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del.icio.us Digg It!  new Homeless people have mothers, too By Amir Zohar Irena Levit stood at the corner of Fein Street, by the old central bus station in Tel Aviv one afternoon, observing her son Sergei's new friends - a few dozen anorexic prostitutes and penniless junkies. Walking at the rapid pace typical of users on the verge of a crisis, they went in and out of the doorway of the derelict two-story building, whose moldy rooms bustle with sexual activity and drug-dealing 24 hours a day. Here, thousands of "consumers" satisfy their need for a high on cheap crack crystals and dirty heroin that can be had for NIS 50 a pop. Levit got as far as the entrance hallway of building number one. "Ice, ice," dealers from Ramle and Lod called out from the doorways of side rooms. They're selling crack. "Leave me alone, I'm busy now," shrieked an agitated prostitute who was escorting a frightened client to her gritty quarters. Wide-eyed junkies in rags hung about the stairwell, performing a sickening rite - spraying blood on the walls after shooting crack. This is a place where the people have AIDS and hepatitis. For several years now, this scene has been playing out unhindered in a certain part of Tel Aviv. Satisfied customers, emerging from the building with a bleeding vein and their heads in the clouds, energetically make their way back to the city streets to collect enough shekels for the next hit, or steal a purse or a bicycle. Advertisement Disappointed clientele - who either got weak stuff or just didn't have enough money - stayed in the inner courtyard, arguing among themselves. And the wretched prostitutes went on hunting for the dozens of men who turn up during the day, ready to pay 20 shekels for a hand job. "This isn't the first time I've come here to look for my Sergei," says Levit, before going over to one of the young women on the narrow street to ask her in Russian if she has seen her son. "I've met a lot of women here from all over the country whose boys are also here, and girls - oh, the girls. At first we would stand alone, apart, looking on in disbelief. Gradually we started to approach each other, to talk, to share experiences, to cry together." Levit, 52, immigrated to Israel three years ago from Sakhalin Island, east of Russia, following her only son, 34, who had become an amputee junkie here. Whenever she misses him, she searches for him in the places where the homeless and the junkies congregate, though she doesn't always find him. Thus she has become better acquainted with abandoned buildings and places frequented by beggars than with the language in her new country. "Let's start from the building next to the American Embassy on Hayarkon Street," she said to me in stumbling Hebrew when we went looking for her son. "Then we'll search in his territory on Ben Yehuda and Allenby Streets, and if we don?t find him we'll go to the sixth and seventh floors in the new bus station, that's his favorite place to ask people for money. If Sergei isn?t there, we?ll go to the junkies park in Levinsky." "Seroginkeh," she called out her pet name for him in every abandoned building we entered, as we picked our way past piles of garbage, mounds of excrement and used needles. And so we roamed the streets of Tel Aviv, the mother?s eyes seeking out her destitute son. We covered many kilometers, but Sergei was nowhere to be found. And so we arrived at 1 Fein Street. The most important thing - you're alive About 200 women immigrants from the former Soviet Union have joined forces in a non-profit foundation (whose Hebrew acronym, ALIS, stands for "Mothers For the Sake of Children at Risk") that was founded by Levit in June. The organization seeks to support mothers and change government policy on the prevention and treatment of alcohol and drug addiction. Ironically, the vision for this initiative came from Sergei, who on one of his breaks from drugs was surfing Internet forums for Soviet immigrants and called his mother's attention to the vast number of distraught parents like her. Last April, when her son returned to the streets, Irena Levit decided to establish a social network for mothers from all over the country. If evidence of the power of mothers to effect change is needed, one need only look at the experience of the Four Mothers, who helped bring about the withdrawal from Lebanon. If four mothers succeeded in the defense sector, there is no reason that 200 shouldn?t be successful in the social sector. Sergei's grandfather, a Jewish soldier in the Red Army, took part in the conquest of Sakhalin Island from Japan during World War II, remained there and married the Jewish manager of a local company. His mother, therefore, grew up in a family that had close ties to the army and the party, and received a serious musical education. She married at 18, and after four years of marriage and one child, got divorced and subsequently supported herself by working in the island's large fishing industry, while raising Sergei on her own. "We were a warm family, and Sergei was an ordinary, happy child who didn't cause trouble," Levit recalls those idyllic