New York – Two weeks ago, I buried my brother. After a lifetime of struggling and pain, his body could not contain his soul anymore. His soul was not thinking of my heart when it left, it paid no attention to the pain I would have to endure from a broken heart. My love couldn’t save him.
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Let me tell you our story. The first thing you should know is that he wasn’t really my brother, well, at least we didn’t share the same parents. What makes someone a brother? Is it only blood? How many broken families have we seen, where brothers can’t even be in the same room as each other? Is that really a brother, or is brotherhood a much deeper thing? I think that being a brother must be earned. I think that being a brother means that you love someone unconditionally, you are there for them in the good times and the bad. You can give them advice and still love them when they don’t take it. You believe in them even when everyone else has given up. If this is what a brother is, then he was very much my brother.
How did I become so close to someone who is not related to me? Simple, I have hundreds of people whom I feel this close to. Maybe not as close as I was with him but almost. This is my story.
I run a drop-in center for boys in Brooklyn, N.Y. called, “Our Place”. A drop-in center is a place where teenagers can hang out in a safe environment. They can choose to just hang out and get a hot meal or they could get help. Most of the guys that come down are struggling with some real terrible life situations. Most people view these kids in a very negative light. I have heard all of the name calling, names like, Bums, Drug Addicts, Criminals, Delinquents and many more. These are words that help us to distance ourselves from a very harsh reality. We put labels on these kids because it makes it easy for us to push them aside, to avoid dealing with this terrible problem in our community.
Watch below YouTube clip about Our Place a Brooklyn, NY org. helping frum runaway kids.
Well, I think that there is a problem in our community, but it is not that our children are misbehaving. It is not even that they are going off the derech. That has been occurring since there existed a Jewish Nation. If you look through our history, the most consistent phenomenon you will find, is that there were always young people misbehaving and many, many of them went off the derech. The problem is that our community, that has more kind and generous people of any community in the world, a community that has built hospitals, clinics and charity organizations for any possible cause, this community that I am so proud to call myself a member of, this community, can label their own children and cast them aside. We have so many Kiruv yeshivas and organizations. We are working so hard to bring people back to Hashem. Look back four or five generations in any one of these Jew’s families that we are bringing back and you will always find a man with a beard and yarmulka and a woman with a tichel. What happened to their kids? How did we lose them? I’ll tell you how. We were afraid. We were scared that one rotten apple will ruin the barrel. So if someone was misbehaving, we just let them go. Well, if you go back five generations and take ten boys and ten girls that went off, their descendants could fill the biggest Kiruv yeshiva we have.
In Our Place, we don’t have ten boys and ten girls. We have hundreds a year. As of July first this year, we have had 556 boys come to our center. This number does not include the additional hundreds of boys and girls that have come to our other two programs (Our Place Girls and the Living Room). If you add in the hundreds of phone calls that the staff and I have taken, from people who never come to any of the programs, we have well over a thousand suffering souls a year. Although Our Place is the largest center of its kind in the Jewish community, we are dealing primarily with people from the Flatbush area. What about the kids in Boro Park, Crown Heights, Williamsburg? What about the Jewish communities in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and the staggering number of kids that are suffering in Israel? How can we look away?
I remember asking a very wealthy and generous man if he could help us with our work. He responded that he was well aware of how bad the situation was, but he felt that it was a waste of money to deal with these kids when they are already in their teens and twenties because that’s already too late. He informed me that he was putting his money into early intervention because maybe we can prevent this before it gets too bad. I found myself agreeing with him from a business point of view. In business, there is a concept called “acceptable loss”. This means that in order to improve the whole, you may have to snip off some of the loose ends. When I left his office, I felt so ashamed that I was able to see that logic and maybe even partially agree with it. I thought, “This is not business, these are G-d’s children, these are our children. Can there possibly be an acceptable loss when it comes to Jewish children? Can we just cut someone out of our family because they have become inconvenient? “ My other thought was, “Isn’t what we are doing when we are helping these kids, early intervention? Are we not preventing generations of Jews that will have no connection with Hashem or the Jewish community? Are we not preventing the dysfunctional families that these young people might eventually have, if they don’t get help with their emotional issues now? Most importantly, are we not preventing the deaths of so many of our little brothers and sisters that will never have a chance to raise Jewish families of their own?”
