For kids’ sake: Shanti House battles the odds to save Israel's abandoned youth

It doesn’t take a PhD in anthropology, political science, or sociology, or an above-average IQ, to discern that this country has its fair share of existential challenges on its plate. Some of those clearly come from without, but there are also plenty of domestic issues that need our urgent attention.

One of those is the pressing matter of youngsters who, for one reason or another, find themselves out on the street, without the safe haven of the family home, and without the sense of security, emotional as well as physical, that is essential to teenagers taking their steps towards adulthood and into the maze of minefield pathways that winds its way through life.

These are frequently kids who have run away from dysfunctional family situations, having fled from violent parents and, sometimes, life-threatening circumstances. Substance abuse often follows as the children find themselves cast out on the jagged edges of society, exposed to all manner of danger and exploitation.

Shanti House opened for business in 1984 after its founder, Mariuma Klein, learned of the severity of the problem across the country. This wasn’t the result of in-depth professional research studiously overseen by academics.

Klein had a very real, firsthand understanding of the plight of hundreds of youngsters fighting for survival in a world that didn’t seem to care or, at the very least, offered little in the way of solutions to their predicament.

Now, sexagenarian Klein has stood steadfast at the helm of her life’s work throughout, navigating her way through trying logistical, financial, and emotional rapids to keep the institution afloat. She is not just some kind soul extending a hand and a hug to those less fortunate than herself.

She has been there, and been through all of that, and has a very personal handle on what the residents of Shanti House endured before they walked through the institution’s welcoming gate – battered, bruised, scarred, and without too much trust in the adult world around them. A world that, at best, had turned its back on them and, at worst, had subjected them to cruelty and torment.

This still-developing country may have plenty to crow about – inter alia, its trailblazing hi-tech industry, the excellence we continue to churn out across all artistic disciplines, and, let’s face it, the mere fact that Israel is still a going concern. But the socioeconomic divide continues to widen and deepen, leaving many Israelis unable to buy homes and others struggling to keep up with soaring rent.

The youngsters Klein and her Shanti House team cater to don’t have that problem, for all the wrong reasons. They simply don’t have anywhere they can call home in the core sense most associated with that concept. That is, until they step through the portal of one of the Shanti House facilities, either on their own initiative or pursuant to a referral from the welfare authorities.

All of which is a far cry from the days when she was in dire straits herself, mirroring the desperate life circumstances that continue to bring teenagers to her doorstep in a last-ditch attempt to right their existential ship and, in many instances, in a very real sense, save their lives.

Sadly, Klein went through the mill herself, several times, and is all too keenly aware of the emotional mountains her charges have to climb if they are to stand any chance of somehow getting back on track and not slipping back into a vicious circle of violence, sexual promiscuity and abuse, and addiction.

Sitting with the irrepressible 61-year-old Shanti House founder and CEO, it is hard to believe she was once out on the street herself, a refugee from her own dysfunctional family and prey to all kinds of nefarious characters and social outcasts.

Klein harnesses that checkered backdrop not only as a source of strength and motivation for herself; she also shares it with at-risk youngsters in the hope that her own fight for survival and success against all the odds will inspire others to follow suit.

“Of course, I tell them about myself and what I went through,” she states. “I tell them everything. I tell them how my father abandoned me, about the extreme violence I was subjected to from my mother, as an only daughter – by the way, I am full of compassion for them now,” she slips in without missing a beat. “You learn the way to get to that.”

There is, sadly, more to Klein’s story: “I was sexually abused when I was five and raped at the age of 17,” she adds, almost matter-of-factly. “I lived on the streets of Boston and ate food from dumpsters,” she says.

Klein was born in New York, made aliyah with her parents when she was two years old, and spent part of her teenage years back in the States with her mother. That didn’t go well, and she relocated back to Israel to a boarding school.

At the age of 20, she found herself pregnant – she discovered her condition too late to even consider having an abortion – with her now 40-year-old daughter, who, surprise, surprise, goes by the name of Shanti. Klein is now a proud mother of two and a besotted grandmother to Shanti’s kindergarten-aged daughter.

That, no doubt, helps her to keep her feet on the ground and her heart in the right place as she continues to pound her invaluable beat and put in a shift or two to proffer a lifeline to youth who have been dealt a bad hand by the very people who should be providing them with a safe harbor, love, and a solid grounding before they step out from their domestic confines to, hopefully, forge their own course through the big outside world.

Klein says she knows – from rich personal and professional experience – there’s no quick fix. “I call it the cholent treatment,” she chuckles. “You have to take it slowly, keep it on a low flame. It takes time.”

“These [Shanti House] places help with post-trauma because there are other children like you. You are not alone. You are part of a group where you feel you are among equals, also with regard to the tough things you have been through. And the others are surviving and continuing on with their lives.”

Trust is the operative word here.

