This month we kicked off our music project at Elifelet. Elifelet is an NGO serving the needs of statusless children in Israel - the children of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan, and the children of foreign workers who have stayed in Israel legally or illegally, married, and started a family. I teach violin in an after school program in a south Tel Aviv primary school that serves these kids. Seven of our students that studied violin last year started their lessons at the Music Center of Tel Aviv-Jaffo, the municipal conservatory. 

We went from school to the conservatory in south Tel Aviv by public bus. The children met their teacher, Lior Grunwald, played for him, and registered as students. They had a long summer to forget everything, but things returned to them quickly, and the played well: Avigail (mother from Madagascar, father from Congo) played “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav”; Manut, whose parents are Sudanese refugees, played the Allegretto by Suzuki; Firel played “Na Man Aukar Mari,” a hymn she learned at the Indian church on Saturday services. 

 While the second year students were starting at the conservatory, we started a fresh group of beginners. About 20 children got their first lessons at the beginning of November. They learned how to hold the violin, the names of the strings, and they learned their first tune: “Pop Goes the Weasel”. 

 The new violinists are receiving lessons at the “Moadonit”, the after-school program run by Elifelet. The program, on the campus of the Keshet and Gvanim schools – segregated schools exclusively for the children of asylum seekers and other statusless children – offers about 250 children a hot meal, sports, art and drama, assistance with schoolwork, and, of course, music. This year we are greatly expanding our music program. Last year we offered only violin; this year, we will offer instruction in piano, guitar, percussion, ukulele, chorus, and rhythm class. Later this month, 16 volunteers will join us from the Talma Yellin High School for the Arts, and, in January, a group of students from the Rimon college of Jazz. We look forward to a fascinating and unique meeting between our children and these volunteers, that crosses cultural and class lines.