Of his pack of 15 friends, Aviel is the only one who regularly wears a kipa at the Kiryat Haim public high school. Aviel Aviseris, 14, likes standing out from the crowd, but he doesn't want to be a loner.

There are no public religious high schools in his Haifa suburb. Aviel's posse comes from secular to marginally traditional homes, but he thinks they'd be open to a deeper connection with Judaism if they only had the knowledge.

This summer with a little help from Nintendo Wii, he is bringing his friends to shul.

Chabad of Kiryat Haim is opening its summer session of "Club Torah Wii," a name that flows better in Hebrew, this week. Sunday through Thursday afternoon from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m.,  sixth to tenth graders are invited to chomp down pizza and a drink, join a short Torah lesson, afternoon prayers, and play video games all for five shekels, about a buck fifty.    

"Until we thought of this idea, we found it hard to attract teens and preteens to our programs," said Rabbi Levi Oirechman, Chabad's representative to the city of 50,000. His synagogue's three wall-mounted plasma screens are hooked up to a Wii, Playstation and X-Box, ready for the gamers. 

Yaffa Fingerhut of Kiryat Haim has signed her two boys, ages 15 and 12, up for the club, because it's a summer solution. The long summer vacation is a national issue in Israel. Advertisements for summer attractions are heavy on voice-overs by children whining about boredom.

"Kids as young as ten and eleven just wander around all day without a plan," said Mrs. Fingerhut.

Israeli kids are expected to sort out their free time by themselves. In Kiryat Haim, there's little in the way of American-style summer-long camps. Summer camp sessions are two-and-a-half weeks long, and expensive by Israeli standards. E-camp, a tech camp, goes for 7,295 shekels (US$2,140). Sleep-away experiences take a bigger budget bite. Camp Kimama's 12-day session is 6,500 shekels (US$1,900). Way, way out of reach for middle-class Israelis.  

 The city of Haifa offers discounted bowling, go-carting, and movies to give kids something to do, but getting to and from city venues from the burbs is a transportation hassle.

 Aviel mostly sleeps late and goes to the mall with friends. He has a PlayStation at home, but again that loner thing comes up. He doesn't  like to play alone, and his mom is not wild about hosting a throng of teenage boys for mass game playing. "I know my friends are going to come with me. It's more fun to play with everyone together."

 Mrs. Fingerhut is hoping her kids will come away from Chabad's Wii Club with more than extreme gaming skills.

 "Jewish tradition is lacking in Kiryat Haim. The electronics will pull them in, but I want them to get the values and lessons."

 Videos shot of this spring's inaugural session of the Torah Wii Club are a study in contrasts. During the game playing time, the kids cluster around the consoles, bobbing and recoiling in sync with the action on the screen. During the prayer service, with pointy white kipas on their heads, they look to each other for cues – what to say out loud, how to move in the dance of prayer.

 In the three years that Rabbi Oirechman and his wife and co-director Maty   have been running their Chabad center in Kiryat Haim, they've been working to address the dearth of traditional Jewish knowledge in the city. When they opened their synagogue, people advised them to choose quarters smaller than their 80 square meters. But 60 to 70 people show up every Friday night, defying skeptics.

 They'd be even more surprised to know that the sweet voice of the young man who leads Friday night prayers  belongs to a teenager who first started coming to synagogue this year because he had a hankering to play Wii Soccer.