways of deserted buildings nearby to get high by using airplane glue, air-conditioner gas and smoke cigarettes soaked in poisonous incest repellent. All of these are cheep and easy ways to get high and cause serious damage to the brain. We are talking about many kids from good Jewish homes in the settlements, many who have become disillusioned and lost due to broken expectations following the destruction of Gush Katif and the pogrom in Amona.
But Kikar Zion is not the end of the story. There is also a square down the road known as “Kikar Crack” where the “richer” kids hang out. These kids deal with some expensive substances like Crystal meth, the kids there mostly speak English (guess where they are from). At a not far off location on both sides of the police head-quarters, teenage girls rent out their bodies for cash, and in a park on the other side of the open mall, teenage boys do the same. In an unmarked store just around the corner from the Russian Compound police station, drugs and sex are sold freely and boys with black kippot are seen coming and going.
The police are around, but for the most part they are just there. Shimon told us told us how he saw a policeman’s arm broken as he tried to interfere with an interaction made on the street.
Several groups run by the municipality and private organizations try to offer these kids a warm atmosphere in order to pull them in and let them talk about their problems, and try to help them. Unfortunately, it seems that at this point the beast is greater then the few hands who are trying to fight it.
Surely, a great part of the problem is that we have been so occupied with the battles that we have been losing in Yehuda, Shomron, Gaza and Lebanon, that we haven’t realized (or don’t want to acknowledge) that there is a battle going on in Kikar Zion in the center of Jerusalem, and that our most precious treasure being poisoned before our eyes.
If God forbid we lose this battle, we might not have with whom to win the battles ahead of us on the other fronts. These are our kids and they need help. Are we going to turn our backs on them because we can’t deal with this? If we can’t, how do we expect them to? They need someone to talk to, someone to hear them out without judging them, and then gently but firmly point them in the right direction. I for one am going to do my best to be there for them. I am open to suggestions and will be glad to cooperate with others who understand the importance of keeping incest repellence and other toxics out of the brains of our youth.