By Esti DeAngelis, Managing Editor
The happiest child I have ever seen was at Kfar Yeladim David, a center for disadvantaged children in Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem. She was a girl around 7 years old, with dark skin, a long, dark ponytail and a gap between her front teeth. She began coming to Kfar Yeladim with her sister a few months after I started volunteering there once a week during my time in seminary. She was on the shy side, but one day she came up to me to show me a project she had made in school, a photo of herself glued to a piece of paper she had decorated. She, like all of the girls, didn’t speak English, and my Hebrew isn’t the best, but I knew enough to tell her what I thought of the photo. “At chamuda meod!” I exclaimed. “You are so cute!”
Looking back, the comment was a bit of a gamble. Some of the girls at Kfar Yeladim didn’t like being seen as “cute” or “little.” But these were remarks I couldn’t help making; I had fallen in love with these girls whether they liked it or not. This time, the gamble paid off. The girl’s face lit up, like it had been a long time since someone had complimented her.
I don’t know if she still remembers that moment, but I won’t forget it for the rest of my life. I bottled it up and tucked it away somewhere safe, and I’ve returned to it often in the years since. I’m not embarrassed to admit how much I learned from a 7-year-old that day.
Choosing to volunteer at Kfar Yeladim was one of the easiest decisions of my life. At the beginning of the year, the administrator who ran the chesed program at my seminary presented a list of options one could choose to fulfill their mandatory chesed hours each week. Traditionally, most girls chose to help out at the home of a family that could use another set of hands, taking kids to the park and playing with them for a few hours. I knew I wanted to do something a little different, and when the woman got to the bottom of the list, Kfar Yeladim stood out to me immediately. I love working with children and helping people, and part of what the organization was looking for was volunteers who could teach the girls something. I play a couple of instruments, and at my interview it was decided that I would bring my ukulele every week and teach the girls how to play.
I chose Kfar Yeladim because I felt like it was where I could make the most tangible impact. And while I do hope that over my year and a half of volunteering there I did in some small way make a difference, in reality it was the girls who impacted me more than they’ll ever know.
The children at Kfar Yeladim come from a variety of challenging backgrounds, and many are victims of abuse or neglect. They live at home but come to Kfar Yeladim after school each day, where they are given a warm meal, homework help, therapy and perhaps most crucially, the love and attention they might not receive anywhere else. These children are referred to Kfar Yeladim by Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, and Kfar Yeladim works with them and their families to make sure they are safe and can continue living at home while still getting the care they need.
Myself and those who volunteered alongside me were told all of this before we began volunteering every week, but the individual stories of the girls we worked with were kept private. We didn’t know what these girls had gone through in the past nor what their home lives were like, and so all we could do was love them. That, as it turns out, was the easiest job in the world. The language barrier was overwhelming at first, but it became less so over time as I realized that you don’t need very many words to show someone that you care about them. That was one of the things that little girl taught me that day. In three words, I communicated how deeply interested I was in her and her school pictures and art projects, and with just her smile, she showed me how much that meant to her.
She and the other girls taught me other things too, like gratitude and being happy with the life you have. They found so much joy in the small things. They were excited when my friends and I showed up every week. They jumped to show us whatever little trinket they had found or created at school that week. One of us volunteers did art projects with them; another taught them Zumba-style dances to Jewish music. I taught the girls chords on the ukulele. But it wasn’t really about any of that. It was about the excitement they found in keeping up with a new dance or putting their own spin on that week’s art project or getting a handle on a new chord. A couple times, they found endless entertainment in ripping up pieces of paper and putting them on my head and lap as some sort of confetti. They called it a “chatunah” (wedding). Their lives were far from simple. I knew that even if in vague terms. But they were so full of joy, so full of genuine appreciation for those small novelties and victories.
They taught me that there isn’t really an objective level of privilege at which one can begin to feel gratitude. You can be grateful and find joy no matter your life’s circumstances. Happiness is a choice, and these girls chose it every day. I recall a story told by one of Kfar Yeladim’s directors at a staff event I attended. The center was holding a Shabbaton for the children one weekend, and they had brought in a bunch of mattresses to accommodate them. One of the girls could not believe that she would get her own mattress that weekend; she had never had her own bed before. No child should live in that kind of situation. No child should need Kfar Yeladim and the services it provides. But the children who do so often show us what it looks like to appreciate every small thing. Our lives don’t need to look a certain way before we start valuing everything in them.
When I started my second year of seminary, I chose to again return to Kfar Yeladim. I couldn’t start going back until after October 7 because the security concerns meant the seminary’s chesed program had to start a little later in the year. The first time I returned, the woman who ran the age group I volunteered with wanted me to have some one-on-one time with one of the older girls. She was maybe 11. We sat in a small room off the main one, and, while working on an art project, she told me about her summer. I’ve always found the culture around vacations a little frustrating. Who went to the most exotic place? Who got the biggest tan? It always seemed like a competition to me. That wasn’t the case with these girls. The girl I sat with told me that she hadn’t done much that summer. A highlight was a trip to Luna Park, an amusement park in Tel Aviv. I imagine she spent most of the summer stuck at home. She wasn’t ashamed of this. She didn’t give off the impression of feeling less than anyone else. I jumped at the opportunity to show my enthusiasm, telling her (and showing her with my facial expressions when my Hebrew vocabulary faltered) how nice that sounded. I refused to let her think for a moment that she had any reason to feel ashamed or unfortunate.
These children taught me that though they don’t deserve the difficult circumstances they were handed, their attitudes are exactly as they should be. I think back to the little girl who expressed such joy at my small remark, that she was very cute. I wish that she should be told that every day. But the fact that she likely isn’t created an appreciation for comments like mine that most people will never have.
That first day back after summer break, I spent most of the time in that side room with the door closed, talking to the 11-year-old about her summer and even about the sirens on October 7. Most of the other girls didn’t really see me for most of the time. Then, I came out to leave for the day. I had developed a special bond with one of the girls in the group. She was one of the youngest, 6 or 7 years old, with a brown bob and a lot of spunk. She was one of the girls who found great joy in putting paper confetti all over me or sneaking away my ukulele to do with it what she pleased. I hadn’t seen her when I came in that day, and she hadn’t even realized I had come at all. When I came out to leave, she saw me. She looked happier to see me than almost any other person in my life I’ve reunited with. Not because we were closer to each other than anyone else but because children like her find joy in everything. They have to.
And it rubbed off on me too. We hugged, and then I had to leave. But I brought that joy back to seminary with me, told my friends about that moment and cherish it and so many others from my time at Kfar Yeladim still to this day.
Leaving those girls was one of the hardest parts of leaving Israel. I miss them tremendously. And, while I hope they were in some small way better off because of me, what I can be sure of is that I’m a better person for having known them.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Esti DeAngelis