Teenagers everywhere today are struggling. Difficult relationships with parents, lack of direction, focus on materialism, drugs, academic and social pressures, addiction to computers, facebook and i-phones have left many families bereft of normalcy.
In Israel, the ‘normal’ problems of adolescence have taken an unnerving tone. Jewish girls, religious and not religious, are being lured into relationships with Arab men, which many times, turn out to be abusive, coercive with a never ending cycle of violence.

Why? And how is it possible that a Jewish girl will willingly go with an Arab? A religious girl? Don’t they know better? Where is their loyalty to Hashem and Klal Yisrael? The numbers are alarming – and growing daily. You see it everywhere in Israel; at the supermarket, with the waiters at the simcha halls. Almost anywhere, Jewish girls can interact with Arab men. The four organizations in Israel that rescue Jewish girls from Arab villages get over 1,000 new calls from girls asking to be rescued every year .

” Our young, vulnerable teenage girls are the targets in a battle and we don’t even realize that we are in a war. How frightening and troublesome,” says Kupfer, staff at Learn and Live – Learn and Return. “Although rescuing Jewish girls from Arab villages is definitely needed, the real need is to reach these girls before they get lured into the relationships. We can prevent tragedies if we can just reach these girls in time. We often become surrogate friends and family for girls who are hurting. We try to provide them with whatever they are missing. Even if they are already in a relationship, we can save them before it is too late,”explains Kupfer.

“All barriers are being broken down. Take a teenage girl with low self-esteem who grew up in a secular Israel, born and bred on coexistence, what can you expect? There are no differences between peoples, so why not? Abusive men prey on the vulnerability inherent to youth. A kind word, in invitation to lunch, a compliment easily diminishes the initial feelings of hesitation; until she gets used to him and his gifts – until she falls in love and is ‘escorted’ to his village where life changes drastically and it is almost impossible to return,” explains Patty Kupfer.

The potential reasons are many: poverty, dysfunctional homes, absence of a father figure-or an absentee father, lack of positive attention, social rejection. But, on the other hand, this widespread trend is neither rare nor random; there also seems to be a concerted effort toward ‘getting’ a Jewish girl. “According to the Sharia law, it is permissible to capture an ‘infidel’ and do whatever you want to her which means any Jewish girl is a ‘legal’ target in the Arab world. The number of girls going with Arabs is unprecedented. And girls from religious upbringings are no exception. It seems to be a battle for Kedushas Israel. With so many kids falling off the derech, these young girls need positive attention and they are getting it from the Arabs.
They are convinced that their Arab ‘friend’ is ‘different’ and would never hurt them despite the statistics”

Mrs. Kupfer continuted, “This problem has definitely hit the Haredi world. With so many kids falling of the derech, lonely, searching and vulnerable – our kids are no longer immune. Today, no parent can afford to have a bad relationship with their teenagers. The only solution is to learn how to love our daughters. Let’s learn from the Arabs. They spend lots of time with our girls, complimenting them, buying them gifts, and making them feel so special and important. Every parent has to make MORE time for their daughters. Not quality time-QUANTITY time. The price of not doing so-is enormous for our girls, for Klal Yisrael and for Hashem.”