by Rev. William E. Currie
December 1996
In this issue:
The Changing Face of Israeli Youth
The Changing Face of Israeli Youth
The face of the young Hasid (religious student) is solemn as he walks swiftly down a Jerusalem street with downcast eyes. The recently inducted soldier tries his best to look professional as he saunters through the shouk (market), his weapon slung across his shoulder. The high schooler pushes his way through the crowd in a Tel Aviv mall as he shops for the latest CD.
It is difficult to characterize Israeli youth in the late 1990's as it would be to paint an accurate picture of youth in any other country. One cannot generalize; there are exceptions to every apparent trend. But I have observed the youth of Israel through outreach, in the believers' assemblies, and especially as I have met with families in their homes. My conclusion is that Israeli youth face many of the same serious problems as youth in every other western society. But I also see hope in believing young people who are starting to make a difference in Israel.
The mirror of an egocentric society
My first picture of Israeli youth mirrors Israeli society at large: materialism and the pursuit of pleasure are driving forces across the Land. These twin drives have often replaced the preservation of the state as the predominant value in young people's lives. This trend appears most dramatically in the Israeli military. The army is having a difficult time getting reservists to serve their annual duty (30 days per year), making it harder for Israel to maintain a strong force.
An article in the October 28, 1996 issue of Newsweek estimated that only a third of Israel's 429,000 reservists fulfill their annual military service quota. "Many Israeli men in their 30's and 40's no longer see the point of putting in 30 days of reserve duty every year...part of it has to do with the rise of individualism."
Now the attitude of older reservists seems to be shifting over to the young people. The same Newsweek article mentioned Israeli pop singer Avi Gefen, who has urged his teenage fans to dodge the draft. The article also referenced educational psychologist Ya'acov Katz of Bar Ilan University who "found that about one-quarter of the youths he recently polled would skip their compulsory three-year tour in the regular army if given a chance." Said Katz, "Israel has become a very egocentric society. The most important thing is individual rights, and nationalist values have become secondary."
There are, of course, many Israeli young people who take their military commitment seriously. Others face it as a simple reality of living in Israel. And the ultra orthodox follow the rabbis' injunctions not to serve in the military. Yet, there is a term used in Israel for those youths who actively seek to serve in the military. They are sometimes called "frierim," the Hebrew word for "sucker."
New status symbols
The symbol of material success among American youth is usually a car. Cars are not used as freely by Israeli young people; they are very expensive and the required course of driver's training is also very costly. But Israeli young people have their own emerging status symbol - the cell phone.
The December 3, 1996 edition of ABC News "World News Tonight" reported that nearly one out of four Israelis own a cell phone, and that 1,000 new cell phone users, including many children, are added every day. The report mentioned that many Israelis own cell phones for safety in a land constantly threatened by terrorist attack. But I believe there is also strong peer pressure to own the latest status symbol. As one acquaintance described it: "They can't stand to be refused, so [children] keep at their parents until they get their cell phone."
The worship of pop culture is growing in Israeli society as elsewhere. An extreme example is the disaster at the Arad Music Festival in July 1995. Three high school students were trampled to death in the rush by the crowd to enter an arena where Israel's most popular rock band was giving its last concert as a group. I was ministering with the YES! Israel team at the time, and sensed the shock and outrage throughout the country that Israeli young people could mindlessly trample each other for a concert seat.
The breakdown of family discipline
My second picture of Israeli youth is the outline of a breakdown in discipline. Family solidarity, once the hallmark of Jewish culture, has been gradually disintegrating. This trend is worldwide, but in Israel it has a different twist. There, many parents purposely indulge their children because they fear their offspring will die while young in a war or at the hand of a terrorist and "never really live and grow old."
This growing lack of discipline is becoming most apparent in the Israeli school system. Israel is generally known throughout the world for having a superior educational system. Students attend school six days a week, the rate of dropout is low, and the proportion that go on to university study is perhaps the highest in the world. But Israel also seems to have an alarming number of students who fail to graduate and have no desire to continue their education or gain applicable skills.
My conversations with many parents in Israel indicate that discipline is breaking down at the earliest age, in "gan" or preschool. These parents report that teachers administer little or no discipline and often will not interfere when fights break out. One couple's little son even managed to leave the preschool without anyone noticing.
