Bet Elazraki Children’s Home, located in Netanya, Israel is an orphanage. But five years ago when Ira Riklis attended a bar mitzvah there for the son of friends Scott and Debra Korman, he saw first-hand that it’s really more like an extended family. The two-hundred children, ages four through eighteen, who live there, are given not only the essentials of housing, food and clothing; they are brought into a family environment.
Director Yehudah Kohn and his wife Riki tend to the children—who would otherwise be at risk of falling between the cracks of society—in every way imaginable. One moment in particular stood out for Ira Riklis. That was when he realized that staff at the home take pictures of every child all through the time they live there just as birth parents do of their own children. When children leave to take their place in society, they take those photos with them as reminders of their childhood, the love and care they received and their enduring connection with the home—their home.