"I do not Janusz Korczak, but I go with my truth to the end"

Israel Prize winner Marioma Klein, who survived a difficult childhood of life on the street, dedicated her life to rescuing detached and homeless youth at the Shanti House.

From the punkists of the 80s, through the Russian and Ethiopian aliyah to the porn and MD youth, everyone could receive in a system that set up assistance without judgment, and has no intention of stopping

Uri Sela

09/04/2022

Saturday, 09 April 2022, 08:00 Updated: 08:57

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Marioma (Photo: Official Website, Daniel Kamansky)

The life story of Marioma Klein, the founder of the Shanti House and the recent winner of the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement, sounds like a Hollywood script.

It has all the necessary ingredients: a difficult childhood in a foreign country, an absent father, years on the street without a home, sexual assault - and redemption, through dedicating her life so that other children will have a different, better experience.

For her, it is still not enough.

"It's not that you get an award and close the deal. You do not stop such a thing," she clarifies in an interview with Walla !.

More on Walla!

"I was on the street for two and a half years. The fears and angers dissipated as soon as I got to the Shanti house."

To the full article

Her journey began in New York, where she was born.

At the age of two she moved to Israel, and when she was 13 she returned with her mother to the United States, this time to Boston.

Her father was not in the picture.

"He was abandoned, I've seen him maybe a few times all my life," she says.

The consolation did not come from her mother.

The connection between them deteriorated, until at some point she preferred to live on the street, in the freezing cold.

"I knew a bunch and went to be with them. I ate from garbage cans, I stole scissors, everything but selling my body. I understand why a child wants to go to the street. The process of abandonment, in case of violence, sexual assault, leads you to want to run away. "This jungle and chooses to save your life. A 15-year-old boy who chooses it is a hero, even older people do not. But today I close a circle of compassion with my mother," she said.

When she moved to Israel with her mother again, it seemed that Marioma was able to steer her life to a healthier place.

She started boarding, dropped out of high school and returned to high school to successfully complete 12 years of schooling.

She later enlisted in the IDF, where she served in the IDF in Marj Iyun, Lebanon, and as a teacher of Raful children in military prisons.

"I rented an apartment in Neve Tzedek and knew my daughters' father," she recalls nostalgically at the time when all her future plans were to travel the world.

However, an unplanned pregnancy towards the end of the service interrupted them - and shifted the wheel again.

"I realized that I could not fulfill my dream and I wanted to do something at this time. Although I had nothing to live on, I went and collected food in the Carmel market, I started cooking meals on Fridays for everyone who was in Dizengoff Square, the place most fled from all over the country in the 80s. From Friday to Friday, a company got stuck with us. "

The Shanti House (Photo: Sharon Bukov)

"I could not go back"

There, in the square, the Shanti House got its name.

"A girl came back from India and said 'I felt here what's Shanti'. We asked her what she meant, and she explained that the word means love and peace in Indian. One of the guys sprayed 'Welcome to the Shanti house' with graffiti on the wall and it caught on. "The name and I think it's an extension of Osho. I even wanted to call it the house of our ancestor Abraham. I flowed with it and also called my first daughter Shanti."

"The big crossroads where I realized that was what I wanted to do, at the age of 21-20, was that a girl who had been raped on the street came to us in front of Dan Panorama. She was done."

In that conversation she recalled a rape she herself went through during high school, a rape she tried to suppress and did not talk about with anyone.

"I sat down to talk to her and told her for the first time about the painful cases that had happened to me. At that moment I realized I wanted to help the children to save my life, and I could not go back.

Do not fight, do not judge

You wanted to give what they did not give you

.

I did not have such a thing, I did not have the Shanti House.

I wanted to have a place for the children as I should have.

That is why the places are so beautiful and flourishing.

This is how I believe you should help yourself, start from a place where you respect your environment.

