playing against stereotype

February 15, 2007 - 6:57 PM by

With a long tradition of mutual distrust between haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews and the Israeli police, it’s nice to read about a secular police officer going out of his way not just to protect, but also to serve the haredi community where he works:
officer shuki

Sometimes the ingenuity of one person is enough to carry over an entire community. Meet community policeman Shuki Der’i (44) who has been running an original project in the Jerusalem haredi neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo: he has started a group for teenage boys dealing with different disabilities including Down’s Syndrome, autism, and other communication problems, and meets with them once a week to help connect them to their community.

While he is at it, Der’i, a qualified fitness instructor, gives them a fitness lesson and asks them to tell him about the good deeds they have done.

. . . The weekly meetings, Der’i explains, are run according to a steady order of business. “At first we sit around a table, in a home environment. Every boy is required to tell one good deed he had committed that week. One of them told the group that he stopped hitting his brother following our meeting, another one about helping his parents with housework,” he smiles.

“In one of the meetings we worked on polite behavior, on the importance of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, things they were not accustomed to before. They did not know how to cross a street either, so I taught them how to walk in a safe manner.”

According to the (admittedly rather sloppily reported) article, the community, or at least the kids themselves, have taken a liking to Officer Shuki:

Recently, the proud instructor escorted the boys on an outing to the Western Wall.

At the end of the visit one of the boys approached him and announced excitedly that “he put a note in the wall asking to be just like Shuki,” and melted Der’i’s heart. “Once, one of the boys would get scared and run every time he saw a policeman,” he sums up. “Now he says he’s not afraid of cops anymore, because ‘I have Shuki, and he’s there for me’. A sentence like that is worth it all.”

Tags: • Category: Crime, Life, Politics, Profiles 

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