About Yeladim.org

This site was first inspired by the plight of Jewish children living in the former Soviet Union.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and especially since the 1998 economic disasters in the region, conditions for orphaned, abandoned, and neglected Jewish children have become increasingly desperate. While adults are now generally free to leave these countries, children (without relatives to take them or family members abroad) are not. Several organizations run a handful of orphanages and children's homes in the former Soviet Union.

Most of the children in these institutions are not true orphans. Some have at least one living parent or other relative, but their families are unable to care for them for reasons of alcoholism or drug abuse, incarceration, mental illness or other health problems, or simply severe poverty. Some families abandon children they can no longer afford to feed. All of the Jewish orphanages are full and have long waiting lists.

Hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Jewish children live in secular orphanages and on the streets. Those in secular orphanages are often neglected, malnourished, and under-educated and risk physical and emotional abuse from both adult and child-sized anti-Semites. Children on the streets - some as young as four - sniff glue to dull their hunger pangs and provide a brief escape from their grim reality. They are prey to pimps, pedophiles, and diseases that include HIV and tuberculosis. Many girls “graduate” from secular orphanages into the international forced prostitution trade. Needless to say, children in secular orphanages and on the streets have few opportunities to learn about or experience their Jewish heritage.

The site’s mission has expanded to include helping needy Jewish children in the rest of Eastern Europe, in Israel, and around the world.

For more information, please see our Organizations