Bais Menachem of Wilkes-Barre Changes Lives

We are fortunate that today there are many Yeshivos and schools within Chabad serving many types of students from a wide range of backgrounds. These institutions span the globe and serve children and families from birth well into adulthood. Each is unique in its own way; this could not be truer of Bais Menachem Youth Development Program in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Bais Menachem is an alternative Yeshiva for young men struggling with various aspects of their lives. Their struggles may be in learning, social functioning, with family, or with finding their identity as a Chossid, as a Jew, or as a person.

For twelve years Bais Menachem has been a Yeshiva for young men from all over the world facing such challenges. Uri Perlman, director of Bais Menachem, explains how hundreds of students have been impacted in lasting ways by the unique approach of this institution.

“There are two ways to deal with young men who are struggling. You can treat them as the problem, and then treat them as you would treat a problem. The other way is to treat them as people who have a problem. And we all have a problem, or two or three. We have issues – we’re people. And if you can treat people – rather than as bad guys, or rebels, or trouble makers, or people who make your life difficult – you can just try to understand them and connect with them, you’ll find out what is wrong.”

For many youth today, a strong feeling of rejection accompanies their struggle. They may feel that no one understands or is interested in their hardship. One student, Shmueli Bell from England shared his experience.

“Before I came here I was in various mainstream American Yeshivos. In my time there I had doubts about belief and various different things. When asking about them I was very much rejected. I really wasn’t interested in having any connection with Jewish people or religious people because of the way I was treated there. What Bais Menachem taught me was that it’s not about what you look like, it’s about who you really are deep down. You have a soul. Every talent you have and every skill you have can be used in a good way. They changed my life.”

Bais Menachem was founded on Chai Elul 5759 by Uri Perlman and several of his colleagues, including Rabbi Mendy Seewald who serves as principal of Bais Menachem and Rabbi Pinny Levitin, the beloved Mashpia. Mendy Seewald described how Bais Menachem effectively reintroduces an affection for yiddishkeit into the lives of his students.

“Often times in a person’s life they have a parent or a teacher who is trying to impress upon them the importance of Judaism. But not necessarily do they have the means to do it well. Does that mean that the person doesn’t like Judaism? No. It means the delivery wasn’t necessarily good.”

But there is nothing like the responses that parents have to the powerful changes in their children’s lives after spending some time at Bais Menachem. Yossi Antopolsky is from Moscow, Russia. He recently spent a summer with fellow students and shluchim from Bais Menachem on a road trip across the United States bringing the joys of yiddishkeit to Jews in places that were spiritually distant from Judaism. But he wasn’t always that way. At Bais Menachem, he found that religion is not the boring traditions he had previously thought. For him it was a whole new life.

“The first time I came home after going to Wilkes-Barre, I walked into my house and I was standing by the door. My mother looked at me. I ‘m wearing a yarmulka, I’m wearing tzitzis, I’m not wearing some trashy clothing, I’m dressed nice, and I have a full beard. She started dancing. She went nuts! She grabbed all my sisters and started dancing!”