Before leaving Israel last September, my wife and I had dinner in the home of an Israeli couple who are members of a congregations where we have ministered. The wife is an elementary school nurse on the verge of resigning her job. Even though she is a seasoned mother with three school-age children of her own, she can no longer handle the behavior of many of the children at the school. The children, she said, were demanding to be released from school for the day because they were sick. When she could find no medical problems and told the children to return to class, they would threaten her.
The failure of many Israeli parents and teachers to discipline young children is creating more serious problems for the older youth. While Israel has fewer muggings, robberies, rapes and homicides than most other western countries, the rate of drug use, promiscuity and abortion is rising rapidly. Violence has become an acceptable avenue for some, as evidenced by the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by Yigal Amir, a young religious student. A great many Israeli young people were horrified by Rabin's murder, and they flocked to memorials held on the anniversary of his death. But there are also fan clubs for Amir among some young people; one reportedly started because "he has such a cute smile."
Approximately 15-20 percent of Israeli youth come from religious (actively practice Judaism) households, according to Israeli government statistics. It would be easy to assume that these families temper the current trends. A young, ultra-Orthodox Israeli is very different from a secular, free-minded Tel Avivian. but the distinctions between religious and secular are not as clear as they once were. A saying in Israel expresses this well: "yesh dati sh'hu dati" (there is a religious guy who is secular, and a secular guy who is religious). Though often more disciplined outwardly, the religious youth face the same inner struggles as other young people.
My third picture is one of hope, because it represents the youth who are from families of Messianic believers. The children of Israeli believers encounter the same problems and temptations as their peers. But in the local assemblies where I have ministered, I have seen most of the young people maintaining high standards, and finding their peer group within the church. While they dislike the army taking time away from them, most look at military service as not only their duty, but also as an opportunity to reach other young people for Messiah.
Udi is a young believer living on a kibbutz. When Udi served in the Israeli army, he was in a unit with access to confidential national secrets. He also witnessed actively to his fellow soldiers. When his commanding officers were alerted to his witness, they ordered him to explain what he believed. Udi gave an honest testimony of his faith, and was immediately removed from his unit and placed on border patrol. His story is not unusual for young believers in the military.
Young believers, even those in their 30's are not actively involved in congregational leadership. And I have not seen much discipleship of the young by the older believers. But this is starting to change, and will change quickly if young leaders such as Jonathan have anything to do with it.
Jonathan, a young Messianic Israeli, was raised in Israel by a believing family. After graduating from Bible school in England, he and his new wife went to one of the former Soviet countries as foreign missionaries - the first from Israel. Now he heads up an organization in Israel engaged in evangelism.
His vision is for Israeli Messianic young people to go to the mission field. This would give the Israeli church a world view that today hardly exists. Jonathan also foresees the strong possibility of greater persecution by the government of Israeli congregations, and wants believers to begin now to stand up to the pressures. His is a vision that, if taken up by the youth in Messianic assemblies, will turn them into a vital force for the Lord.
I have also been encouraged to see young people in the assemblies witnessing to their young friends. This is particularly true in one of the assemblies where I ministered. It is exciting that young believers are on the cutting edge of a growing movement of indigenous evangelism among their peers in Israeli society!
How open are the youth they seek to minister to? Sometimes it is hard to tell, especially when the gift of a tract or a one-time conversation cannot be followed up. But one of the most exciting experiences of this past summer's YES! Israel outreach was when four Israeli high schoolers accepted an invitation to visit the gospel meeting in Eilat. The four young men not only came to the meeting but stayed for hours afterwards discussing spiritual issues.
The needs of "a pressurized breed"
"I confess to loving the kids here, even when they shout and play blaring radios at 2 a.m., "says an American Jewish friend who emigrated to Israel several years ago. He adds, "They are a highly pressurized breed, forever at the edge of the next war."
In spite of the accelerating trend toward nearly every bad -ism the western world has to offer -- materialism, hedonism, individualism -- there is hope for the young people of Israel. Their need is for believers to love them, pray for them, and talk to them about their Messiah. Israeli young people need your prayers, and the Messianic young people need your personal involvement in the task of evangelizing the youth of Israel.
Previous issues of Israel Heartbeat available on-line:
October 1996: The Arab Church in
the Middle East
July 1996: The Israeli Elections
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