early years. "His father, an engineer, spent the summers with him and I was close to him the whole year. In college he met this beautiful girl named Galina and they wanted to get married, but I was against it, I didn't think he was ready. He was upset and said he would immigrate to Israel, make money and bring Galina." In 1998, Sergei moved to Israel. He lived in Be'er Sheva, but had difficulty adjusting here as a new immigrant. In January 2002 he called his mother and told her that his leg had been amputated. "When I opened the door to his room in Ichilov he was sitting in bed covered with a blanket, with a wool hat on his head, earphones in his ears and his eyes closed," she says, tears trickling from her eyes. "I thought he was enjoying the music. I had no idea that he was stoned or addicted to drugs. All of a sudden he woke up and a big drama started. He was surprised and started to shout, to cry, to beg forgiveness, 'Mother, I lost my leg, forgive me because it's my fault, forgive me for falling into drugs.' When we calmed down a bit I went out onto the balcony and said thank you to God for saving my son. He got gangrene from the injections and lost a leg, but at least he was alive. In the room I also said to Sergei, 'The most important thing is that you're alive. You'll get away from the drugs.'" Following the amputation, Sergei was given morphine, and he later continued to receive methadone at the Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment and Research in Tel Aviv. On April 15, 2002, Galina landed in Israel. Levit: "When Galina came he became very hopeful. They rented an apartment on Ben Yehuda Street, a month later they got married at the Russian Embassy, and within a year they had a daughter. He gradually stopped using drugs, thanks to the methadone, and he completed the rehabilitation program for his leg at Tel Hashomer. Everything seemed ideal, but it was an optical illusion, because in reality nothing was going right. He refused to accept a rehabilitative job from the National Insurance Institute and lost some of his disability allowance. He tried to work as a contractor for cleaning services and failed. "I think he tried to rehabilitate himself too quickly and when that didn't work he started getting fearful about losing Galina. He also heard friends say that she was so pretty and that she'd end up going off with some rich man. Galina started giving him that feeling, too. She wanted the good life here, but couldn't get near it. When I tried to talk with her, she wouldn't tell me anything, but I got the sense that people were stirring her up against him and tempting her. Sergei lost hope in his ability to change his life and make progress. He sank into depression, hooked up with other people in his condition and went back to the street drugs." My son the beggar In 2004, Levit decided to move to Israel with her second husband. She lived in a series of rented apartments and worked as a nanny in north Tel Aviv. "In early 2006 I met a Russian woman in the park by my workplace whose son had also gotten into drugs. She told me that the only public institution that could help was the Center for the Treatment of Drug Victims in Jaffa. I went there right away to sign him up, but they told me he'd have to wait at least three months. I pleaded with them, I said that he'd lost a leg, that he was desperate, that his wife wanted to leave him and take their daughter back to Russia. It didn't help. I went back to the Adelson Clinic, but there I was told that I'd have to wait a year. "?Desperate, I saw ads in a Russian newspaper about private places where they would take you immediately. I bet on a rehab institute in Haifa and I paid NIS 5,000, but Sergei ran away from there after five days. I paid NIS 4,000 to have him stay in a place in Ashkelon, but he only lasted four days there. I didn't get my money back. I started to really understand what it meant to be the mother of a junkie. People stay away from you, social workers have no patience for you, doctors run from you." Sergei fell apart emotionally when his wife left. "He did a lot of drugs so he wouldn't feel anything," says Levit. When they had to leave their rented apartment, Galina and the daughter went to live with friends and Sergei moved in with his mother. Their parting a few months later was amicable. Sergei even took his wife and daughter in a taxi to the airport. But when he was left alone he became mired in depression. Three months later, Galina returned to Israel unexpectedly. "Sergei right away built up all these false hopes, as usual," says Levit. "He got clean and they planned to establish an organization for addicts' rights, they were even interviewed about it on the Russian RTVI television channel. But then Galina left and on March 23 she called from Russia to inform him that she had a new man in her life and that this man would be a father to his daughter." The result was another painful setback and another expensive and failed round of rehabilitation. Levit realized that she couldn't keep inviting Sergei back home and trying to get him off drugs without cooperation - and she was also advised of this