 ORT Israel Boarding Schools Reopened to House Families Under Siege |
|
|
ORT Israel has reopened two boarding schools, which were closed for summer break, to shelter families that live in the North as well as provide a safe summer camp for their children. Since yesterday, nearly 300 men, women and children from the areas under attack - Tzfat, Kiryat Shmona, Kiryat Motzkin, Haifa, Shlomi, Nahariya, Maalot and more have sought the shelter of the dormitories at the ORT Yad Lvovich School in Netanya and the ORT Marine School in Ashdod. ORT Israel has also reopened the school cafeterias to provide meals to the families and is also providing trauma counseling. In addition, a summer camp has been opened to provide children with summer activity as an alternative to staying in the bomb shelters. The activities will include: sports, computers, swimming, bowling, and more that will be offered by various sponsors in the two areas. According to Dr. Zvika Reiter, Principal of ORT Lvovich, "Precisely at this difficult time, as a parent and resident of Haifa who has absorbed several missile attacks, and as a principal and educator in the ORT Israel school system, with its emphasis on values education and contributing to the community, I feel it is my obligation to open the campus doors and to assist the boarding school staff in taking in as many families as possible." Many ORT students from Israel's northern towns have sought refuge from the fighting at a tent city erected at Nitzanim (between Ashdod and Ashkelon). ORT has 162 schools and programs throughout Israel with over 35 schools in the line of fire in northern Israel, due to conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. In the past two weeks, rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah have struck two separate ORT institutions - the ORT Ronsoon High School in Ashkelon and the ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel. Tomer Weinberg, 26, a mechanical engineering student at ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel, is recovering from severe wounds sustained when Hezbollah attacked the armored Humvee that he was in on the morning of July 12. Two of his comrades, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were kidnapped in the incident which sparked the following days' determined military response by Israel. Tomer lost six centimeters of bone from his right forearm, his right calf had been shredded by a bullet and another bullet had passed through his midriff. According to Zvi Peleg, the Director General of ORT Israel, ORT is working in cooperation with the Association for the Advancement of Education, the Jewish Agency, and the Ministry of Education to provide a safe refuge. "We will do everything we can to host families from the North with the special budgets that ORT Israel has put aside for circumstances such as these. We are certain that World Jewry will assist with this important activity as well," he said.  Source: Women's American ORT Email Alert, July 18, 2006 |
