Haredi punks
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Haredi punks
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DANIEL BEN-TAL Feb. 16, 2004
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Delinquency among ultra-Orthodox yeshiva dropouts is a growing phenomenon
Saturday night in Zion Square. Hundreds of teenagers mill around, chatting, laughing, playing guitar, eyeing the opposite sex. There is a hodgepodge of vibrant young Jerusalemites: religious and secular, prissy schoolkids and hippy wanabees, locals and Americans. Good kids from good homes.
Six gruff teenagers in black kippot elbow their way through the happy crowd: "shababniks," yeshiva dropouts who live on the edges of ultra-Orthodox society.
One of them bullies a fair-skinned, lank-haired teenager - first for a cigarette, then a light. "This piece of s***t lighter doesn't work - you can stick it up your a***," he snaps angrily.
"A shababnik is a kid from a haredi family who thinks secular but wears a black kippa," says religious teenager Shmuel Baluka, who's sitting on a low wall in Kikar Zion, spitting sunflower seeds onto the sidewalk.
As a provocatively dressed punk-ess no more than 16 years old saunters past, Baluka and his friends launch a series of sexual taunts in a clumsy attempt to arouse her youthful hormones. "You think religious people don't have impulses too?" he asks.
"Times have changed - haredim aren't what they used to be. We're more open to secular influences," says Baluka, a grocery store delivery boy from Neveh Ya'acov.
"Religious girls are the biggest whores," adds one of his friends, to a chorus of bitter laughter.
Most Shababniks (the name derives from the Arabic term for Mandate-era Muslims who deserted their religion) are religious teenagers who could not handle the demands of full-time yeshiva study. No longer welcome in their own homes, some wind up living on the street or in government-run youth hostels.
Ultra-orthodox society has been slow in recognizing the phenomenon. A public letter sent in May 1998 by a group of haredi educators to several leading rabbis stressed the dimensions of the problem: "Thousands of former yeshiva students have crossed the line, leaving the yeshiva to wander the streets, movie theaters, city squares, and anywhere that a yeshiva boy should not be... We are not speaking about the marginal types; even those from the best homes, the most promising students In recent times these youths have tarnished our name."
Bands of roaming shababniks have reportedly turned some sections of Bnei Brak into violent crime zones where honest citizens are afraid to walk the streets. In Jerusalem, shababniks have been reported harassing women, intimidating shopkeepers and passersby, and being involved in petty theft.
Several have gone beyond delinquency into serious crimes including extortion, fraud, armed robbery, male prostitution, and even murder - as in the August 1997 killing of an Arab gas station attendant in the capital's Sheikh Jarah neighborhood.
One haredi gang leader nicknamed "Chupchik" was recently convicted on 21 counts of auto theft, fraud and disturbing the peace, all committed within a year of quitting the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Two shababniks were arrested on February 3 after turning up at the offices of the Christian Friends of Israel charity organization heavily bandaged, claiming that they were injured in the previous week's suicide bus bombing in Rehavia, and asking for money. Alleged scam ringleader David Deri, 22, and Avshalom Nagar, 21, remain under house arrest pending their trial.
"Haredi society doesn't know how to deal with them," says Yakir Englander, 27, a former Vizhnitz Yeshiva student, who dropped his haredi lifestyle six years ago to become a Hebrew University student. "There's no supervision in the yeshivot. They wake up late, and hang around all day. Nobody tells them to go to work, or the army. It's a comfortable alternative."
"Most of the shababniks are children of newly religious sfardim [Jews of north African origin] - Shas voters. Their parents came from the same world that's now attracting them," observes Englander.
As a field worker for Hillel - the Association For Those Leaving the Religious World - Englander has got to know the shababniks well.
"Second-generation haredim encounter a particular set of hardships. They have problems with their sexuality. In some neighborhoods, there's a drug problem," he explains.