after their experience at the center in Jaffa. She was also told that a junkie usually doesn't last more than seven years on the street. Despite the decision not to take him back into her home, she couldn't stop looking for her one-legged son, who was also a carrier of Hepatitis B. "One day when I was looking for him, I saw him standing there in rags next to the American Embassy, begging for handouts. I stood there and watched him pleading with passersby, 'Nu, please, I have no food, I have no leg, I'm suffering.' It was absolutely heartbreaking and I couldn't stop crying. He wouldn't talk to me much. He only agreed to show me which disgusting building he was sleeping in and he refused to come home or to stop using drugs. Since then I haven't stopped crying. I'm still crying now." The emperor had no clothes The distress of Levit and her friends is arousing much interest on the part of the welfare authorities. These women are the human faces behind the harsh statistics. According to the Welfare Ministry, 70 percent of the 3,500 people who dwell on Israel's streets are immigrants. And there aren't very many institutional solutions available for them: On Golomb Street in South Tel Aviv there is a homeless shelter that provides meals, a shower, a bed, and the chance to talk with a counselor. Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog is currently considering a request to open a similar home for addicts, in the area of the Tel Aviv central bus station. Volunteers and workers on the Levinsky Project, jointly sponsored by the Israel Anti-Drug Authority and the Health Ministry, who do sacred work on the streets of Tel Aviv on a daily basis, were enthusiastic about the mothers' initiative, and the project's coordinator, Avner Cabel, invited them to join forces. Meir Sharabi and Karina Salman of the Tel Aviv municipality's districts and neighborhoods division are temporarily hosting the meetings of the mothers' forum in the old City Hall on Bialik Street. "When Sergei returned to the street, in my desperation I turned to politicians, but I discovered that the emperor had no clothes," Levit recounted at a meeting of the forum last week. "I met with the coordinator of Yisrael Beitenu, and she made a show of understanding, but I haven't heard from her since. And the members of the Knesset Committee on Drug Abuse seem to be affected by their involvement in the field of narcotics." Larissa B., mother of a drug addict from Bat Yam, who met Levit at the central bus station, was just as adamant: "The Anti-Drug Authority was established to coordinate the issue, but it has shunned treatment and is focusing only on policy, research and public relations. They refer us to all kinds of other public and private organizations; it's complete chaos and we fall between the cracks. According to the Authority's data, there are about 300,000 drug users, of whome 100,000 are junkies and alcoholics. If you figure that there are about seven other people suffering because of each one - parents, siblings, wives and children - then that's already two million people who are affected by this." "You could call it a social terror attack," adds Larissa L. "And our police commissioner suddenly decides to instruct his officers not to enforce [laws against] drug use. Apparently, Police Chief Dudi Cohen was highly influenced by a TV series whose celebrity creators did all they could to encourage the removal of law enforcement regarding marijuana, maybe so they'd let them smoke in peace, and they completely ignored the victims of crack and heroin. If the police are out of the picture, then the state has to provide more quality public treatment and not rely on treatment contractors." In response to a query from Haaretz Magazine, Brigadier General Menny Yitzhaki, head of the Israel Police intelligence division, said he would be happy to meet personally with one of the mothers to learn more about their activity. "The law does not permit drug use and we have no intention of changing it," explained Yitzhaki, the police representative on the committee that is examining, in conjunction with the Anti-Drug Authority, the criminal aspects of drug use. "We've found that about 20,000 drug use cases accumulate each year, and the logistics for dealing with them are rather clumsy. To increase effectiveness, the commissioner emphasized the need to invest more in going after the dealers, and the offenses related to them, rather than the users. We haven't given up on any level that's involved, but the proportions have definitely changed. We prefer to invest the effort in apprehending the motorbike that brings a whole bunch of the stuff to 1 Fein Street, rather than the junkie shooting up a single dose in the building." Haim Messing, the Anti-Drug Authority's executive director, is also a little embarrassed by the mothers' assault. "In a talk with the police commissioner's personal aide, I was also given all the explanations why he was misunderstood. But this is exactly what's so tragic about it, because statements like that can't be fixed. Fortunately, the police commissioner doesn't set policy. He only carries it out." What about the