Bright Horizons: Updates on Project Shachar 2011 By Gavriel Horan After four years in existence, Project Shachar is rapidly

becoming a mainstay of Israeli society. Today, 1800 Haredim are enrolled in Shachar and over 300 graduates are employed in either the civilian sector or as career soldiers in the IDF. An anticipated 600-800 new recruits are expected to join the program by next year. In addition to the already established Shachar presence in air force, navy, intelligence, logistics and communications divisions, new Haredi units are being formed in the police force s customer service department, as well as in the emergency response education unit. To date, 74% of all 370 Shachar graduates have achieved or are on the way to achieving long-term employment in the mainstream Israeli job sector or as career soldiers. This high success rate is due largely to the founding of two new Shachar offices in Jerusalem and Haifa, in addition to their main branch in Bnei Brak, each housed within JDC s Haredi employment centers. The new widespread availability of Shachar s professional Haredi job counselors ensures that every soldier is provided with the guidance they need to successfully integrate into the mainstream job sector after completion of their army service. Thanks to Project Shachar, the vast majority of graduates are happy with their current employment and are earning at least 3.5 times as much as their former kollel salaries. Graduates have achieved jobs in such major Israeli corporations as Teva, Bank Hapoalim, Electra, Bezeq, Israel Aircraft Industries, Cisco, Matrix and Office Depot. As important as economic sustainability is, Project Shachar s participants and graduates are doing much more than just gaining skills to support themselves and their families. These brave individuals are pioneering the way for widespread Haredi participation in the army and mainstream society, thus helping to remove stereotypes and stigmas and allowing for a greater degree of coexistence in Israeli society. Face to Face Yossi s experiences and feelings bring this point to life: Originally from Jerusalem, Yossi joined Project Shachar a year after getting married. Although his father learned in kollel his whole life, Yossi felt that he wanted to do something else. I wanted to use my talents to help support my family, while continuing to learn Torah in my spare time, he said. Upon hearing about Project Shachar Yossi immediately signed up. Yossi has been employed as an airplane computer programmer in the Israeli Airforce (IAF) for the past three years and has earned the rank of Second Lieutenant. He has signed on to stay in the army until 2014. I really like the work and the atmosphere is great both physically and mentally. I really feel like I am surrounded by friends both the religious and secular soldiers with whom I work. But most importantly I feel that I am doing great things for the Jewish people. In the immediate sense, I am helping to defend Jewish lives and the Jewish state. In the bigger sense however, I am helping to create lasting change in Israeli society.

Yossi explains that when he first entered the army, the secular soldiers didn t know how to relate to him and the other Haredi recruits. They looked at us as if we were animals in the zoo. We were so foreign to them. They didn t even know if they were allowed to say hello to us. After a while they saw that we didn t have tails or horns, and that we weren t all thieves or parasites like what they hear on the news. Last week, a new Major was assigned to Yossi s division. He told Yossi that he was the first Haredi person that he had ever spoken to face to face in his life. Project Shachar is not something that helps the army or something that helps Haredim find employment. It s something that helps the entire country. The problems between secular Israelis and Haredimisn t just about army service or unemployment. There is also an element of what we call 'baseless hatred'. The two communities don t even know each other. Shachar opens up dialogue between us like never before and is a benefit for the entire Jewish nation. Yossi wears his army uniform all day from the time he goes to pray in his Haredi neighborhood to the time he returns home to learn in the night kollel. I am a walking advertisement for Shachar, he said. I am a walking advertisement for change! The Inside Story Meir grew up in the Haredi neighborhood of Rechovot. His family, society, and friends unanimously expected him to pursue the same path in life as his four brothers in law who all learn in kollel full time. Although Meir loved intensive Torah study, he couldn t foresee supporting his growing family on the monthly kollel stipend of 2000 NIS (less than $600). I didn t want to be dependent on others my whole life, he said. The problem was that I was completely lacking in secular education, making it virtually impossible for me to find a decent job. What options were available for him at age 24, while supporting a wife and children? When he heard about Shachar, he realized that it was a dream come true. Shachar could enable me to get training and experience at the same time while earning a salary, he recalled. The transition process, however, was not always so easy. His immediate family was very upset when he joined the army and people in his neighborhood used to stare at him when he came home in his uniform. In the army, the soldiers were also initially taken aback to see a Haredi man in their unit. They assumed that he was a kashrut supervisor. Before long, however, they accepted him as a regular soldier. The army worked very hard to make the Haredi soldiers feel comfortable, Meir said. We were totally united with the non-religious soldiers that s the way it s supposed to be! They realized that Haredim aren t all parasites like what they hear on television.
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Upon his discharge, one of his fellow soldiers was surprised to see him wearing traditional Haredi clothing once again and asked if he was returning to kollel. Meir responded that even though he no longer learned Torah full time, he was still a part of the Haredi community. Only now he possessed the ability to be a responsible, working member of his community who could support his family honorably. Today Meir does quality control for the Department of Housing and is earning 10,000 NIS per month (almost $3000) five times more than what he was making in kollel! It raised the entire quality of life for my family, he said. It feels great to be able to support myself and not always be dependent on others. Now my parents and siblings all admit that it was the right decision it s obvious!