We Make the News!

 Here is an article on our music project at Elifelet, published by Mako, the Israeli television network.

https://www.mako.co.il/home-family-kids/Article-26ecc0828545381027.htm

Here is a translation of the article:

Betto lives in a room with one bed and two brothers. The first three years of her life were spent in a a crib in a “children’s warehouse,” the only method of child care available to refugee parents in south Tel Aviv: no other children to play with, no one to talk with her, no one to hug her. Betto’s mother works from 8 in the morning to 9 at night. Now in third grade, Betto can barely read, has difficulties with math, and often bursts out in tears for no reason.

But twice a week, for a single hour, Betto’s eyes glow and her smile lights up her face. Twice a week she goes with four classmates to her violin lesson, and is swept up in the magic of music. She barely speaks, but the music – the music is her language.

In Elifelet, an NGO serving the children of refugees, we believe in the power of music to change lives. Elifelet runs after-school programs for hundreds of statusless children. “Statusless” – a strange word, certainly a word foreign to any western country, don’t you think? But there you have it – these children, the children of refugees who fled for their lives from oppression, torture, and genocide, and who sought asylum in Israel, do not exist in the eyes of the Israeli government. They have no identity number, no state health care, no national insurance, no social services. These are children who were born in Israel, whose language is Hebrew, whose holidays are the Israeli national holidays. These are children who are, in every respect, Israeli. In every respect, except one: they aren’t.

Into this vacuum steps Elifelet. We go into the children’s warehouses, and transform them into child care centers that are humane and loving. In our after-school programs, our children receive the support and care that the Israeli government refuses them: remedial teaching, hot meals, therapy, and activity programs. We look at the child as a whole with his or her environment: we support the families, provide furniture and equipment, and financial support where necessary. We create an environment where the children can grow and overcome their disadvantages to become healthy and happy.

The music program in the after-school programs has been running for three years. We started with a donation of six violins from Ginzburg, a Tel Aviv instrument store. By the end of the second year, we had enrolled six children in the municipal music school. This year we are starting off with 15 second-year children in the music school, 35 beginning fiddlers, and lessons in piano, guitar, ukulele, and choir. This year our music will reach 80 children.

But the numbers don’t tell the real story. Because the real story is the story of Betto, and Arsema, and Yefet and dozens of other children, whose lives have been lit by music. And it is not only the children; The parents, too, are touched by this project. In accordance with our philosophy of treating the whole child, we have met the parents, and visited many of them in their homes. And we have found that the parents are more ambitious for their children than the typical “Yiddishe Mamma” – they make sure their children practice every day, and keep apace with their progress. “My son will keep it up – the violin is more important than anything else,” one mother told me. “If he doesn’t practice, I will cancel his football.” Well, you don’t have to go overboard, I told her; he can play the violin and play soccer too.

Until this year, our music program relied entirely on volunteers. We recruited volunteers from Rimon, the leading school in Israel for jazz and popular music, who taught piano and guitar; we brought in high school students from Talma Yellin, the prestigious music and arts school, to give workshops. And we enlisted amateur violinists from the world of high tech, medicine, and more.

But this year, we have grown so much that we have had to hire a professional teacher. In addition, we subsidize the tuition of our children in the municipal music school, and will have to pay for busses to take the kids to orchestra practice, as well as other expenses. In short, what used to be a program that cost nothing, we are now running up expenses.

For the next two weeks we are running a campaign to raise the additional funds we need to continue to grow our project, and all the work of Elifelet. The city government of Tel Aviv recognizes the critical importance of our work, and provides the basis of our budget. But it is not enough; beyond the basic services that the city pays for, all the other activities, the therapists, the sports, and, of course, the music, are paid for from private donations. So please, don’t let the music die.

Big, scary plans for 2022-23

 

Dear friends,

I have spent these last few weeks summing up the previous year at Elifelet, and planning the coming school year. I must say, I have found the process to be energizing, astounding, and not a little frightening. In the last year, we grew from a violin class of 9 to a class of 25. We placed seven children in the municipal conservatory. We started to branch out to other instruments – ukulele, guitar and piano. We tried to start a choir, but failed. Our team of volunteer music teachers grew from two to six.

But the plans for the coming year dwarf that growth. This school year, we want to reach more than 80 kids. We expect 14 to 16 second year students to sign up for conservatory, in addition to four of the original seven who will continue into their third year. We hope to grow our volunteer staff of music teachers from six to 12 or 15.

Last year we brought an amateur symphony orchestra to play for the school, we had two public concerts and two special events. This year, we want to have special events – workshops, drummer sessions, concerts – once every one or two months, and we hope to stage four concerts during the course of the year.

See what I mean when I say frightening?

For my part, I am not only frightened, but I am deeply ambivalent. When I started here four years ago, all I wanted was to teach violin to statusless kids in South Tel Aviv. I have done a lot of things in my life, but nothing as moving and as deeply satisfying as this. I saw how music could transform these kids; how, for two hours a week, they could step out of the poverty, the insults, and the violence confronting a people that Israel has repulsed; for two hours a week, they could be equal, they could touch the stars.

But with a project of this dimension, I will have to give up at least part of my teaching load, and spend that freed time managing this project. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy managing, it is what I did most of my professional life. But compared with the deep glow I feel from teaching, it doesn’t stand a chance. On the other hand, I guess I am somewhat to blame – this was, after all the realization of a dream that was mine. And seeing it approaching fruition is, in itself, worth a lot to me.

