by David Bedein and Randy Hayman

there are times when a public school teacher with 20 years' experience witnesses too much adolescent violence and so decides to do something about it. That's how we can best describe the driving passion of Nava Barak, 53, now better known as Israel's first lady, who leads the ELEM/Youth in Distress in Israel campaign.

"This is my ultimate wish as a school teacher," Barak says, "to do everything possible to put a stop to the cycle of violence that too many adolescents now experience. As a teacher I felt that I had to invest in a public campaign that everyone would witness."

Nava meets Hillary
Barak's interest in ELEM was ignited five years ago while in the United States with husband, Ehud, after he completed his term as commander-in-chief in 1995 and accepted a six-month research fellowship at CSIS, a security think tank in Washington. Shortly into her extended visit in Washington Nava met Hillary Clinton.

Nava says she spent endless hours with the American first lady, explaining that she wanted to learn from the American experience about the campaign to reduce violence in schools and in society in general. It was then that Nava decided to combine her teaching skills with the marketing skills she had recently acquired from a communications course she took in Washington.

Israeli youth beset by violence
Barak, who joined ELEM three years before her husband became prime minister, was honored this past May for her work with ELEM in the plush gardens of the residence of United States Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk in Herzliya.

At the reception, Nava introduced Sigal, a 16-year-old victim of a violent courtship. Asking reporters not to divulge the family name, take pictures or describe any features of the teen to the public, Nava went on to say that "all women's organizations and schools in Israel should look at this young girl, in the eyes, and understand that there are hundreds of teen-age girls like her who are brutalized in teen-age society."

Nava also introduced Herzliya Mayor Yael Germain as an example of someone who has looked such girls in the eyes. Germain instituted a special three-hour a week violence-prevention curriculum in all the city's schools.

statistics mount as war rages on
A force to be reckoned with in Israeli society with some 80 full- and part-time workers and about 500 volunteers, ELEM, established in 1982, reaches out to the urban centers of Israel to youth who are ravaged by drug use and violence and caught up in the cycle of crime.

According to reports from National Council for the Child, a 20-year-old nonprofit advocacy, monitoring and research center based in Jerusalem that receives more than 8,000 youth-related cases each year, many categories of violence are on the rise.

For instance, in 1995 about 1,100 misdemeanors (disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace) were committed by Israelis ages 11 to 17. Four years later, that figure more than doubled. Property damage, caused by kids and teens, numbered about 2,900 in 1995. In 1999, almost 5,000 cases were recorded. Teen drug use rose from about 600 reported cases in ‘95 to more than 1,300 in ‘99. Across many categories including assault, sex offense and murder, the numbers have climbed in recent years.

And among recent immigrants the statistics are even worse in some categories. In 1995, about 90 misdemeanors were reported. Four years later, more than 500. Property damage cases numbered about 400 in ‘95 and in ‘99 nearly 1,700.

the right connections help
In addition to waging war against teen violence and drug use city by city, Nava has a secret weapon: the prime minister's office, specifically Avraham Ben Shoshan, ELEM chairman and special policy adviser to the prime minister, who has helped draw more official attention to matters of child abuse and teen-age violence. Nava's involvement in ELEM, she says, is coordinated with her husband though not dependent upon him.

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."

David Bedein is bureau chief for Israel Resource News Agency in Jerusalem.

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