claims that you have ceased providing direct treatment to addicts? "That's not accurate. We're involved in dozens of projects, even though according to the authority's rules we're not an operative organization, but rather one that establishes treatment programs and then transfers them to the operation of government ministries or private grantees." And what if the grantees charge high prices for stays in their rehab centers and don't return the money to parents whose children are back out on the street three days later? "We only have contact with licensed rehab centers, and they are kept under close supervision. If there are complaints about them, including the matter of advance payment and refunds, they should be addressed to us. If the complaints are found to be justified, that would affect the continuation of our association with those centers." Junkies don't need democracy The mothers were assisted in their efforts by Shatil, the New Israel Fund's empowerment and training center, which helps found organizations for social change, and is also well connected with government institutions. The foundation has yet to appoint a director, accountant or legal advisor, but it has held several official meetings, has active working groups and has formulated public relations strategy. Volunteer Natalie Furman - not the mother of a street person - says, "Our first objective is for the status of a junkie to be defined by law." Up to now, Israeli legislation has avoided defining the subject of this extremely common phenomenon. Furman: "If he's sick, treat him. If he's a criminal, arrest him. We want to see a commission of inquiry established to examine the various definitions, as well as the substantial funds the state allocates to this in different frameworks, with no one having any idea of how this money is being divided. We want to see an amendment to the Legal Capacity and Guardianship Law, so that a guardian would be appointed for each junkie to legally safeguard his rights vis-a-vis the authorities." The organization proposes that drug addicts be compelled to undergo rehabilitation at closed institutions or camps, in which they would receive drug substitutes. "When I see Fein Street, I think that junkies aren't entitled to democracy," says Levit. "Almost all the mothers want the state to force their children into rehab. As citizens, we also know that we're entitled to walk in the street without seeing these people, who are our children." Messing is supportive: "I'm also leading a move for mandatory rehab, which would require anyone who can receive treatment to get it. We've already asked the National Insurance Institute to cease allowance payments to addicts who are unwilling to receive treatment. They gave us their consent in principle regarding unmarried people, but for married people it's still under consideration. This is one channel for getting practical results, and within a month the situation there will be clarified. There's another channel for enforcing mandatory rehab - via legislation. A junkie who refuses treatment would have criminal proceedings opened against him." How will this happen? The mothers complain that the law doesn't define who is a junkie. "They're absolutely right, once again. The issue must be defined in law. Next month I have meetings scheduled with Knesset members who are supposed to start the legislation process in terms of defining these rights." What sort of treatment will be required? "In addition to the other avenues of mandatory treatment, we're going to open a special hospital in Tel Aviv, sort of like an emergency room where after two weeks of balancing out, the continuation of treatment will be decided upon - Adolan (methadone), Sebutex (for the treatment of heroin addicts), commitment to a rehab center or a community framework. There won't be a situation whereby someone who wants to get treatment doesn't get it, though even now, someone who is really interested in getting help gets a response within 24 hours." Better shoot up at home Larissa B., mother of Igor, a 25-year-old junkie from Bat Yam who has spent most of his adult life in police stations and drug dens, is a fervent advocate for a mandatory rehab law. "A mother's voice has a special power, so listen to us," she pleads. "This problem that everyone is running from can overtake anyone. I sent a gorgeous, healthy son to the army, with a profile of 97, and he came back from there addicted to hard drugs. Today he's a cripple who gets an NII allowance." She is protective of her son, but makes no attempt to prettify the reality. "I spend entire days chasing after him; all the junkies in Levinsky know me by now. 