"It's getting worse as the poverty factor grows. Many youths don't find their role in haredi society, while the secular world winks at them. Some live with their parents, as they can't find anywhere else. Many parents won't admit they have a shababnik child."
Yet very few desert their Orthodox lifestyle.
"They stay religious because of peer pressure. To leave means a conceptual internal change - to be honest with yourself that you're not part of the community. They have no theological argument. In fact, they look up to rabbis like Ovadia Yosef," says Englander.
"The fact that they are not alone gives them legitimacy. Some are even proud to be called shababniks... about a quarter are girls. I see them following secular men in their 30s into apartment blocks. There are 13 year-old haredi girls with alcohol problems already - they'll never find their place in society."
As director of the haredi department at the Jerusalem Municipality's Division for the Advancement of Youth, Baruch Maschkowski is on the front line of the struggle to save these lost souls.
"Haredi society used to sweep such phenomena under the carpet, but can no longer afford to," he told In Jerusalem.
"The haredi world is undergoing fundamental social changes, with increasing exposure to secular Israel. There was a time when the haredim didn't want the cultural, social and welfare services of secular society."
Maschkowski points out that his department was created out of need, unlike the municipality's politically-affiliated Torah Culture and Torah Education departments that came into being because former mayor Ehud Olmert depended on the haredi parties in his coalition.
With a working budget of NIS 200,000 (excluding wages), the 11-year-old department employs 12 part-time haredi social workers and psychologists.
"All the psychologists in the haredi world are either newly religious or American immigrants," he notes.
Maschkowski's team is currently working with over 600 wayward youths around the capital, arranging evening yeshiva classes, special schooling, sporting activities, a choir, and professional training courses such as electronics for boys and cosmetics for girls.
"Every shop in the haredi neighborhoods employs its shababnik. We're involved in social problems and confer with leading rabbis and community leaders. We try to communicate with shababniks wherever they hang out, but don't have the funds to treat enough of them. There are many hundreds that we don't reach. There's so much work to do - we still don't have a representative in the Shmuel Hanavi, Ramot, or Neveh Ya'acov neighborhoods."
Yossi Shahar, 23, of Ramot, left Yeshivat Hebron in Givat Mordechai three years ago "because it no longer gave me what I needed."
His father, who became religious when Yossi was four years old, still attends the yeshiva daily.
"Yes, I look at girls - but I have principles as well. Haredi society is becoming more open. There are all sorts of haredim nowadays. Some don't care what their parents think, while their parents cannot - or will not - bring them back home because of fears about the negative influence on their brothers and sisters."
"For many years, they were closed in their houses and pumped full of Torah. Occasionally, they would see a television or a scantily dressed girl. By the time they reach 17, they're ready to explode," says Maschkowski.
He sees similar social trends as in secular society. "Drugs are seeping in," he says.
"You won't see haredi youths smoking drugs, because they won't let you see them," says Shahar, who hints that the haredi communities' internal "police force" known as the Mishmeret Hakodesh occasionally strong-arms wayward youth.
"They know how to deal with those who have gone astray."
"The haredi community is trying to create alternatives for the shababniks," counters Rabbi Mordecai Rottman of the Sha'arei Shmuel Yeshiva in Givat Shaul that runs a special program for 20 wayward youths, sponsored by the Kol Banai organization.
"We've taken these kids off the street and provide both Torah studies and vocational training such as courses in electronics and car mechanics. We try to give them the tools to make a life for themselves."
"Once a person leaves his framework, he enters a process that could bring him into secular experiences - this includes anything you can think of," Rothman says. "Some kids have personality types more prone to getting involved in crime. They get their values from the streets - there's a bad element out there. They're on a downward slide, stuck between two worlds."
The problem has become increasingly evident in the past 10-15 years, and is now considered a trend, says Rottman. "It's the same as anywhere else - the shift of adolescence when kids have to chose their paths can lead to an identity crisis. They're experiencing this stage big time."
תוקן על ידי - Mench - 18/02/2004 0:34:54
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