Our 7th grade students had the privilege of hearing from Yehuda Cohen this morning. Mr. Cohen is the director of Beit Elazraki Children's Home in Netanya, a home for children who have been abandoned or whose parents are unable to raise them. Mr. Cohen discussed how he and his wife (and now their children) came to oversee a program of 230 children, raning from newborns to teenagers, and how they and their staff fill the role of parents for these children. Most poignantly, he noted that many of these children are the children of parents who had themselves been abandoned or otherwise endured hardships in their youth, and his goal is to stop the cycle and to make sure that the next generation of children are able to grow up in stable two-parent homes.In addition to Mr. Cohen's encouraging our students to find out more about Beit Elazraki (visit their site at http://www.emunah.org/bet_elazraki.php), our own Yair Berger spoke briefly about how he has chosen to work with Beit Elazraki as a chesed project for his upcoming bar mitzvah. We certainly hope that all of our students will take the opportunity to find out more about this wonderful institution, and to perhaps incorporate a visit there during a family trip to Israel.
