Sometimes the ingenuity of one person is enough to carry over an entire community. Meet community policeman Shuki Der’i (44) who has been running an original project in the Jerusalem haredi neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo: he has started a group for teenage boys dealing with different disabilities including Down’s Syndrome, autism, and other communication problems, and meets with them once a week to help connect them to their community.

While he is at it, Der’i, a qualified fitness instructor, gives them a fitness lesson and asks them to tell him about the good deeds they have done.

Der’i met his young protégés, aged 13-18, by accident. “One day I saw a group of unusual kids with special needs at the community center doing wood work,” he reminisces.

“I looked into the possibility of meeting with them once a week, and since then, for the past 11 months, we meet every Thursday afternoon. I have worked hard to gain their trust,” he adds. “I used an educational attitude, talked to them, tried to get them excited about my uniform and let them ask any question that came to mind. Through laughter, games and a direct approach I was able to receive their affection, and they came back the following week.”

Shuki (Photo: Haim Zach)

The weekly meetings, Der’i explains, are run according to a steady order of business. “At first we sit around a table, in a home environment. Every boy is required to tell one good deed he had committed that week. One of them told the group that he stopped hitting his brother following our meeting, another one about helping his parents with housework,” he smiles.

“In one of the meetings we worked on polite behavior, on the importance of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, things they were not accustomed to before. They did not know how to cross a street either, so I taught them how to walk in a safe manner.”

'Everything they do moves me'

If you ask Der’i, a father of four from Ma’ale Adumim, the project he founded is an integral part of his duties as a non-commissioned officer in the neighborhood police center. “Conflict between neighbors, theft, loss, any sort of bother or complaints: all of these are the work of the community policeman,” he explains and adds that his 19 years of experience in the police force helps him in his work.

“The uniqueness of the non-commissioned officer is that we each build our own model of work. I visit kindergartens and teach the children how to cross the street, what an unidentified object is and so forth. In addition, as a music lover I am able to incorporate my hobby into my work.”

The first days the secular Der’i spent in the neighborhood were accompanied with trying to feel out the haredi population, he recalls. “When I just started my post here there was a wave of break-ins on Friday nights, when the residents were at Shabbat services,” he describes.

“Every Sunday I would file the complaints and listen to the testimonies. My heart broke at all the loss of possessions. I met with the neighborhood rabbis and they permitted me to work on Shabbat eve, and we were able to reach a state of no break-ins. I was also trained in negotiations and mediations, which is a privilege not all policemen have.”

Currently, he is rehearsing a play with the members of the group, which will be performed in front of their parents, and will be dedicated to their mothers. Recently, the proud instructor escorted the boys on an outing to the Western Wall.

At the end of the visit one of the boys approached him and announced excitedly that “he put a note in the wall asking to be just like Shuki,” and melted Der’i's heart. “Once, one of the boys would get scared and run every time he saw a policeman,” he sums up. “Now he says he’s not afraid of cops anymore, because ‘I have Shuki, and he’s there for me’. A sentence like that is worth it all.”