In the Courtroom, Off the Streets

Twelve-year-old Shmuel, along with hundreds of Israeli immigrant children, will be in court over the course of the coming school year.

But these trials will not take place in the Israeli judicial system: they will take place in Israeli classrooms.

And Shmuel himself will be one of the litigators. 

A series of after-school mock trials are being planned by JDC, as part of the UJC/Federation "Keep the Children Safe" component of the Israel Emergency Campaign. This program was born out of the necessity to keep children off the streets, to keep them safe from the terrorist threat facing Israel today, while at the same time helping children in need of additional assistance.

"It’s fun to hang out.  But now my mother is scared to let me.  Anyway, I could use some help with schoolwork.  And this sounds fun," says Shmuel.

The after-school programs were designed not only to be fun.  These trials are one of a variety of JDC’s innovative tools that will be used from the start of the school year in tens of Israeli schools.  Designed to help immigrant youth strengthen their language skills, seventh-grade Ethiopian-Israeli youth such as Shmuel, along with his classmates from the Caucasus-and-Bukharan Israeli communities, will be among those participating in this and other such innovative after-school programs.

As he enters junior high school, Shmuel now will have a chance to learn experientially, and to improve his Hebrew language skills while doing so. But more than that, the program is keeping him and his classmates safe.  And this opportunity may very well take Shmuel a long way, well beyond his neighborhood, to places he’d never dreamed.