19% Of Haredi High School Age Kids Are Not In School

Haredim have one of the highest high school drop-out rates, at 10.9 percent. Additionally, 8% of haredi youth are not enrolled in any kind of educational framework at all – meaning approximately 19% of haredi teenagers are not in school.

 

Jerusalem forum for at-risk youth teaches coping skills
Forum discusses problems in the haredi sector, as well as the high incidence of suicide among Israeli youth.
By MELANIE LIDMAN • Jerusalem Post

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was joined by teachers, youth groups, youth advocates, city councilors and students for the first-ever “Forum for At-Risk Youth” on Wednesday evening, in the municipality’s first attempt to unite the city’s various educational programs to solve some of the most pressing problems faced by the city’s teens.

The forum was held just prior to the lighting of the “Lights of Hope,” a 720- meter-long flag, which was lit on Wednesday night on the walls of the Old City near Jaffa Gate, by President Shimon Peres, Barkat and Nava Barak, the head of the ELEMYouth in Distress organization, to raise awareness and funds for at-risk youth.

Spearheaded by youth advocate powerhouse Shabtai Amedi, head of the municipality’s Kidum Noar (For the Advancement of Youth) program, the forum discussed problems in the haredi sector, as well as the high incidence of suicide among Israeli youth.

The ultra-orthodox is the sector with one of the highest drop-out rates, at 10.9 percent. Additionally, 8% of haredi youth are not enrolled in any kind of educational framework.

In 2010, there were 640 reported incidents of suicide attempts among people aged 14 to 24, according to hospital emergency rooms across the country. This does not include the suicide attempts that went unreported, said Talal Ben Noar, a 16-year-old from Beit HaKerem, and an active participant in Kidum Hanoar, who presented the findings on suicide rates to the forum.

She pointed out that Facebook and online harassment was the cause of at least one suicide in the past year, when a 15-year-old from Kfar Adumim hanged himself after receiving nasty comments on his Facebook page.

She added that the causes of depression and suicide were complex – especially in the ultra-orthodox and religious sectors, where the social stigma can keep some people from seeking help.

Another Kidum HaNoar participant, Natan Stivelberg, criticized the municipality’s suggestion to fund more therapists.

“Don’t just look for money for more therapists, we need to look for alternative ways for people who won’t ask for help,” said Stivelberg. “Make school more meaningful for them... the only reason I stay in school is my cinematography class. Find more options like that.”

Echoing Stivelberg’s comments was Fiona Kanter, the mother of 16-year-old Lee Gabriella Vatkin, who died after a drug overdose in June 2010.

“My daughter was one of the ones who fell through the cracks,” Kanter told the forum. She stressed the need for informal educational options – something the city is presently lacking. There are successes in Jerusalem’s struggle to help troubled youth, Kanter told The Jerusalem Post, citing alternative schools like Meled, or the four-year-old “Parent’s Patrol,” for parent volunteers who oversee troubled neighborhoods.

But one giant gap in the city is informal programs.

Kanter, who worked for Nir Barkat’s mayoral campaign as the organizer for Anglo residents, is trying to start a non-institutional afternoon “school” in her daughter’s memory, which will offer teenagers a structured framework in the afternoon.

While drop-in centers already exist in the city, Kanter wants to offer courses including philosophy, drug education and a “street smarts” course that would teach kids how to open a bank account, or rent an apartment.

Kanter said that rather than relying on an extensive network of donations to start her initiative, she wants it to be funded by the municipality, because she envisions it as the overreaching “umbrella” for youth organizations in Jerusalem.

In the meantime, before the one-year anniversary of her daughter’s death in six weeks, Kanter hopes to launch a Facebook page for Jerusalem youth called “Interactivi-Lee,” where teenagers can reach out for help in a medium they are comfortable with.

Comments

[jancsipista]

this is old news to me i knew this 40 years ago they are just waking up to this haha .

[Loshon Hora]

Many more Chareidim, because they need a chareidi school. The Chareidi school disciminates & won't accept them if their father wears a blue shirt, or their parents were in Florida etc..
Force the schools to take Yiddishe children & not throw them out, because they wore a sleeveless top one time they needed attention etc, & most of trhe problem is solved.

[David]

Nineteen percent may not be in any school at all but what of the ones that are in "school"? No matter what the Charedim might label their "educational" institutions, they hardly qualify as worthy and the kids still graduate without the basic skills needed to work, or even being functionally literate in the language of the land.

Where in the Torah does it say secular knowledge is forbidden and you shouldn't work or teach your children the skills needed to work?

It is child abuse, a massive waste of human capital and a Chillul Hashem.

[Russian PhD]

And after all THEY are calling themselves "Hevras Halomdim"-the Learning Society?

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

Additionally, 8% of haredi youth are not enrolled in any kind of educational framework.

That 8% represents the "gifted" student population. It's too bad the curriculum is not equipped to keep these budding Einsteins and Newtons intellectually engaged.

[Dave]

David, you're exactly right. In the Talmud it says (somewhere) "He who does not teach his son a trade, it is as if he taught him to be a robber."

[Hakham Yosef Haim]

The reason that haredi teenagers drop out of yeshiva is because their parents have no money to support them and they have to go to work to make money to live on. If the government would give the parents more money to live on and give the yeshivoth more money to keep these teenagers in yeshiva, there would be a lot less dropouts.
These dropouts in order to avoid being drafted usually fake mental illness. If they are unsuccessful in faking mental illness they usually end up in nachal haredi.

[Rebecca]

Have the government give the parents money? Are you kidding me? I am so sick of your community sucking the town dry and the Government dry! Stop trying to look for shortcuts and excuses to have someone else pay for your life. If you cannot financially afford to have a family you should have thought of that first instead of sucking money from us middle class individuals who are struggling now to find private schools for our children because you are sucking the money out of our district and our own child's education!