Less than two years ago, Yussuf and his seven siblings looked like typical Arab children.

That was when Yad L’Achim rescued them with their mother from the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City. At the time, the children were wild, with no manners or discipline of any sort.

On Thursday, everyone saw how far this Jewish family has come when the oldest son, Yussuf, now known as Yosef, celebrated his bar mitzvah.

Yosef’s mother, N., was rescued from 17 years of suffering in Tammuz 5768, along with her eight children. This was when the family began a new life.

N. was the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who died young from a malignant disease. This left N. very vulnerable and alone, and she ended up marrying an Arab and living with him in the Old City.

N.’s marriage to the Arab was very unhappy and she lived in terrible conditions. Her escape only became possible when her husband was serving a jail sentence for criminal offenses. Yad L’Achim transferred the family to a secret location, and this was when the real work began. Apart from not knowing one word of Hebrew, the children were neglected and uneducated. With the help of social workers and the Welfare Ministry, the family underwent a painstaking process of rehabilitation.

The children went to religious dormitories and learned how to live as Jews. The results have proven themselves, as Thursday’s bar mitzvah showed.

“The brothers and sisters are now happy Jewish children, who have yiras Shamayim,” said Rabbi Alex Artovsky of Yad L’Achim.

In his speech at the bar mitzvah, Rabbi Sholom Dov Lifschitz said: “The soul of the grandmother, who heroically survived the suffering of the Holocaust but passed away after much suffering, is very happy at this moment when she sees her grandson following in the ways of the Torah.”
(SOURCE: COL.ORG.IL)