'Here comes Igor's mother. Igor was here. Igor should be back.' He's very well known, too. In the army he was a driver and at Levinsky he was the driver - making trips to the city of Lod and back with 10 junkies in the car. Some Lod drug dealer gave him a minibus with no inspection or insurance and every day he would drive back and forth and get drugs from the passengers. Every once in a while he was pulled over and given tickets for being without insurance and the car not having passed inspection, but he just threw them out and accumulated NIS 30,000 in fines. "If I throw him out of the house, then I feel bad and cry all day long and run to look for him at the bus station and even give him a little money. Just today I deposited NIS 500 to get him out on bail. He was arrested on suspicion of stealing a bike - now he's become an expert at stealing bicycles. I always prefer for my son to come home, even if he locks himself in the bathroom for two hours and shoots heroin and crack and bleeds all over the tiles and the toilet. That's always better than his doing the same things at 1 Fein Street. "He hasn't reached the point of begging on the street yet, but if he continues, he'll hit that low, too. Sometimes I think, maybe begging would be better than stealing for him. But then I think, no, stealing is better because then he'll go to jail and get better there and come out okay. But within two days on the outside, he gets all emaciated and pale again. Oh, I'm so confused." Larissa, the Christian daughter of a Jewish father, immigrated to Israel nine years ago with her second husband. Igor, her son from her first marriage, preceded her, immigrating alone as part of the Na'aleh program. In Ukraine, she taught Russian language and literature; in Israel, she works at odd jobs. "Because I'm a teacher and have a way with children, I had countless motivational talks with him. I told him, 'Do whatever you want, just don't do drugs.' He kept silent the whole time, or whined, 'I'm not a junkie. I'm not a drunk.' "A few years ago he was arrested and a policeman asked me if I knew that Igor was a junkie. I started to cry hysterically because I didn't know anything. That was four years ago and now I'm an expert. At home I take my purse to the bathroom with me and I sleep with the laptop. I read a lot, and take part in forums in Russian on the Internet. It's unbelievable what goes on there in terms of the numbers of people and the painful stories that keep repeating themselves." Have you asked yourself - What did I do to contribute to his situation? What is my responsibility as a mother? "Of course I have, every mother in my situation asks herself those questions. Maybe I'm to blame because my first marriage with his father didn't work out. I gave him everything after that, more than everything, I even moved to Israel because he did. Look, you have to understand, this is my only child. I insisted that he enroll in the preparatory program at Tel Aviv University. He began studying, and I was very happy. One day, this boy of mine, who's an expert on computers, was in a crisis and emptied out all the internal parts from the computers in the classroom at the university. That's how his studies ended and he went back to the street." Why Nala? Why Danin? A new study by the Anti-Drug Authority found that the rate of drug use among immigrant youth is two and a half times higher than that of native Israeli youth. (Twenty-six percent of the immigrants enrolled in school used drugs, compared to 10 percent of the natives; 48 percent of immigrant dropouts had used drugs, compared to 20 percent of the natives). Leading risk factors cited were dropping out of school at middle school age, crises in single-parent families and the crisis of civic identity: The study indicated that children of non-Jewish mothers had a higher tendency to use drugs than the children of Jewish mothers. Yelena Kornzweit, of Bat Yam, immigrated to Israel in 1997 with her husband and their son, together with a son from her first marriage, who today is a 21-year-old junkie and in prison. She wasn't aware that national identity would affect her son's development. When informed of the study's findings, she said: "As a non-Jew who came to Israel from Odessa, as the daughter of a Jewish man who is married to a Jew, I always had great respect for Judaism. I knew that things would be tough in Israel, but I was thinking about work, the language, where we'd live, not about a catastrophe like this. I have no complaints about the Zionist institutions, because they helped us immigrate, but in retrospect I recall how my son used to say to me in the beginning, 'Mom, they say I'm a Russian piece of shit.' "Come to the Bat Yam beach in the evenings and you'll see what a huge number of immigrant kids are drunk and smoking there. And even worse, come there very early in the morning after they've been out all night in the clubs and see how they look - girls who are just 12 or 13 years old, lying there on the ground, eyes glazed. This is the responsibility of the state, not of Zionism." Sofia Durneyev, 62, the single mother of a son and daughter, doesn't understand why her daughter Natalya, 24, changed her name to Nala Danin. It seems there was no one to explain to the mother about the depth of her daughter's identity crisis back when she was diagnosed as anorexic and did not enlist in the army. "Why Nala? Why Danin?" she asks in a whisper, as she shows me Natalya's abandoned room, which is very neat and tidy. A giant cat sits on the bed. They live in a small three-room apartment on the border of Jaffa and Bat Yam, in a neighborhood where the "Persian