Naale Elite Academy (Hebrew: נעל"ה) is an international program jointly funded by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Jewish Agency. It enables Jewish teenagers from the diaspora to study and complete their high school education in Israel for free.

The program brings Jewish teenagers worldwide to study for three or four years in a number of designated Israeli high schools which enroll regular students from the surrounding area, but also have Naale dormitories on their premises or within a walking distance (the latter usually in a moshav) and which employ specialized Hebrew language teachers to handle Naale program students.

With de facto 90% of graduates staying to reside permanently in Israel and 20000 students since the program inception as of 2022, Naale is a substantial source of (vetted) adolescent immigrants with the graduates joining the IDF, studying in Israeli universities or entering the Israeli workforce.

History

The program was founded in 1992 in a joint effort with the Jewish Agency.

According to the Naale program director Yeshayahu Yechieli the idea of bringing Jewish children without parents to Israel to get education at no cost to their parents and without having to commit to making Aliyah was proposed in early 90s by then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Yeshayahu Yechieli, who was already involved in a program that brought Russian Jewish youth to Israel for a young leadership program heard about the idea and got in touch with the Israeli Ministry of Education and they were supportive.

His perception was that "the education system in the FSU had deteriorated drastically and parents needed to find other options" and "according to family and friends living in Israel, the standard of education in the country was very high".

The program was run in pilot mode until 2000, after which it was expanded to other countries and took on its current form. ^[1]

The program course

Management structure

Students are divided into groups of 20 to 25, each group occupies a separate dormitory area.

Every group of students is managed by two to three counselors who care for the basic needs of the adolescents (e.g., food, cleaning, etc.), supervise their schoolwork, and organize various social activities.

The counselors are not required to have a formal experience in education or any tertiary degree (e.g. they may take the job after having completed the military service and some of the counselors are Naale graduates themselves), but they usually have some experience in informal education and are motivated to help the immigrant adolescents.^[13]

A team of psychologists and social workers supervises the immediate group staff and, when deemed necessary, the students may be referred to the team for psychological evaluation and intervention.^[14]

There is the school director (the director of the youth village) who has several deputies.

Majority of issues related to individual students are solved by the counselors, some questions reach the deputies, the Naale school director is engaged e.g. in the case of critical disciplinary events like students leaving the campus without permission to attend a party.

There is one school nurse per school who coordinates with the nearby health insurer clinic family doctor.

Separately there are regional managers who are responsible for marketing, recruiting students and organizing the application process.

Psychological well-being of Naale students

As 90% of the Naale graduates stay in Israel, the essence of the Naale program is about immigration and its main purpose is to provide a smooth transition to a new life in a new country.

The Naale students, while enrolled in the program, seem to have a lower level of psychological distress comparing to their peers who immigrated with their parents and are living in the community.^[15]

They are insulated from the most of the stresses which their peers, who immigrated and live with their parents are exposed to. They don't suffer from the adjustment difficulties of their parents. During the first year they intensively study Hebrew and attend classes in a language they understand instead of attending the regular high school from the outset, so their transition as to learning is more gradual.

Being physically separated from their parents, they spend all their time within the peer group which, along with the administration staff, becomes their surrogate family and, essentially, the only source of support.

Some students benefit from the surrogate relationship reaching the maturity level which they couldn't achieve if living with their parents,^[16] while for other students the physical separation from their families may impair their emotional individuation process causing psychological problems in later life.^[17]

Controversy

A regional director for Naale plainly stated: "The downside of this project is that parents and kids are separated, which is hard because it is a young age".^[18]

As the program manages all aspects of the students' life even providing surrogate parental figures (the administration staff, host families etc.) - the role of the parents in the complex immigration transition process is not obvious.^[19] "Prolonged separation from the family due to placement at boarding schools has been noted as a risk factor for permanently disrupting the bond between the child and the parent".^[20] It may also "result in emotional, intellectual, and mental alienation toward their parents and their family that is not always possible to bridge" and "impair the separation/individuation process from their parents" which is of "utmost importance".^[21]

It follows, despite the parent confidence in the constancy of the parent-child relationship, that at the very least the bond between the parents and the child, whom they decided to send to the free program - so in a sense willingly outsourcing their further parental responsibility, may gradually weaken because of the parental role substitution, even if the result is perceived by their child as positive. It is also possible, although less likely when the student came from a functional family,^[22] that the physical separation from the parents may disrupt the identity formation and therefore negatively affect the child's adult life.

While the program received attention of psychology researchers such as Prof. Julia Mirsky,^[23] there is no publicly available specific statistics and there is no any kind of formal research on the Naale graduates after they finished the program.

It also appears there are no regular alumni events per batch or in general, which may have something to do with the observation that the retreat into the safety of a peer-group of fellow immigrants is a natural, but only temporary stage of coping with the stresses of migration.^[24]

Naale vs other immigration choices

Taking into account known risk factors - the propensity of teenagers to think emotionally rather than rationally^[25] so the burden and the responsibility for the life changing decision mainly lies with their parents, being separated from their biological family and potentially becoming emotionally detached from their parents and their siblings, the surrogate environment limitations, the possibility of developing long-term psychological problems^[26] and given the lack of psychological research on the long-term impact of the program on its students - the decision to send a child to the Naale program should not be taken lightly.

Two apparent alternatives are:

1. To immigrate to Israel and to face and overcome immigration hardships together as a family, since even as in the short term the level of the child psychological distress may be higher, in the long term the result may be more accomplished and inclusive comparing to being separated from the family in an isolated greenhouse environment.

2. Let the children to decide themselves whether to immigrate to Israel when they reach the age of maturity, so the parents will be not deciding for them on the life changing matter.

Statistics

Since the program’s establishment in 1992, as of 2018, over 17,000 teenagers had passed through the program with about 85% staying in Israel (over 90% as of 2019 ^[27]) and 40% of the parents making Aliyah as well ^[28] and, also as of 2018, there were over 2,000 students studying in Naale Elite Academy schools.^[29]

It follows, that about half of the graduates will make Aliyah while their families will keep living abroad and if the family doesn't make Aliyah there is 75%-85% chance that their child, after leaving for Naale as a minor, will effectively leave home and will settle in Israel after the graduation.

Roughly two-thirds of the students are from the Former Soviet Union and a third are from the rest of the world with students arriving from the United States, South America, France, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Japan, the Philippines and many other countries.

Naale and Russia-Ukraine war

Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine 350 students from Ukraine were brought to Israel and placed in Naale schools by 2023.^[30]

Those Ukrainian refugees who applied for an entry permit to Israel under the Law of Return received it swiftly without further background checks if at least one of their children has taken part in the Naale program.^[31]

Naale Elite Academy Schools and Boarding Schools

Naale Elite Academy schools are located around Israel and cater to both religious and secular students. Students are offered their choice of school based on religious preference, their country of origin and their academic level.

Na'ale groups over the years

Below is the list of the Naale Elite Academy groups by year:

Notable alumni

References

External links

• English official website
• Hebrew official website
• German official website
• French official website
• Spanish official website
• Portuguese official website
• Russian official website
• Naale Elite Academy Alumni
• Naale Elite Academy Facebook
• Naale Elite Academy Instagram
• Naale Elite Academy Youtube