by David Bedein and Randy Hayman

ELEM on the move
Another weapon in ELEM's arsenal is five specially equipped vans carrying ELEM staff and volunteers who work with teens on alternative solutions to violence and provide counseling. In addition, a volunteer medical doctor visits homeless kids living on the streets of Jerusalem. ELEM also runs three shelters where a total of about 60 teens can stay for up to six weeks, in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

In Kikar Tzion (Zion Square), in the heart of Jerusalem, ELEM sends a van every evening, from dusk to dawn, to an area that has seen bars, disco clubs and other places become centers for teens involved in every possible level of substance abuse. ELEM also dispatches teams of social work professionals to comb Zion Square at all hours of the night. They have one assignment: to listen to the concerns of the youth who drift by, many of whom are from English-speaking homes.

healthy kids, healthy Israel
In a recent speech to ELEM supporters in New York, Barak, who has three daughters, ages 18, 25 and 29, touched on the necessity of redeeming and saving struggling Israeli youth.

"The key to a strong, vibrant Israel lies in taking care of our youth," she says. "We have neither oil nor diamonds. ... [P]erhaps more than in any other country, our success in raising our children is itself a matter of survival. ... I see all of these developments as nothing less than a national emergency."Barak extended the subject of the need for peace for children to the need for peace for all Israelis, touching on her support of her husband's ongoing peace efforts.

"No one has any illusions that this process will be anything but painful and heart-rending for us, she says. "But we are willing to risk the pain, and the difficulties that we will surely encounter on the way, because a secure peace carries with it vast prospects for the betterment of Israel and its people."

She added that the peace process is also a personal peace process, describing her own reactions whenever conflict has broken out involving Israel, and her husband.

"Through several wars and frequent waves of terrorism, I prayed for Ehud to return home safely," she says. "It seemed not too much to ask, but it could never be taken for granted. For years I would get up in the morning and, over coffee and the newspaper, be shaken and worried by the latest bad news. For years we met friends at funerals."

Interestingly, she also related a story about her connection to the brother of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the opposing Likud party.

"I remember each second of one particularly terrible moment, when I had to break the news of Yoni Netanyahu's death in the 'Entebbe Operation' [in Uganda] to his girlfriend, a neighbor and close friend: her eyes, my broken voice ... I will never forget."

Reminding listeners of the violence, from personal and national perspectives, Barak hoped to drive home her core concern: protecting kids. She described her first encounter with ELEM, which sparked her interest in the organization.

"A few years ago, I visited an old building in south Tel Aviv, which ELEM has converted into a shelter for homeless and abandoned teen-agers. They call it 'Another Place.' That first visit left a deep mark on me. I met a group of teen-agers, the same age as my own daughter.

"They had come to the shelter a week or month before my visit, knocking on the door in the dead of the night, looking for a way out of their desperate and often very dangerous circumstances. There, at the hostel, they were given a warm welcome, offered a warm bed, a hot meal, an attentive ear. ... Since that first visit, I knew that I could not stand on the sidelines."