ANGLO KIDS IN DISTRESS

The death of a teenager has focused concern on a menacing undertow in
Jerusalem's downtown street life, reports Gil Hoffman.

The friends of 18-year-old Elisha Brand, who gathered to mourn him in
Jerusalem's Kikar Zion last week, described him as an inspiring,
understanding young man they could always talk to.

A week after his death from an apparent accidental drug overdose, he
continues to have a positive impact on his friends; five have decided to
enter drug-rehabilitation centers.

Brand's death has served as a wake-up call to the dozens of teens who hang
out in Kikar Zion in downtown Jerusalem, many of whom, like Brand, come
from religious, English-speaking families, or are in Israel for one-year
programs in seminaries and yeshivot.

Parents of some of the "kikar kids" say they were unaware that Jerusalem
had a drug problem or that children of religiously observant doctors and
lawyers from English-speaking enclaves like Efrat and Har Nof were caught
up in it.

Many were struck by the death of what one called a "normal child who looks
like your next-door neighbor."

One parent, whose son goes to the square twice a week and has dropped out
of school, says he and his wife knew the situation was not good, but he was
still shocked by the incident.

"It's a phenomenon that is relatively new in our community. We are trying
to figure out what to do and it's not easy," he says.

"We have been trying to communicate better with our son for years. I don't
think we've been walking around blind. We've tried to do the right things
and we'll keep trying. It may be a little easier to get our message across
now."

Another parent, the mother of one of Brand's friends who entered a
drug-rehab program Monday, says she had no idea what was going on.

"I was really shocked, especially because a lot of the kids are from
observant homes," she says.

The mother, who lives in America, sent her daughter to a haredi seminary in
Jerusalem hoping it would help her straighten out. Instead the daughter
stopped being observant and got involved with drugs - marijuana at first,
Ecstasy and speed later on.

Arriving in Israel for the first time last week, the mother was greeted by
a daughter she could barely recognize, crying incessantly about the death
of her friend.

"Elisha's death gave her the final push to go into rehab," the mother says,
adding that Raquel Sanchez also helped.

Sanchez, a social worker in the city's Youth Development Department and the
director of the Rose Institute, used to work with gangs in New York and has
been working with the youth in Kikar Zion almost every night for more than
five years.

The Rose Institute is currently helping some 200 teens from
English-speaking homes, about half of whom are in in the throes of a
serious crisis. Six kids from this group died from suicide or crime in
1998, Sanchez says, and a 14-year-old who hung out in the square was found
dead in Independence Park last spring.

THURSDAYS and Saturdays are the biggest nights in town, when scores of
teenaged English-speakers - many on one-year programs - pack the areas
between Kikar Zion and the Rock Bar, meeting old friends and making new ones.

The kids who come every night are more of a mix - mostly native Israeli
teens with an alternative bent, plus a smaller but devoted core of
English-speakers.

Although often stigmatized by overzealous police, the majority of the
"kikar kids" - or kikaristim in Hebrew - do not do drugs.

They come to the square to "let loose" and hang out, to people-watch and to
shmooze.

The change from shmoozer to boozer, user and abuser is gradual, veterans of
the kikar scene say - from alcohol to pot, to harder drugs, dealing and theft.

One sabra admits that veterans of the kikar often take advantage of
newcomers, getting them addicted and enrolling them in what he calls the
"Kikar University School of Life."

THE ISRAELIS and Anglos for the most part stay apart. Bilingual youth often
blend in with both groups, but "Moshe," a longtime kikar kid, says the
Anglos have distinct problems that put them at much greater risk.

"With the Israelis it's just a phase, with the Anglos, it's a problem," he
says. "For the Anglos, the kikar becomes their life until eventually they
have nowhere else to go, they have nothing and they're completely lost."

Four years ago, Moshe's haredi parents, who live on welfare in Pittsburgh,
sent him to a yeshiva outside Jerusalem that targets problem kids. They
hoped he would become more religious and were not aware of his drug problem.

Moshe, 21, admits he agreed to come because he had heard there were a lot
of drugs in Israel, and, once here, he soon left the yeshiva and started
dealing drugs, selling Ecstasy he had bought for NIS 20 for NIS 75 a pill.

"It's a good, easy way of making money in a country where you don't know
about anything other than drugs," he says.