As I sit here in anguish over the loss of my brother, I think about all of my other brothers that are suffering. Who will save our children? Who will save the Jewish people?
Every morning, in “Modeh Ani”, we thank Hashem for returning our souls to our bodies. We end by thanking Him for believing in us (“Rabah Emunosecha”). We are saying that Hashem returns our souls as an act of faith. He says, “I am giving you this soul because I believe that you can do something with it today.” If Hashem has hope in every single Jew, what gives us the right to give up hope in “some” Jews? What better way to convince Hashem to bring the geulah than to show him that we will never give up on even one of his children.
Sony Perlman MSW is the director of OUR PLACE NY, a drop-in-center for kids from the frum community. He has over a decade of experience working with kids at risk. He also has a private practice. If you would like to contact him call OUR PLACE 718-692-4058 or email him directly at [email protected].
Editors note: The above article is not a paid advertisement, nor an endorsement of OUR Place , it simply highlights the tremendous amount of Kids at Risk in our Frum community, and one of the many organizations in New York that are trying to help. If you know of any other Organizations helping troubled teens, please email us and will feature them.
Dear VIN please continue to give coverage to this issue. I so want to write more, but I can’t seem to find the words, as my child is amoung the hundreds. – a distraught father.
To be honest, every organization is a big help, but to change a community we need a person chutzpah! So thank to rabbi Rosenberg.
wow. kudos to those involved with this program!
Moshe Binik is Tzaddik
Nu?!?
We all know the problems, its been issue #1 in Aguda, Torah mesorah, OU and many others for about 12 years now. What’s the chiddush? What’s the course of action? Unless you have been living in outer (or inner) space we all know of the suffering this problem has brought on families. Who doesn’t know a family effected by these chinuch issues? We all anguish, at least we should, but anguish alone is not enough. Neither is the blame game.
What we need is direction, guidance and solutions. And we need lots of diffrent solutions because it is really lots of different problems. Its the challange of our times, lets hope we have the siyata dishmaya to address it correctly!!!
to the editor
geat article
thanks for publishing and as you write on the bottom people shoud send you more to publish
and to all of us whwen we encounter these boys and girls let us not judge them let us just love them, show them we care
and we need more “iruv keroivim” bringing the close closer
And he wears nice ties.
It was a well written aritcle. I think it’s a beautiful thing he talked of the deceased as his brother. However, if older blood brothers would take their younger blood brothers under their wings we would have many less kids at risk in our community. The problem is often they don’t.
This is an amazing organization and it should be rolled out to all communities. Nowadays all kids are “At Risk” but these kids have past the at risk stage and are now in risk/troubled. Please can everyone stop calling only these kids ‘At Risk’ and realize that it is ALL our kids that are At Risk, (of … you fill in the gap) and all need kiruv.
Sony and the rest of the wonderful staff at Our Place, Our Place Girls and the Living Room are AMAZING and WONDERFUL!! I know that in the zechus of all the wonderful things they have done and continue to do for our youth, they will continue to be blessed in everything that they set out to do!
To the boys and girls that go to Our Place, Our Place Girls, and the Living Room – May each day continue to give you strength and the knowledge that situations can and will change for the better!!
Moshe Binik is true adam Gadol and Tzaddik
how dare you even mention nuchem rosenbergs name together with these tzadikim they are tzadikin and he is at best a very disturbed man
I have mentored ONE such lost soul, today with a beautiful family. It is heart wretching to see these yidishe kids suffer. This tzedokeh is VERY important. Not always is it the parents fault that their kids C”V loose their way ,and you can never know,, and knowing that you are giving to such a cause might grant you and your kids the much needed zechusim ,I believe it is like an insurance policy- think about it! And to know that there is such an organization that does this holy work with mesiras nefesh mamesh , is heart warming.
i just spoke to my 20 year old neighbor and he told me that 7 of his friends passed away due to drug problems, and his family is very bal batish ,it can happen to anyone rahmonah litzlon just like cancer does ,its our problem ,if we are not able or willing to do anything about it ,at least we should give our outmost support to the people who do our work
is there a palce like this in Lakewood?