“The kids need to discover faith in someone, in someone professional who can help them. We have psychologists here and practitioners who can help with addictions. We have lots of different kinds of treatment here. One of the most important things for battle fatigue or post-trauma for children is that they have a safe environment. If you have that, you can start to trust someone,” she says.

The best-known of Frankl’s 39-strong bibliography is Man’s Search for Meaning, which chronicles his experiences in Dachau and Auschwitz and how having some goal, some purpose, in life can help keep one on an even emotional keel, and literally keep them alive in the most trying of situations.

It is a school of thought to which Klein wholeheartedly subscribes. “I know Frankl and his work,” she says. “He is one of my sources of inspiration.”

This thought features prominently in the Shanti House remedial equation. “There is someone here whose dream is to do anything connected to the sea,” Klein enlightens me. “He is interested in marine geology, anything marine. And he is gradually moving in that direction. He has started to build his process [of recovery].”

Shanti House, she says, devotes substantial resources to helping the youngsters achieve their ambitions, thereby boosting their sense of self-worth and enabling them to channel their energy and talents toward tangible outcomes.

“If, for example, we have a young girl who wants to study psychology,” she says, “or something to do with emotional therapy, we will get a grant for her, so she can continue on to higher education after she finishes her military service.”

Naturally, in order to get to university or college, one first has to graduate from high school. There are some for whom that is a steeper hill to climb.

There are two kids here who are about to join the army. One was abandoned by his mother when he was five years old, and his father joined some kind of cult group in Tiberias. His childhood was very difficult – there was lots of abuse. He came to us around 18 months ago, when he was around 16 or 17.

Amram completed his high school studies, and he is going to join the army and attend Havat Hashomer [IDF basic training camp in the Lower Galilee] to become a combat soldier. He couldn’t believe it. He never thought he’d achieve that, Klein shares.

Levi Amram is a gleaming beacon of hope for anyone down on their luck and short on optimism. I sat down with the 18-year-old at Shanti House in Tel Aviv for a chat about his dark past and his far brighter present and future.

It was hard to equate the confident young man, with his open face and inviting smile, with the tale of woe he recounted. Klein says she looks on in awe, pride, and joy at Amram and his ilk.

“When you see a child who had no dreams, who felt abandoned and transparent, who had no idea what they were going to do with their life, and then you see the light that comes out of them, and the hope, it is simply amazing,” she says.

Amram is, indeed, an impressive character to behold. He hardly stopped smiling as we talked in the shade of the inviting center's inner quadrangle in south Tel Aviv, with its polychromatic exterior.

“I have been here for almost two years,” he says. “I come from a haredi home, and I went through a lot before I came here. There was violence, sexual violence, at home.”

It was time to get out.

“I had to get away from the violence,” Amram recalls. He went through a slew of boarding schools and hostels, but initially, things did not go well. “You go there, and you find even more options for substance abuse – alcohol and drugs.”

But Amram was made of sterner stuff. “After a while, I realized that wasn’t helping. It was like trying to climb up a slope, and then you spill oil on it, and you slip further down.”

Help was on its way from Shanti House.

“I was at another place [for at-risk youth], and I met someone called Shauli from here. I told him I wasn’t happy there and I was looking for a place that was less like an institution and more like a home,” he shares.

He gradually cleaned up his substance abuse act and took on a sunnier, healthier approach to himself and the world around him – both physically and emotionally.

“I had therapy, and I worked on myself,” Amram states.

Shanti House fit the bill, and despite stiff resistance from the state welfare authorities, who preferred to send him to a military boarding school, Amram stuck to his non-violent guns and, with Shauli’s help, eventually relocated to Klein’s welcoming, family-oriented center.

That changed everything for him. Amram found himself in the company of other youngsters with similar stories, who understood him and what he had been through. “I didn’t feel different,” he says. “I felt accepted by the others – the kids and the staff.”

It’s been a long and rocky road for Amram, but he appears to have made it through the emotional and logistical quagmire in one piece and is now set to take his life to the next stage of personal positive growth.

“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves,” he observes.

“I wanted to help myself and got so much from Mariuma and the others here. I didn’t even think in terms of love, what it is to love myself, if I could give or get love, or if I was worthy of love at all. That wasn’t even part of my thinking,” he shares.

We return to the theme of dreams and Frankl’s life-affirming ethos.

“Today I finished my last bagrut examination,” he tells me with palpable pride. “I feel really good. My dream when I came here was to do my bagrut. I started from zero. I didn’t have any grounding in that from my haredi home. I gradually closed down my [educational] gaps and, thank God, I finished today.”

The next rung on Amram’s ladder to self-realization is the army.

“In six months, thank God, I’ll join the Border Police. That was always my dream. I’m sure it won’t be easy in the Border Police, but I’m not looking for an easy life,” he says.

Clearly, thus far, the 18-year-old has not exactly been through a bed of roses, but now, with Shanti House’s help, his challenges are of his own making – and I wouldn’t bet against him making a success of his military service and anything he elects to take on as he finds his place in the world.