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LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent

Tel Aviv

ou can see them at 1 a.m. at
the mall in the gleaming,
expensive Azrieli Center in
Tel Aviv — the boys dressed
fashionably in black American street
gang-inspired baggy longshorts and
baggy T-shirts down to the elbow and
big, clunky, black untied sneakers.
The girls, on the other hand, don't
exactly look like young girls, but they
look fashionable too. They're dressed
in skin-tight dark slacks and tops, as
often as not with high, black platform
boots.
They move in and out of the

y

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100 Detroit Jewish News

America, they're only first coming
here."
At least one sense of Zionist ethos
remains strong. They all plan to go in
the army. And university studies are
in the picture, too.
Asked to compare their lives to
what they think of as their parents'
lives at the same age, they say that
they have a big, unquestionable
advantage.
"My mother's parents kept her at
home all the time, they kept such
tight control over her, they wouldn't
let her go out," says one.
Another adds, "My parents worked
so hard. They did more by 9 in the
morning than I do all day. They had
to feed the chickens and dig in the

Youth Conspiracy

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WE ST
BLOOMFI ELD

they screw up their faces, laugh with
embarrassment and say, "Nah. Not
yet."
But Professor Avner Ziv, a psychol-
ogist at Tel Aviv University who spe-
cializes in youth, says he's been sur-
veying young Israelis' sexual behavior
for the last 25 years.
"Last year, the average age for start-
ing sex was 14," he says. "A genera-
tion ago this was unthinkable; they
were starting at 17. It's about the
same here as in the U.S. or Western
Europe."
Drug use, meaning marijuana or
hashish, also ordinarily begins in
Israel at . 14 or 15, Dr. Ziv adds.
So while Israeli pre-adolescents are
not yet sexual libertines or drug-

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throng of adults and
adolescents, sitting
around a table and
eating at pricey
restaurants, or at
McDonald's or
Burger King. They
spend loads of
money. They lean
over the escalator
railing and watch for
friends coming in
downstairs. They eye
each other walking
Israeli youngsters use the telephones at a shopping mad
by.
They're 12 years
old, and 11, and 10.
addled burnouts, they aren't exactly
It's understood that Israeli kids
kids either. Mind you, today's youth
grow up relatively fast, that they're
are really the first crop of Israeli kids
independent compared to young peo-
with money, the first to grow up on
ple in most other countries, what
commercial — and, increasingly,
with the impending army require-
American — TV, the first generation
ment and the brashness and self-asser-
hooked up to the Internet.
tion of Israelis. But it's always some-
"And their parents give them the
thing of a shock when you see kids
money,"
says Bar-Ilan University sociol-
this young, well, looking like
ogist Dr. David Green, who studies
teenagers on the make.
young people's behavior. In Israel, the
A conversation with them is a win-
motto could be, 'Every child a king.'"
dow into Israel's future. After all, the
Not surprisingly, young people's
vast majority of the country remains
connection to Zionism and Israel isn't
secular. And this is the next genera-
what it used to be, either. Of the five
tion.
girls in the living room, three plan to
In a living room in a middle-class
stay in Israel.
town in central Israel, five 12-year-old
As one said about the United
girls say the most any of their class-
States, "It's safer. Better quality of
mates do in the realm of vice is smoke
life." And another adds, "When the
a few cigarettes, and only a few of
movies are finishing [their run] in
them do that. Asked about dating,

ground. They had to
take my grandparents <
[immigrants from
Morocco and Yemen]
everywhere and explain
everything to them
because my grandpar-
ents couldn't under-
stand Hebrew. I just
have so much admira-
tion for what my par- <
ents went through. I
never would have sur-
vived."
And they don't care
about politics. The only
"issue" they mentioned
was the secular-religious split.
"The only thing that scares me
about the future is having an over-
draft at the bank," one allows, with a
little shudder.
This generation of Israeli 10- to
12-year-olds is powerful like their pre-
decessors never were, says Dr. Green.
"Nobody can control them — not
their parents, not their teachers.
Authority is nothing but an abstract
concept to them."
Are kids like this only in Israel?
"No," replies Dr. Ziv. "There's not
much difference between the pre-ado-
lescents in Israel, and in America and
Europe. They watch a lot of the same
TV. And they can communicate with
each other, you know, on the
Internet. It appears to be an interna-
tional conspiracy." _