Bikurim Youth Village creates artistic opportunity for Israel’s periphery
The Village, which was established in 2014, “began as a family project or really, as kind of a wish or a dream,” according to its co-founder, Prof. Jonathan Dekel-Chen.
By TOBIAS SIEGALBIKURIM OFFERS a curriculum that focuses on performance and composition capabilities.(photo credit: EYAL BRIBRAM)
The Bikurim Youth Village for the Performing Arts is a relatively new and bold initiative aimed at providing high-quality training in the arts for high-school students from Israel’s periphery who wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to receive it. Located only several kilometers from the Gaza Strip, this unique institute offers an accessible educational experience in one of Israel’s most challenging places to live.The Village, which was established in 2014, “began as a family project or really, as kind of a wish or a dream,” according to its co-founder, Prof. Jonathan Dekel-Chen.Dekel-Chen grew up in the United States in a small town in Connecticut that had “a small but active Jewish population,” he notes. After having spent a few months in Israel after high school, he “caught the Zionist bug” and in 1981, as an 18-year-old, decided to make aliyah on his own. Dekel-Chen remembers “fall[ing] in love with the kibbutz as an institution and as a way of life,” and eventually finding a home at Kibbutz Nir-Oz, where he still lives today.Although Dekel-Chen believes he was lucky regarding his experience of immigrating to Israel and acclimating in Israeli society, it wasn’t all peaches and cream. He recalls a real challenge that his wife and he faced when bringing up their four children: “We discovered, as parents, and as people who live in the periphery in Israel, that there were and remain... gaps between opportunities that are afforded and services that are given... between the geographic and the socio-economic peripheries in Israel vs. the sector of the country. It’s an unspoken truth and it’s a systemic problem.”Dekel-Chen believes there is no way his children – two of whom dreamed of becoming athletes and one with a passion for music – could have realized their dreams with the options available at their disposal. They “had while growing up dreams that simply couldn’t be supported in terms of professional and personal development out here in the periphery, because there are simply no resources to do that,” he says, and adds that they were eventually sent to central Israel to receive the proper training they needed.“It was equally clear to me that kids just like my own, neighbors of mine, who were no less gifted than they were, could not possibly realize their dreams because the family situation was a little bit different,” Dekel-Chen explains. “That frustration grew in me for quite some time, and I think I was probably looking for a means by which to, in some way, close those gaps of opportunities, mainly for young people.”Then, in 2010, an opportunity arose when the previous regional boarding school closed its doors. Dekel-Chen and his son Itay, now fully grown and a professional musician, jumped on the opportunity. But procuring capital to start the project was challenging, Dekel-Chen says, especially due to its location, which required building a secure campus with sufficient accessible shelters. Only 4.5 kilometers (less than 3 miles) from the Gaza Strip border, the facility is subject to rocket and mortar attacks.BUT AGAINST all odds, the Bikurim Youth Village opened its doors four years later, which Dekel-Chen says was only possible due to generous donations by the Jewish National Fund in the UK and more recently by the support of the Education Ministry.The beginning was slow, but after Amikam Kimelman, co-founder of the Rimon School of Music, jumped on board and took over the job of constructing and heading the school’s academic curriculum, things started falling into place. “I realized there was something special here, that could take people to very high places... and that’s why I joined,” Kimelman says.Bikurim offers a curriculum that focuses both on performance and composition capabilities, with the purpose of producing graduates with a broad range of expertise, making it easier for them to integrate in the industry. Kimelman describes a long list of courses that students in the music program he leads are required to complete, ranging from improvisation and music theory all the way to editing and production software.“We wake up at 07:00 and go to the adjacent Nofei-Habsor High School for our regular studies and then return to the boarding school in the afternoon for our musical training... besides that we have our own personal projects and ensembles that we organize on our own,” according to Avshalom Gold, a student at Bikurim’s music program.Kimelman notes that the challenging program is “made possible because of the special circumstances that exist here, our teachers who are all very experienced and active musicians, and the students who go through intensive selection examinations. Not everyone is accepted.”However, Dekel-Chen emphasizes that prior experience is not a condition for acceptance.“We are looking for young people in the arts that are highly motivated, gifted, but may not have any kind of significant background,” he says. “And no less important,” he adds, “acceptance into the school is not connected in any way to the ability of the parents to pay. The tuition is graded entirely by what the parents can actually afford.... We make up the gap.”By bridging these geographical and socioeconomic gaps, the Bikurim Youth Village brings together people who would probably never otherwise meet. Dekel-Chen says that he feels like parts of Israeli society “are becoming more and more separated from each other, but because of our environment they are actually coming together, working together, studying together, living together, loving together and most importantly, creating together, in ways that are truly unique in Israeli society.”With the ethos of contributing back to society instilled from day one, students in Bikurim are involved in many projects in the area and maintain a strong connection to the local community. Dekel-Chen mentions several graduates of the school who, during their national service (Sherut Leumi) established a music center in Mitzpe Ramon.Completing the school’s sixth year of operation and looking ahead, Dekel-Chen hopes to expand the program that now includes 35 students to around 120 in a few years, and to add a dance program as soon as next year.For more information on the Bikurim Youth Village, visit their website: bikurim.org/english.
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