I think the last section of the video says it all, when asked where they would be if OurPlace would not exist, one girl answered, “Probably dead.” Honest, and to the point. Instead of spending money on the latest segulahs and “tzedakahs” spend it on your own local children.
“our community, that has more kind and generous people of any community in the world, a community that has built hospitals, clinics and charity organizations for any possible cause”
Everything ‘charitable’ you do, is for you and your community ONLY….so, you’re community is FAR from the most kind and generous people of any community in the world.
a thousand a year?? thats less than 3 people every day
As kid who goes to our place I jus want to say that our place does so much for us weather its just a meal or a place to chill or a rabbi to talk to they’ve changed many of our lives and we shud support them with everything
just a question with all the awarness on this issue since the jewish observer first went public about it hace we stemmed the tide or perhaps the problem is only getting worse?
are we taking the right aproach is it better not to go public with it and not give kids a fallback plan to be labled at risk and free from any responsabilities.
All the organizations have addressed and spoken about this problem. To bad that is all they have done. Pat themselves on the back and feel they have done something because they have discussed the problem . But when it comes to actions not one of them is to be seen. This is basically the only organizations that has actively done something and greatly accomplishes saving lives.
I have what I think my be a start. The mesivtas have to follow the old principle of “Chanoch Lenaar Al Pi Darko”. All of the mesivtas are in competition to see who can shove more gemara down the throats of the kids. Those few that can, kudos. The rest, the yeshivas dont really give a damn about. When will our rosh yeshivas accept the fact that not everyone is cut out to be the next Reb Moshe? My guess is never.
Secular education? forget it! Chas vesholem our kids should have knowledge. Better to be illiterate in yiddish, english, loshon kodesh, etc.
I’ve been to see “Our Place” many years ago. I arrived late in the evening to see beautiful Yiddish children (teens) shooting pool, playing Fusball, talking to others, learning, eating a hot meal, etc. instead of ‘just hanging out’ looking for trouble or taking drugs, or causing some sort of problem, or just doing nothing. Our Place is an amazing place where former addicts and ‘displaced’ teens and young adults who have “returned” to a “normal” lyfestyle work with younger teens who ‘know better’ or who thought they knew better and are now in trouble with the law, with family or with drugs and themselves. These tiyere neshomos need love and care and someone to relate to. Our Place offers them comfort and direction.
I remember talking to a kid in his early 20’s who returned from a life of drugs and crime. (usually one causes the other) He was one of the counselor’s. He could have been a good looking kid but his previous lifestyle had him pierce himself, shave his head bald and put tatoos all over. Feh. I couldn’t look at him until someone yelled out “Maariv, Maariv” and he walked to the front of the room and in a loud voice blueted out “Burchee es Hasem Hamevoiroch”.
A special thank you to the man that never gave up on Our Place and never misses a night.
R’ Chaim Glantz is the person who runs our place nightly no matter what may not hes always there for boys.
Every night for the past 6-8 years R’ Chaim has had a presence in our place a man who never gave up on the boys and b’h has brought many of them back into the fold of yiddishkiet
thank you R’Chaim Glantz
If Our Place would’ve existed 13 years ago when I left my life would not be the living hell it was
Sony Pearlman does a phenomenal job with these kids. I recognized one of the volunteers in the video who lives in a suburb but comes in to volunteer because Our Place saved his brother in law.
Kudos to the writer, Sony Perlman. Unlike the previous article, he did not bash other good causes to make his point. It is people like him that make a difference.
Sony is like an attending in the emergency room. He saves countless lives each and every day, and when all his best efforts fail, the loss is crushing.
We need to examine the causes of the illnesses. What are the triggering factors? Our world is complex, so the answers are not simple. However, I think that we must re-evaluate how our Yeshivos our run and the price that this takes on kids who cannot keep up for a variety of reasons.
