OU Israel currently operates Teen Centers in eighteen communities across the country—from Kiryat Shemona in the north to Dimona in the south—serving more than 3,000 young people annually.
How OU Israel’s Teen Center Is Changing Young Lives in Ariel
For some teens in Ariel, life comes at them fast and rough. For others, it offers no clear path at all. But on most evenings, a few dozen of them gather in a large, newly renovated space in the heart of the city. The lights glow, music hums through the air, and the snooker tables fill with players.
“Snooker is the way we attract them,” says Yaden Cohen, the forty-one-year-old educator who serves as the director of OU Israel’s Teen Center in Ariel. (Snooker is a more sophisticated version of pool, popular among Israeli teens.) “Once they are in, they can join—along with their advisors—a game of ping pong, a field trip, cooking and volunteering with seniors and other groups.”
Cohen, a father of eight, knows how to reach teens who don’t always have adults they can rely on. The Teen Center he leads draws over 100 kids each week—mostly secular junior high and high school students who would otherwise spend their evenings on the streets. Some come from rough home lives. Some are children of immigrants. Many are simply adrift.
“We try,” says Cohen. “And often we succeed.”
These kids have difficult lives. Our goal is to change their trajectory.
OU Israel currently operates Teen Centers in eighteen communities across the country—from Kiryat Shemona in the north to Dimona in the south—serving more than 3,000 young people annually. These centers are designed for teens on the margins: those shaped by street culture, on the verge of dropping out of school, or simply missing the structure and warmth of a home. More than just a refuge, the centers offer a path forward—something all the more vital amid the turbulence of the past two years of war.
“It’s not just about having fun,” Cohen says. “We educate the kids to be more Zionistic and more idealistic and more connected to their Judaism.”
“We create a community of young people,” says Chaim Pelzner, program director, OU Israel, “and it gives them a strong sense of belonging.” Teens are equipped with the tools for meaningful living—emerging more independent, more proactive and more attuned to the world around them.
The approach works. Often deep connections are forged between teens and their advisors, many of whom are local university or yeshivah students just a few years older than the kids themselves. Some 40 percent of the advisors attended the centers themselves when they were teens. The result is a bond that feels like family.
Sometimes, those bonds quite literally change lives.
Cohen tells the story of Dani, a teen from a troubled home who was accepted into the elite Duvdevan commando unit of the IDF. “He could have had a very different life story,” says Cohen. “We inspired him.”
Then there’s Ben, now twenty-five, an alumnus of the Teen Centers and former Givati soldier. The child of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ben was not halachically Jewish when he entered the IDF. But he joined the army’s Nativ conversion program, which pairs soldiers with religious families. That’s how he found Yaden Cohen.
“Ben became our son,” Cohen says. “He is our ninth child. Now he’s looking for a religious girl to marry.”
The OU recently funded a 150,000 shekel renovation of the Ariel Teen Center, which Cohen hopes will help even more young people. “These kids have difficult lives,” says Cohen. “Our goal is to change their trajectory.”
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