About ELEM

Spearheaded by an Israeli Family Court Judge in 1982, a small group of professional and lay people got together in America with two main interests – Israel and children. They began to learn about the problems of youth in distress in Israel. The statistics were staggering. Over 25,000 Israeli youth neither worked nor went to school and over 10,000 youth went through the Juvenile Court each year for delinquencies. These youth represented 10% of all Israeli youth between the ages of 14-18 and their problems were unknown and ignored by large sectors of the Israeli population. These youth had no advocates and there were few facilities or funds available to help them.

So ELEM was founded in 1982 with the intention of bringing the needs of delinquent youth to the consciousness of national and local government officials, as well as innovative ideas and resources for their treatment.

Since its modest beginnings, ELEM has grown to a national organization—with programs in 25 cities throughout Israel for at-risk and high-risk teens. ELEM serves Israel's lost youth - the "throwaway" youngsters many have given up on. They include children estranged from their families; adolescent, unemployed school drop-outs; adjudicated delinquents; and homeless children. Counted in the ELEM population are children who have been abused and abandoned and left to struggle on their own in the streets.

It has been estimated that as many as 10% of Israel's 13 to 18-year-olds fall into these categories. Today there are 60,000 young people in desperate need of help if they are to survive. A growing number of these youngsters are from recently immigrated families. They are children who are finding the enormous transition from life in Russia and Ethiopia to Israel overwhelming. They are caught in the pull of conflicting worlds at a time when they are already struggling with the well-recognized difficulties of adolescence.

ELEM reaches out to these teens, working not only with them, but with their families and communities because it is well-recognized that no one, no matter how estranged, lives in a vacuum. ELEM is truly the champion of Israel's neglected and delinquent youth. We speak for them and to them - and we listen.