coke" (low-quality heroin) sold by the neighbors from Pardes Abu Seif has been causing casualties for the last 40 years. Durneyev has gone to the police three times about her daughter, to file complaints for theft and violence. "Once, a policeman came to search her room. In the end they left the house like two pals. I think she tricked him into letting her go and slept with him in the room. She even stole the painkillers I had for my back pain, until her big brother threw her out of the house. The last time I talked to her was a month ago. I have no idea where she is now." The son of Ilena Wisotzky, an unemployed electrical engineer from Ramat Hasharon, got clean at the Malkishua treatment community on Mount Gilboa, and was able to resume a normal life four years ago. When he was addicted, the mother described her agony in letters to the Russian press. This is what led Levit to her. Why is she coming out again now? "It's hard for me to go back to that place. I know what it's like from those terrible days when I would go myself to get the Adolan for my son," she replies in a soft, quivering voice. "But I feel a duty to help these women and I want to make it known why these new immigrants so often fall into drugs: They grow up in single-parent families, immigrate alone, have trouble integrating into society and coping. My son was 18 when he immigrated from Latvia in 1995 with Na'aleh. His sister came to Israel a year later. In 2001, I came to visit them and noticed they weren't talking and then I saw the reason - he was very lonely and deep into heroin. I sold everything I had, my apartment, my car, and moved to Israel to help him. Thank God I succeeded. Not everyone is so fortunate." So now you beat up old ladies? Yelena Kornzweit's son was 15 when the mother of one of his classmates told her that their sons were using drugs. "He convinced me that it was only light drugs," Kornzweit recalls, "but he was already shooting up even then, mostly in the legs and the groin, which is why I didn't notice right away." And until he was arrested by the police, she also didn't know that her son had become adept at purse-snatching. Rehabilitation attempts failed and the youth, who had returned to his home in Bat Yam, was sentenced to a year and a half in prison. "When he got out, I was working as a cook in a restaurant in the Holon industrial area and I got him a job at a nearby plastics factory. I wasn't ashamed. I told the manager that my son was a released prisoner and a former junkie who was now clean. He took him on, but within a month the boy was back to his old ways and I said - enough. I have a little boy to take care of, too." The young junkie continued to steal purses and was arrested again. Kornzweit refused to go to the police station, and a police officer called and said that the boy was crying and asking to speak with her. "I broke down, I went to him, but I said to him - 'So that's how it is? Now you're beating up old ladies? You're dead to me.' In February he was sentenced to three years and sent to the Kfar Yona prison. On one of my visits he said that he had asked to be transferred to the treatment community in the Tzalmon prison. I was glad to hear it, but I didn't really believe it. He looked stoned to me." During the visit to Fein Street with the mothers, Kornzweit speaks rapturously about how well her son is doing now. For five months he has been working on himself in the treatment community at Tzalmon prison, and twice a week he calls to thank his mother. A few not-so-young prostitutes yell and try to scare off the group of mothers. Kornzweit, unruffled, marches right over to them and soothes them in their mother tongue. She urges the photographer to finish up, so she can go inside the building, but comes out sobbing. "I knew it was bad, and worse, but I didn't know how much worse. All the needles on the floor, the dirt, the filth." A thin junkie dressed in tatters enters the frame, his beard scraggly, the hair on his head sticking up at odd angles. One of the mothers goes over to where he's sitting and politely asks him to move. Kornzweit recognizes him. It's her son's good friend. He looks at her, embarrassed, buries his face in his hands and weeps bitterly. She leans over him and her tears spread to all the mothers of the children of 1 Fein Street. Bookmark to del.icio.us Bad publicity Tiv Taam is fighting for public opinion in order to counter a consumer affairs T.V. show. The biggest stage For the first time in its history, Maccabi Tel Aviv will play against the New York Knicks.   1.   The crocodile tears of the establishment 05:48  |  Rowan Berkeley 07/10/07   2.   Sorry, i didnt make that clear enough 06:41  |  Rowan Berkeley 07/10/07   3.   Oh Well 06:53  |  Simon 07/10/07   4.   when the saints come marching home 07:39  |  jaak 07/10/07   5.   Saints 08:28  |  Cathy 07/10/07   6.   #5 Cathy 09:04  |  Simon 07/10/07   7.   empacy is a selected place 09:10  |  jaak 07/10/07   8.   Ignoring what stares you in the face 10:20  |  sh 07/10/07   9.   to simon 11:22  |  Leiya 07/10/07   10.   #9 Leiya 11:59  |  Simon 07/10/07

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