It slowly seeps into you. "

In 1992, the Shanti House was recognized as an association, and later became a permanent place, under one roof, with branches in Tel Aviv and in the desert near Sde Boker. Another branch is expected to be established next year in Jerusalem. Who passed from the beginning of the project Marioma collected tens of thousands of "children" who passed under her hands when they were 21 to 14. They could arrive at any time and day they wanted, without prior notice, and without a departure date

"I had one time in 2000 that I broke up with my daughters' father, that I was leaving the old house in front of Dan Panorama. Only this time I did not know if I was going to continue. There were cases that wanted to hit me, but you are not afraid to be a caregiver no matter what the outcome. Once you're scared - the kids recognize it. They come injured. You can give the child the soul, and some of them reach the peaks, but in others you take care of them for two or three years and they spit on your plate. But one of the strangest things is that there were almost no incidents of violence in the Shanti house. , Just verbally. One reason for this is that it is forbidden to talk in the Shanti House about politics and not about faith. "The second point is that you come to a place that surrounds you, we talk to you at eye level. We do not fight, we do not judge, we just try to help."

The real difficulty was the criticism from outside.

"I was told that I was not normal, that it would not happen, that it was not worth it. I was completely alone. You have to bring yourself to a place that you do not have to prove to anyone, people live on their fears. They said it was a cult. The difference is that you do not choose, choose "For you. Every child who comes to the Shanti house has to choose between light and darkness."

It's sure to charge you a price

"When you function for so many years 20 hours a day you become the victim of your giving, at first I did not understand it. Slowly I realized that I need to set a personal example, that the therapist needs to be treated, balanced. Diabetes. My daughters were born into the Shanti House. I made the separations, but for me it was the closeness of the family and couple issue. The important place is the daily satisfaction of this roller coaster. People will try to stop me and speak slander, but they can not. I will not Janusz Korch "Ek, but when a person makes such a choice, he goes with it to the end. I have no regrets. Other thoughts neutralize you from action."

"Sure. In the '80s the kids were freaks and punkists. In the '90s there was a lot of Russian and Ethiopian aliyah. It was learning a new subject. No one prepared you, there were no Amharic-speaking social workers then. In the 2000s the journey began that today is At its peak - the channels were opened on television, the networks. This world brought new youth, from the ultra-Orthodox world, that flooded us. Very serious casualties: sexual assault in yeshivas, cults in homes, incest. , 'We'll fix it, everything's fine.' Another second give Optalgin to someone who raped.

"In the last two years, of the Corona, I see a new generation of teenagers and children in the field. They have been addicted to porn since the age of six, it has become the first place to create intimacy and sexual systems. Today you want to act? Ketamine, MD, cocaine. There are a lot of adults who do it once a month, it does not interest me. But the youth fills the big hole he has in everything possible. They are in a bubble, in the fog, with themselves. A whole life in front of a screen. There is no human "He will hug you. They will be shamed on the networks and they will think it is the end of the world."

"Listen, at first I did not even know we were the only ones. I went through many difficult years in which the Ministry of Welfare did not recognize us. In the last 15 years amazing things have happened with welfare, but ask me if you are beginning to understand what to do beyond conferences and committees? The answer is no. "

It's not time to rest

Two days after receiving the announcement of winning an award for a special contribution to society and the state, Marioma's phone keeps ringing.

You hear in her voice that she refrains from answering.

She finally gives in and asks to stop the interview.

"It has to do with children, I have to," she apologizes.

The award drew her public attention, but she received the recognition even earlier - in 2000 she won the Presidential Award for Volunteering and lit a beacon at the Independence Day ceremony, in 2007 she received the Tel Aviv City Beloved Award, in 2017 she was chosen as one of 25 world heroes Of CNN, and in her little free time she lectures at embassies, universities and companies in Israel and abroad.

"Obviously not. Through the recognition of me, we recognize youth in danger of life. The awareness through me will bring even more awareness. We care about the future of the State of Israel. I want to connect with the Ministry of Welfare and Education, take our knowledge and integrate academic knowledge with knowledge of the field. "For people who make their way, for those who fight for the children, for those who continue even when everyone tells them no. And we need someone to lead the boat."

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