It is time, as a previous poster mentioned to have Chanoch Lanaar Al Pi Darko, and for the community to stop stigmatizing kids who either have no sitz fleish or lack the intellectual fortitude to keep up. Until this happens, I am afraid we will see an increase of this, not a diminution of it, Rachmono Litzlan.
a brother saying thank you for your great work. Thank you Sony!
Thank you “Our Place” for all that you do. I do want to express my
opinion about what an underlying cause may be to the fallout of our youth.
Today the communities and schools demand a certain kind of Bochur.
White shirt, Black hat, only going to Kolel after marriage, intense learning
with expectations of only excellent students. If a Bochur thinks out of the
box, wears a colored shirt…can’t sit 14 hours a day learning….he’s considered
a “bum” or an “outcast” and Och un Vey on the family. The Gedolim
and Rosh Yeshivas have to revamp their expectations. When I grew up
we lived in neighborhoods of Frum Yidden of all factions. Men wore grey &
brown suits & hats…these men were as frum as can be and many came from Rabbonisher families. no pressure. Alot of the ehrliche bochurim went on to become businessmen while still finding time to learn each day. Today, there’s pressure on a boy on the way he’s dressed (what colors), if he’s the TOP boy in learning, and Oh! Chas V’sholom he should even think about going into business and becoming the “Zevulon” to support our mosdos. There are many talented boys out there. Please give them the forum to express their individuality.
I have teenagers at home and have made it my mission to keep them home even though we don’t always agree on what is acceptable or not – when it comes to religion. The thing that keeps me going is working with a wonderful therapist that has helped me communicate with my children in a respectful way that when a tough issue comes up we can talk about it with out fighting. I have recently heard that some parents don’t allow their kids to come over to my house cause it is a “hang out”. At first I was really hurt because I am always home when my kids bring their friends over and have made the rules of what is or isn’t acceptable to everyone so that it is a safe environment, but when I thought it over I realized that those are the parents that are busy fighting with their children instead of listening. We all have questions growing up and if their is not outlet for that the children feel suffocated. I feel bad for those parents that are busy fighting their children to fit the mold instead of embracing them…..I haven’t made any compromises when it comes to religion and now my children are embracing it & understand why they are doing what they do.
Go down to our place and you will feel the irresistable urge to make a difference and help out. Be it volunteering or donating.
Keep up the good work! thanks for caring so deeply
I am Sony’s sister writing from across the world in South Africa and all I can say is that tears fill my eyes, with anguish and with pride..what pain is out there, it is almost unfathomable…what a man you are, Sony, saving neshamas every day..kol hakavod to all of you at Our Place and the Living Room, you are the true emmisaries of Hashem, the heroes of our nation…I am so grateful and so proud..I love you Sony. Chev
stop expelling our kids for no reason at all or even when their is a reason yu are dealing with yiddish neshomos here someone will answer to yudeini lo shufche as hadom hazehl
The author asks:
“What about the kids in Boro Park, Crown Heights, Williamsburg?”
I can’t speak to the first and last, but in Crown Heights there is something at least vaguely similar, called ALIYA (Alternative Learning Institute for Young Adults). It too serves as a haven for local “at-risk” young men and women, and the staff there do an amazing job connecting with them.
Kudos to all the families and participants behind this program and all other programs like it.
Sony is a malach. Sony, Eli and Kivi are the silent soldiers saving our children. I have a family member and more than a couple of friends who have benefited from their chessed.
Sony, thank you for everything you have done for all of us, and most recently, sharing your experiences with the world at large. Now it’s time for the rest of us to figure out how we can contribute and participate.
To Sony, Reb Chaim G., ACE,Reb Yankel S., Fogel, Tabi,Reb moshe G., Noah L.,Baruch A., Rafi H., Yossi Y.,Yoni H.,Shea T.,Eli V., Reb Moshe Binick, and all the other staff and volunteers, may god bless you a thousand times over for doing his holy work, and helping his special children. A special THANK YOU to the wives and family’s of the above mentioned for their sacrifice and efforts as well.
