Instead of the students coming to school, this time the school came to the students.

"It's so moving for me to visit the students," said Mendi Rabinovitz, the school principal at Hadassah-Neurim Youth Aliyah Village, who lit Hanukkah candles in Ramle, home to sixteen Ethiopian students at Hadassah-Neurim.

Word of mouth about the "Every Child is a School Onto Himsel" progam at Hadassah-Neurim doubled the number of Ethiopian students from Ramle this year.  The program provides individualized tutors, includes classes in Ethiopian language, music and cultural mores as they are in harmony or conflict in Israel, and exposes students to Israeli culture.

Rabinovitz needed to shore up his own knowledge about where his students came from, so he met them on their home turf to get a tour of their community center, their homes, and to learn about their neighborhood.  Together with Mayor Joel Lavi they were delighted to be his personal guide to Ramle and its Ethiopian community.  The connection with the local community center had an added advantage. Ramle will be the first city to kick off a long-distance learning project where kids can use vacation time to improve Hebrew and math skills on the computer with a teacher at a remote location. Next stop: Hadassah-Neurim will visit village students from Caucasus Mountain Jews in Israel's north.

Hodesh Tov and Happy Hanukkah!
Barbara Sofer
Israel Director of Public Relations
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America