In This Issue:
- No More Gift Wrap!
- Students at Risk Campaign
- ORT Movie Club Has New Night!
- Joel Chasnoff To Perform December 4
- Entertainment Books Make Great Gifts!
- ORT News
- Are You Wired?
February, 2004
March, 2003
February, 2002
October/November, 2001
April/May, 2001
February, 2001
December/January, 2000–2001)
October, 2000
May, 2000
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By Wendy Fotland But we still have a commitment to ORT and to our schools all over the world, and they need us more than ever. The continuing threat of war in Israel, the economic crisis in Brazil, and the struggling Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union are just a few of the reasons the ORT program needs our help so badly. This year, please show your holiday spirit and your support for our ORT students by making a generous donation to ORT. Volunteering and giving to the needy is a great example to set for our kids, and a way to combat the spirit of greed that we so often see around this time of year. If you’ve given money to ORT before, thank you! If this has been a good year for you, please consider increasing your gift. A capital funds donation of $1000 or more can be given in memory or honor of a loved one and will be recognized with a personalized certificate. Gifts of $5000 or more may be designated for use at a particular school and will be recognized with a personalized plaque at the school. All gifts of $1000 or more will be recognized with a lovely gold ORT Golden Circle pin and subsequent gifts entitle members to add precious stones to their pins. If you can’t give at that level, we still need your help. How about $5 or $10 for each hour you would have wrapped, or for each shift, or each time Wendy would have called you between now and Christmas Eve. Isn’t that extra time spent with your family worth paying a little for? Please make a donation for our non-gift wrapping event, to help bring a better life to our students worldwide. Please be generous when you write your check and mail it to Hayley Green Smith, 1244 Westwood Street, Redwood City, CA 94061. Look in your heart and in your bank account and see if you can share more of your good fortune with our students this year. Thank you! A Very Special Campaign for a Very Special Cause Currently, some 4,200 of ORT’s students from low socio-economic backgrounds have been identified by ORT Israel as being in distress. These children need to be able to continue their high school education in order to rise above the cycle of poverty. How can we let our students remain at risk? Women’s American ORT has committed to help 1,500 Students at Risk and guarantee that none of these young people have to give up hope of a better tomorrow because of an economic crisis today. This is a special opportunity for individual contributors to earmark monies for individual students. With your donation of $550, ORT can ensure one of its Students at Risk remains in school for one year. If you already gave a donation under $550 this year (since July 1, 2004), you may choose to increase it to $550 to support a a student. This is the first time that donations of less than $1,000 can be earmarked for a particular project. (See page 3 for more information about earmarking funds greater than $1,000.) Silicon Valley has been asked to cover at least eight Students at Risk. We hope that you can find it in your heart to stretch your annual contribution to cover at least one Student at Risk. Thank you in advance from the ORT students of Israel and their families. I would like to support our ORT students at risk! Our December movie will be Bridget Jones, the Edge of Reason, which opens in November. Please email Wendy Fotland at wendy@svort.org if you’d like to be on the email list for the Movie Club. Email announcements will usually go out several days before a movie. Your requests for movies are welcome, but in December I want to see Bridget Jones, the Age of Reason. The evening will raise money to send local Jewish children to camp. In keeping with the camp theme, Shir Hadash member and talented singer Ken Abrams will open for Joel with sing-along camp songs for the young and young-at-heart. Also, the 2005 Confirmation Class will sell hot chocolate and s’mores. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. ($15 advance/$20 at the door for students and seniors.) Contact Wendy Fotland for tickets at wendy@svort.org. Bring your family and friends for this great holiday show! By Wendy Fotland The 2005 Entertainment Book is still a terrific bargain at only $20, $6 of which goes to ORT. If you like fine dining, fast food or anything in between, your old favorite or your new favorite restaurant is here. Like amusement parks? Got ‘em! Miniature golf? It’s here too. Want to save money at retail stores? You can! At $20, it’s easy to get your money’s worth and more with just few uses of the Entertainment Book. Wendy Fotland has San Jose, San Francisco, East Bay, Santa Cruz and Marin area books. Get one for yourself and sell them to friends, co-workers and relatives, before someone else asks them!  ORT Welcomed Back to Moldova After 62 Years:The government of Moldova has passed a resolution renaming a Jewish school in the capital city the ORT Herzl Technology Lyceum. First opened in 1991, the public school in the city of Chisinau (Kishinev) is operated jointly by the Chisinau municipality and World ORT. The decision by the government comes 62 years after ORT was expelled from Moldova following the former Romanian province’s incorporation into the Soviet Union on the eve of World War II. The ORT Herzl Technology Lyceum in Kishinev caters to some 450 students in grades 1 through 12, operating in partnership with the local authorities, the Jewish Agency and the Israeli Ministry of Education. ORT Kishinev aims to give its students a real advantage when seeking employment and further education. Its Technology Center provides cutting-edge training in technology and information technology and has developed vocational training in Information and Communications Technologies for adults in the local community. At the same time, it also coordinates all of ORT’s operations in Moldova – supporting small Jewish communities in provincial towns like Beltsey, Bendery Tiraspol, Ribnista and Soroky. ORT graduate Gal Fridman has made history, becoming the first Israeli to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games. Nowhere was the excitement greater than at ORT Hasharon in Binyamina, the school in northern Israel that Fridman attended until his matriculation in 1993. “We are all very proud and very happy,” said ORT Binyamina principal, Rivka Tsuk. “I knew that he would win. It’s a great moment for us that one of our pupils got a gold medal. I hope that all our news will be as good as this!” Fridman’s passion for the sea was evident during his schooldays, as shown by his entry in the school’s graduation book. His friends wrote in Hebrew, “Never on time for class, always wakes up late. In summer or winter, Gal is off when the surf’s up. We will always be friends.” Fridman, 28, won the gold medal in men’s windsurfing. His victory marked the first time that the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, was played at the Games. Fridman is the first Israeli to win two Olympic medals, having won a bronze at the Atlanta games in 1996. On his return to Israel, Fridman said he planned to stop at the memorial in Tel Aviv for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by the PLO during the Munich Olympic Games three years before he was born. “Just to bring them the honor they deserve,” he said. After receiving his medal, Fridman said,” The only thing I can want is I would love to bring peace to Israel. If you fight someone, fight him in sport, to prove who is better, not in different ways. This is our job as athletes – to show the other side of the Israeli people – that we want peace. All of my friends that I know want peace, because nobody likes anything else but peace.” |