The situation is incredibly sad, but frankly, how does “money” help?
wow. if only this place was around when i needed it….
our place is helpful! I would think monsey is in a great need also for one of these types of programs as well
I will tell you from my experience as a parent who knows what to do with kids at risk. First putting all these troubled kids into one location is the wrong approach.We as parents and leaders must divide and conquer. Each kid should have a mentor and not be hanging out with a whjole gang of kids at risk.Each kid encourages the other to take heavier drugs just as criminals in jail get hardened in their ways. All these money program goups are there to collect government funding and do zero for the kids. If you have a kid at riskl,get him a mentor and keep him from bad company.
Sony, thanks for saving lives. Keep up the great work you are fighting Hashem’s battle
I think early intervention is until a person reaches 120.
Thnks for reminding us about this important issue
lekovod sony perlman,
wishing you much hatzlacah (and money!) for your holy work! Rabbi Freifeld would be so proud of you!!!!!!!
We lost a pure Neshama. This article should be a zchus for him.
.. A while back I was observing some of the boys interact and I couldn’t help but notice how as rebellious they may be or seem to be they have a sort of freindship for eachother that very few in the “standard society” have, maybe because they all understand the feelings of angry or hurt that is in them and the achdus between them should serve as a wakeup call for all us “stuck up” “normal” people. It is also noticeable how allot of these boys and girls seem to want act and do some of the most shocking actions and behaviors which in my view is an invitation for some acceptance and as I have been making it my businees and would like to encourage others from now on is to just say hello with a smile or strike up a conversation and offer some words of encouregment without treating them as a second class citizn but only more like a brother sister or freind, we can all gain tremendous chizuk from some of these youngsters they are all beutiful neshamos often misunderstood and deserve the same respect we would want for ourselves.
Next time you go to that grocery store and you see that 16 year old boy packing your boxes who you know maybe “one of them” give him a smile and maybe even a tip.
May we be zoche to the true geula shleima bekarov
I think its time we start to address a new disease in our community which is poker games, there are regular yeshiva boys 15 16 17 year olds playing at poker rooms and its kosher because the adults in our community do it to. This is a horrible cancer which effects marriages and ultiamtly the children. Its time we looked at gambling in the same light as infidelity and the adults in our comunity show by example and put a stop to it because even thought you can “control yourself” some of the guys your playing with can’t and this is a disaster waiting to happen rachmono litzlon so as we aproach the summer please think twice before you invite freinds for a card game or a ride to ac
One of the problems is that there is a myriad of baal teshuva organizations including those for russians that have the haskama of every chashuva rabbi with a white beard and that promote their fundraising with flashy advertising, elaborate chinese auctions, raffles, summer camps, excursions, concerts with top performers etc etc etc and the list goes on and on. And thats all nice. BUT WE’RE FORGETTING ABOUT AND NEGLECTING THE CHILDREN THAT ARE FRUM FROM BIRTH. We have to feel more sad for them and their families. We all need to put our talents, energies and moneys into these sweet kids. Because its a lot more heart wrenching to see kids that went to yeshiva/ girls school and had it all, and then fell by the wayside.
The many askanim and professionals who deal with the kids-at-risk issue are strangely not competitive. I am one of those, and I have only the deepest respect and hakaras hatov to the entire staff at Our Place, beginning with R’ Moishe Binik, R’ Chaim Glanz, Sony, Ace, and so many others. As in any field of human service, you lose some along the way, but this does not happen by failure or neglect ch”v. The program at OP is extremely costly, and for the earliest years, R’ Moishe Binik funded the entire project out of pocket. Only later were there other sources of funding. There are literally hundreds of kids being saved constantly. I am not their fundraiser, but OP as well as many other organizations are saving neshamos every day. Some of these have been recipients of public funding, much of it through tzaddikim such as Dov Hikind and Joe Lazar. A lot of these monies are victims of budget cuts, and these organizations are turning to us, Klal Yisroel, to help them with our generosity. The problem won’t go away, but let’s save some some souls.