And, speaking of dreams, this is only the start. Because what I really want – what I dream – is to have my kids – my statusless, hopeless, rejected kids – playing side by side with all the kids of south Tel Aviv, in a community orchestra that destroys the awful walls that hatred and fear have built. And I now believe that dream is within reach.

We still have a lot of challenges facing us. We need to enlist the teachers, we need to purchase new instruments. We will have to hire a professional teacher to take those students that I cannot teach. It also means we need to find the money to subsidize conservatory lessons for triple the number of students.

So, this letter is not just a status update. It is an appeal. I am not very good at asking for money, so I am not going to do the usual things that money raisers usually do. Just, know that we need money – not a prohibitively huge sum, but a lot more than last year. So, if this letter has moved you, and you want to donate – stop. Take the amount you thought of and multiply it tenfold. Then go to this website:

https://www.elifelet.org/donate?lang=en

Here are some pictures from last year.

 

Year end concert - with an eye to next year

 Saturday was our year end concert. Fifty or so parents, and about 15 students. It was the perfect end to a delightful, meaningful and fruitful year.

This year we had more than just violin. Mark taught a ukelele class, and at the concert his kids played songs in Togalog and Tigrinyi as well as Hebrew. Parents and kids joined in. Avigail and Avigail (two girls, same name) played a Bach minuet. Noah played "The Storm". The first year students played Pop Goes the Weasel, the Angry song, and the Hiccup song. The whole crowd hiccuped away at strategic moments. 

This year we added guitar and piano, taught by Eden and Shiraz, two volunteers from the Rimon school of Jazz. They began teaching only toward the end of the year, and their students didn't feel ready to go up on the stage. Next year!

Now starts the work of signing up kids for continued lessons at the municipal conservatory. This school year we had seven students in the conservatory. I expect that we will have an additional 10 students starting in September. I will keep you posted.

As a means of recruiting conservatory students, our program at Elifelet is by far the most effective in the country. About 70 percent of our first year students want to continue their studies. I think the reason for that is that, for our students, violin is much more than just a neat hobby. It is a way to respect, to self-esteem, and an oasis of peace and joy in a hostile world. 

Respect and self-esteem are indeed one of our main goals in the program. But they are not our only goals. Another objective is to get our children out of the closed neighborhood that is almost their entire life. Many of my students have rarely if ever ventured beyond Har Tsiyon street, the border of the Shapira neighborhood. The weekly trip to the conservatory is a life-opening experience. 

And, ultimately, my dream is to see these children making music with other children - children from the neighborhood, and from beyond the neighborhood. To see them playing in a community orchestra, with Black, White and Yellow, kippa Sruga (religious) and secular, Jewish and Arab, sharing their music together.

I am still far from that goal. But I am optimistic that in September we will take the first steps to achieving it.

Street Composers

 Last week - the last week of school - our students wrote their original compositions in chalk on the playground outside the school. A great final lesson for the year.

In July we have a month of summer school, with a lot of fun activities planned, and, hopefully, a final concert at the end of the month. Will keep you posted.

Purim!

 Purim! The Jewish national holiday of liberation from oppression. We celebrate the defeat of Haman, the Jew hater in ancient Persia, by partying, singing, and eating triangular cookies reminiscent of Haman's ears. How appropriate a holiday for us working with refugee children, hoping, like the Jews of Persia, that they find a safe haven from oppression in the home of their birth, Israel!

We started celebrations a week ago, when volunteers from the Talma Yellin High School for the Arts came and did a workshop at the Keshet school. They joined the children in building drums and traditional "raashanim" Purim noise makers, and then staged an impromptu concert. It was a huge success. It was exciting and delightful, and at the same time well-planned and professional. Here are some pictures.

Then, on Monday, we had aour traditional "Adloyada" Purim procession. Our fiddlers stood at the gate of the school and played as the children arrived. We then went from classroom to classroom, and played Purim tunes. Everyone joined in singing and stomping and clapping. 

End of a slump

 What a dreary couple of months it has been! The kids missed more lessons than they received. The violin teacher at the conservatory, who teaches the second year students, was out for two weeks with Corona; the students themselves were in isolation or were sick much of the time. At the school where the beginners study, most of the kids were in lockdown much of the time. The school itself was closed for two weeks as Corona rampaged through the ranks of the students and the faculty. There were days when I showed up and there was one student in a class. And there were days when I simply didn't show up, because there were none.

But it looks like the drought is coming to an end. First of all, over the weekend the numbers started dropping, so it looks like the worst of this Corona wave is over. Second, yesterday everyone showed up. And third, and most exciting: the volunteers from the Rimon College of Jazz started their work at Elifelet.

Shiraz started two students on piano. The piano is in the auditorium, and it took us a while to find our ways through the labyrinthine corridors to find the place. The building was originally a high school, and it has since been carved up, remodelled and shifted about to make two elementary schools. But we finally found it, and found that the piano was moderately in tune, and Shiraz took over like a pro.

Tom started work with the chorus - so far only three kids, but we expect it to grow over the next weeks to more than 12. It was amazing to watch. At first the three girls were afraid to open their mouths, but by the end of the hour, they were singing their hearts out. They started with songs they knew - in Hebrew, English, and Tigrinyi - and then started learning the national anthem - Hatikva! There was certainly more than a hint of irony in hearing the kids singing about the Jewish breast yearning for a home in the East. But much of the song rang true; for these children, whose parents endured untold hardships to find a safe haven in Israel, long to be free, here, in the Land of Zion, in Jerusalem.

Kam's first piano lesson with Shiraz

Tom and the fledgling choir. Wait a
couple of weeks - the room will be
full!