The police ended his lucrative dealings, however, busting Moshe for
attempting to sell NIS 11,000 worth of drugs to a pair of undercover cops.

After only six weeks in jail, during which he tried to kill himself twice,
Moshe was released.

Since then, with the help of Sanchez, Moshe has sworn off drugs and got off
on a better foot with his parents. Describing himself as "a wanna-be
yuppie," his only addictions now are to cigarettes and Coca-Cola.

He works for an interior decorator and volunteers part-time for Sanchez. He
hopes to return to school to study social work.

"I owe Raquel my life," Moshe says. "She taught me how to love life and
focus on what I love about myself, to set high standards and know that I
will achieve them."

MOSHE is one of countless kikar kids who consider themselves graduates of
Sanchez's Rose Institute, an organization for kids in distress she founded
because she felt that the city was neglecting Anglos, considering them
non-problematic and affluent enough to care for themselves.

"The only reason it got so bad on the kikar is that Americans in general
were seen as a population that did not need any help," says the
curly-haired, gentle-voiced Sanchez.

Things are beginning to change, however.

Jerusalem's Youth Development Department - Kidum Noar - began working
intensively with Anglo kids two years ago, taking Sanchez under its wing.

Kidum Noar was formed in the Sixties and currently works with about 4,000
Jerusalem youth, offering kids with family and education problems tutoring
and job-training, as well as placement programs and crisis intervention
support.

"Each sector in the city requires different tools and tactics," explains
Shabtai Amedi, who has headed Kidum Noar for 30 years and works with native
Israelis, Arabs and immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and
the West.

"With the English-speakers there was a big problem with lack of trust, so
we decided to work together with Raquel, whom the kids already trusted."

Sanchez's life revolves around the troubled teens, who refer to her as
"Street Mom."

They call her at all hours of the night. She goes to court with them and
spends hours trying to get them to relate better to their families and stop
abusing drugs and alcohol.

She helps kids with problems caused by everything from learning
disabilities to divorce, addictions and religious issues. She also helps
them with adjustment problems stemming from the move to Israel.

"We are immigrants, but we don't feel like immigrants. We feel independent,
like it's our country, but we need help to get more organized," Sanchez says.

SANCHEZ has been particularly busy over last couple of weeks helping kikar
kids avoid a dangerous cocktail drug. As a result, by the time she managed
to call Brand, she ended up leaving a message on his cellular phone that he
never heard.

The way Sanchez sees it, her work might have been less overwhelming that
week were it not for a dispute over funding, which forced her to fire her
staff of two social workers, one of whom had been working directly with Brand.

After Brand's body was found in his Katamon apartment by his friend and
roommate, Sanchez stayed in Kikar Zion for the better part of three days,
counseling his grieving friends and awaiting word on Brand's family's
ultimately successful court battle to prevent police from performing an
autopsy.

More than 300 of Brand's friends, many of whom he met in Kikar Zion, came
to the funeral last Thursday night. Observers describe them as a
subculture, but the kids refer to themselves as an extended family.

"Parents at the funeral were in a daze," says Chezi Goldberg, a counselor
for youth in crisis and families who used to work with the haredi sector
for Kidum Noar.

"One mother told me, 'I have already been to this funeral a thousand times
in my nightmares, only then, the kid being buried was mine.'"

Several psychologists, including Goldberg, have said they intend to form a
task force for parents of youth in distress in the wake of Brand's death.

"Often there's not a lot you can do with the kid because he's already on a
track on the way down," Goldberg says. "But if the parents are able to join
a support group or see a therapist, there's much more success seen in that
direction."

Elisha's mother, Har Nof social worker Chaya Sara Brand, says she advocates
the idea of forming support groups for parents, but only if they are
multi-faceted, cooperative and non-judgmental.

"It's certainly positive that the community has started addressing the
problems alerted to by Elisha's death," she says, but cautions, "It's easy
to talk now when everyone is upset, but what remains to be seen is what
steps are going to be implemented for our distressed children."

"I feel like Elisha's death could be partially redeemed if it makes people
notice that there's a serious problem here," she says.

"Tears are nice, but what Elisha would want is the tears to reach ground
level and fertilize the growth of the kind of programs that will bring
people together in the spirit of acceptance and love."