COMMENTARY
Recently I was in Israel, and as a member of the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City’s Israel & Overseas Committee (I&O), I thought it would be a great opportunity to visit some of the organizations in Ramle that the Federation helps support. I arranged to meet with Hannah Soltz Aharony, our Federation liaison in Israel, to visit three of the agencies.
Just so that we enter this journey with some shared knowledge its important to know that besides supporting programs and organizations in the Kansas City area, our local Jewish Federation also supports programs in three places overseas: Ramle and the Gezer region in Israel; Romania and Bulgaria. The I&O Committee accepts grant applications and makes recommendations to the Federation board of directors as to which programs to fund. As a side note, Kansas City, Missouri, is a sister city to Ramle and Leawood is a sister city to the Gezer Region.
Ramle is a mixed city composed of Jews, Muslims and Arab Christians, and many families face economic hardships. In addition, a large community of Ethiopian Jews has settled in Ramle and absorption and education challenges continue to impact the community.
With this in mind, and knowing what our local Jewish community wants to achieve in Ramle, I was eager to see how the almost $300,000 we send to the area is making a difference.
My journey began when Aharony picked me up for our excursion. We had three places to visit: the Harin Elementary School, Appleseeds Academy, which is based in Ramle, and Rav Tchumi High School.
It was a packed day with no time scheduled for lunch. But it was worth every minute because the spirit of caring and giving permeated my experience.
Our first stop was at Harin Elementary School, one of two schools that Israel Center for Educational Innovation (ICEI) has begun to work with in Ramle. Harin is a state religious school. The principal, Zion Moshe, and his staff are committed to helping the school’s disadvantaged population succeed. This is the first year for the program, with just the first- and second-grade students enrolled.
The program offers an educational model that differs from the traditional Israeli model. In these schools a program developed by Columbia University in New York is used. Students and teachers interact. Books are in every classroom and students are encouraged to read and to speak. It is an interactive classroom. This is not common in Israel, where teachers mainly lecture. With the large majority of students at this school testing at the lowest levels, the Ministry of Education asked ICEI to come into the Ramle schools. The hope is to eventually serve all eight elementary schools; currently they are in two.
I loved this program. I loved the enthusiasm of the teachers, staff and the principal. You could see how much the principal wanted his students to be successful. He investigated this program and he made sure his staff took ownership of it. The successes are already noticeable. Over 60 percent of the students tested below level at the beginning of the school year. Now, nearly all are testing on level.
I met with the school staff and the ICEI staff, including Executive Director Don Futterman. Only in existence since 2009, the ICEI serves more than 7,000 students in 27 schools throughout Israel. What I really liked about this program is that each school is provided with a coach/liaison who is on the school’s staff but is part of ICEI. This person can help the teachers daily in implementing the program. This is our Federation’s first year supporting the program as it just entered the Ramle education system. I think it is a great fit!
We visited classrooms, met with teachers, and had the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the school. Although I speak Hebrew, at times the speed of the conversation outpaced my brain, and both Aharony and Futterman were great at whispering translations into my ear so I could fully be a part of the conversations.
After two hours at Harin School, we went to Appleseeds Academy. Wow! Located in central Ramle, this internet/tech nonprofit’s entire purpose is to help disadvantaged children and adults become computer savvy. We have been supporting its Net@ program for a number of years. Nationwide, it serves about 1,700 participants annually in 21 locations. In Ramle, the Net@ program (high school age) serves 110 students, while Net@Junior, for students 10-14, has 40 participants.
Not only was I able to meet with the staff, but also a Net@ alumna, Yahav Azulai, who now is in the IDF. Lior Davidow, who is in charge of developing the content of Net@, was a great advocate for the program. Net@ uses technology as a tool to work with students to learn these skills and also to learn English. What I really liked is that the students in 11th and 12th grades teach the students in fifth grade. In fact, all of the students in Net@ must do community service one day a week while participating in their own program once a week as well.
Net@ has four main values: social activism, global responsibility, personal excellence, and tolerance and pluralism, which the program tries to instill in the participants through technology.
In addition to teaching students, it offers an opportunity for students of all faiths to come together. “It gives kids a place to be themselves, to be nerds and geeks and feel safe,” said former student Azulai. “We learn together with both Arabs and Jews. We see all of us coming together to talk about technology.”
The final visit was to Rav Tuchumi High School. There we met with Grace Rodnitzki, who works with the Ethiopian National Project (ENP) and the SPACE program, which provides scholastic assistance through after-school classes. I first met Rodnitzki last spring when she came to the United States to meet with Federations across the country. I was impressed with the program then, and even more so when I actually saw it.
We met with students enrolled in the program, as well as teachers, staff and the principal, Barak Friedman. This is another fantastic program, which helps students meet their potential. We heard from students about how the program helped them study for the national exams, provide experiences they normally would not have (like summer camp in the United States for some), and learning English. We also had the opportunity to sit in on one of the after-school tutoring classes.
Our liaison Aharony, whose family has lived in the Tel Aviv area for several generations, even spoke to the students. They were studying history during our visit and Aharony told them about Tel Aviv during World War I and how her family was forced by the Turkish Army to leave Tel Aviv and fled to Lebanon.
I enjoyed my journey with Aharony, who became our community’s liaison in Israel just this past summer and also does work for the Cleveland Jewish Federation. Aharony and her husband have two children, a daughter and a son, just as I do. Thus we found much to talk about as we visited the programs and drove around Ramle. She looks forward to meeting with other people affiliated with our local Jewish Federation who are visiting Israel and showing them our Ramle programs. In fact last week she met with a group of students participating in the KU Hillel Israel Leadership Mission, who spent two days learning about and volunteering in Ramle.
My great Ramle adventure demonstrated to me that our Federation’s contributions are making a positive difference in the lives of children and families both in the United States and overseas.