The Pride of Israel

Migdal Ohr (Hebrew for "Tower of Light") was established in 1972 for the express purpose of providing education and social guidance to the children from underprivileged and problem homes in northern Israel. Overcrowded apartments, one-parent families, homes with drug problems, impoverished, crime-ridden families--these are the target populations from which Migdal Ohr draws its over 6,000 pupils at all levels of the educational spectrum. Its goal - to transform these students into loyal and productive citizens of Israel.

MIGDAL OHR EDUCATIONAL CENTER

The following is a brief description of some of the educational and social facilities provided by Migdal Ohr.

(a) Day Care Centers which provide tender, loving care to infants aged two months to three years old. These facilities offer the mothers of large families the opportunity to work and help their husbands support their children.

(b) Kindergartens where pre-school age children get a proper start on the educational path.

(c) Primary and Secondary school systems, for boys and for girls, with full dormitory facilities, laboratories, computer centers, libraries, and youth centers, where emphasis is placed on individual attention to the child's needs.

(d) Teachers' Seminary for single and married men, to develop the rabbis, educators, school administrators and rabbinical court judges required by Israeli society.

(e) Prisoner rehabilitation programs in Israel's prisons. The recidivism rate among the "graduates" of Migdal Ohr's rehabilitation activities stands at about 10%, a sharp contrast to the 90% in the general prison population.

(f) Occupational Training Center offering adult education courses responsive to the requirements of government and industry for off-campus residents of northern Israel. Courses fall into three categories:

(I) OCCUPATIONAL DIPLOMA COURSES

* Computer programming for army veterans

* Retraining qualified unemployed in the computer and electronic sciences

* Senior secretary skills and word-processing

* Metal workshop

* Licensed Day Care Center workers

(II) EDUCATION EXTENSION COURSES

* For primary and secondary school teachers of computer courses

* For kindergarten teachers - to introduce computer science to kindergartners

* For education supervisors in the public school system

* For municipal and regional government employees

(III) COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES

* Introductory computer classes for local youth

* Gifted children Lecture Series in electronics

BROADENED HORIZONS

Migdal Ohr is undertaking new commitments and programs, both at the community and at the educational levels. For example, it serves as the local repository of a wide assortment of health care equipment (ranging from steam vaporizers to wheelchairs to respiratory equipment) to be lent out to those in need of such items on an emergency basis.

Migdal Ohr's immigrant absorption programs are both broad and in-depth. Among the over 3,000 children and adults that take part in the institution's educational and social activity projects, about 450 are Russian and Ethiopian immigrant children enrolled as full-time students in its schools.

Afula Ethiopian Girls' School. Following Operation Solomon, in May of 1991, Rabbi Grossman was approached by representatives of the Absorption and Education Ministries and told that he and Migdal Ohr had been chosen as being the most suitable to establish a special program for freshly arrived Ethiopian girls. Very shortly, over 200 teenagers, many of them orphans, were being taught Hebrew and the basics of the civilized way of life in the Migdal Ohr premises in Afula.

After-school educational clubhouses. With the recent influx of over 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Israel has been met with a new and difficult challenge. After being cut off from all sources of Jewish cultural and religious activity for 70 years by the Communist government, children of the new immigrants thirst for knowledge of their heritage. In order to supplement the studies in Israeli non-religious public schools, thousands of students attend Jewish-culture "clubhouses" (moadonim) established by Migdal Ohr throughout Israel.

Kiryat Migdal Ohr. Recently, one of Rabbi Grossman's greatest dreams have begun to be fulfilled. Two hundred ten apartments are near completion on the spacious 22-acre tract of land adjoining the main campuses in Migdal Ha'Emek. Kiryat Migdal Ohr (Migdal Ohr Village) is becoming a reality.

In the near future, Rabbi Grossman hopes to fill these apartments with families who, in return for being provided with homes and employment, will use their dwellings to provide foster homes for boys and girls too young to move into the Migdal Ohr dormitories. Thus, Rabbi Grossman and Migdal Ohr will be able to provide shelter and love to hundreds more than they were previously able to.