What it's all about

 Here is a Q&A I just did for Venn. Venn is new kind of real estate management company, that, besides renovating and renting out apartments, offers a range of community services. Venn provides me with a studio to teach violin, and has made its music room and adjoining courtyard available for two concerts. Venn interviewed me for their blog. This is an edited version of the interview.

1. Can you tell us a little about Elifelet?

Elifelet is a volunteer organization that serves the community of statusless children in Israel. These are the children of asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan and a few other countries, as well as the children of foreign workers, both legal and illegal, who have married and started families in Israel. The children were born in Israel, but are not recognized by the state as citizens, and have no legal status here. Consequently they have no health care, no government services except for schooling which is required by law. Elifelet provides these children with support and essential services that for other children here are a matter of course.

There are about 10,000 statusless children in Israel. About 7,000 live in Tel Aviv, most of them in the Shapira neighborhood.

Among our projects, we run an after-school program in two of the primary schools that serve the community. I teach violin to seven- to nine-year old kids enrolled in this program. Children who finish the first year of violin instruction continue at the Music Center of Tel Aviv-Yafo.

I have had many careers in my life, and I can say that teaching violin at Elifelet is by far the most satisfying work I have ever done. Music brings light into the lives of these children, and brings a dignity to them and their parents.

2. How do you think Elifelet helps foster a sense of belonging for the kids?

This is a hard question to answer, not because it is not clear that this has a tremendous impact, but because it is hard to put into words. From the first lessons, there is tremendous enthusiasm. I teach in groups of four to seven kids, which means I can teach only a small number of the school population. That means a trail of disappointed kids who can't join.

During the course of the year, what starts as a fun activity soon becomes a part of the students' personna. Their lesson becomes a focus of the week for them, and the violin becomes a source of pride and identity for them.

And not only for them. Their parents are deeply moved by their children's playing. I have visited the parents of all my second year students. They all want more. Can I teach brothers and sisters? Can I give more lessons? When will there be another concert? Music brings a dignity into their lives that has been denied them for years.

3. Why do you think this work is important in the community?

When you say "community", what do you mean - the community of asylum seekers and foreign laborers of Shapira, or the larger Shapira community, in all its diversity. For Shapira is a community in transition: there is the old, original population, comprising many Israelis of Bukharian ancestry, a religious Jewish community, the large influx of asylum seekers and foreign workers, and a growing "Yuppie" community of hip young Israelis driven south by the huge cost of housing and by the attraction of urban renewal projects. It is largely a commuity divided against itself, with a lot of mutual antagonism and bigotry, a community divided by class and wealth and ethnicity and race, a community which has at once been a magnet for progress and a dumping ground for Israel's unwanted.

So far, my work has been with the community of asylum seekers and foreign workers. But my aspiration is to reach out to the whole community - to use music as a bridge between Shapiran and Shapiran, to see children from the "Torah Kernel" playing in a community orchestra alongside the sons and daughters of Indians, Eritreans and Philippinos.