Archive for category Donation
Students and alums fight to keep Ulpan Etzion in Baka
Only “a miracle” could keep Ulpan Etzion in its current Jerusalem location, the upscale neighborhood of Baka, a senior Jewish Agency official told Anglo File this week. For decades the popular intensive Hebrew-language study program has been the first home in Israel for thousands of Western immigrants.
Earlier this month the Jewish Agency announced that after Monday, when the current session ends, Ulpan Etzion will move to Beit Canada, a larger property in the close but less attractive area of Armon Hanatziv, or East Talpiot, to save expenses.
The next session begins January 15 at Beit Canada. The official stressed that Etzion will maintain its format in the new location, offering on- and off-campus students a five-month absorption program.
Advertisement
After the announcement, students and alumni began trying to raise funds to keep the program in Baka, an area popular with Western immigrants.
Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Colette Avital (Labor), a member of the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee, told Anglo File Wednesday that while the most important thing about Ulpan Etzion is the program itself, “if new immigrants think they need to be in a place where they can best integrate into Israeli society, every effort should be made to prevent [it] from being moved.” Avital said she would call Jewish Agency Chairman Zeev Bielski to discuss ways to keep the ulpan in Baka.
“If we receive new donations, we will calculate the costs and if we can continue Ulpan Etzion and Beit Canada at the same time I will be more than happy to do it,” the director-general of the agency’s department of immigration and absorption, Eli Cohen, said. Both agency officials and activists, however, thought it was unlikely that the necessary sum of about $1 million could be raised before January 15.
“Some of us spoke with our communities in our countries of origin,” said Ariel Kogan, an Argentinean-born alumnus. “Some contacts were made with people who can donate significant amounts,” he said.
Cohen said he appreciates the activism and is himself searching for funding. Nevertheless, he said the move was unavoidable and would actually benefit immigrants in the long run. About two years ago the campus was forced to contract after the buildings’ owners decided not to renew the agency’s lease for some of the facilities. In a telephone interview from Chicago, Cohen said that cut on-campus housing from about 160 beds to 79, while Beit Canada has dorm space for 250 students.
Established in 1949, Ulpan Etzion is Israel’s oldest ulpan. All of its students are Jewish, single, college graduates between 21 and 35. Their shared experiences have resulted in countless long-term friendships and several marriages.
Ex-Londoner Louise (nee Angel) Szczerb, 28, and her husband Wolf, 25, a Rio de Janeiro native, met at Ulpan Etzion. Wolf almost didn’t get there due to a bureaucratic glitch, and ended up starting the January 2007 semester one month late.
“We met on his first day,” Louise recalled this week. “He lived on campus and I lived off-campus, and we weren’t in the same class, but we met and have been together ever since,” she said. They were married two months ago in Jerusalem and live in Modi’in. “That is just one of the reasons why Ulpan Etzion is so special, because it brings people together from all around the world,” Louise said.
“I was looking forward to seeing all of the new people coming in - now it’s going to be completely abandoned and depressing here,” said Mimi Borowich, 26, who came from New York in July for the current term. She said she heard about the move right after renting an apartment next to the Baka campus.
Borowich wrote letters to the Jewish Agency, joined the fund raising campaign and also contacted Jerusalem’s new Mayor, Nir Barkat, who has promised to make the capital attractive to young people again.
http://192.118.73.5/hasen/pages/ShArtStEngPE.jhtml?itemNo=1046092&contrassID=2&subContrassID=16&title=%27Students%20and%20alums%20fight%20to%20keep%20Ulpan%20Etzion%20in%20Baka%20%27&dyn_server=172.20.5.5
reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO
Torontonians bike for charity in Israel
After five grueling days of riding across desert terrain in support of Alyn Hospital, Ruth Ekstein triumphantly entered Eilat on her mountain bike with 424 other riders amidst a cheering crowd. “It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done,” says the long-time UJA Federation volunteer. “We didn’t know if we should laugh or cry or yell and I think we did a little of all three.”
One of 50 Torontonians who completed this year’s Wheels of Love charity ride, in which participants biked from Jerusalem to Eilat to raise money for Israel’s only comprehensive pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation centre, Ekstein describes the experience with unbridled enthusiasm. “The scenery was spectacular, the weather was amazing, and there were 425 riders from ten countries so the opportunity to meet a bunch of crazy like-minded people was fantastic. I’d go again in a heartbeat.”
Earl Haltrecht, an orthodontist from Toronto and co-chair of UJA Federation’s Partners Circle raised US $5,500 on the charity ride. “I love riding, I love Israel, and it’s a fabulous cause, so I’d say it was win-win-win.”
Alyn Hospital, a world leader in rehabilitation of children with a broad range of physical disabilities, is the only facility of its kind in Israel.
“Any time there are children involved - whether it’s a congenital deformity or accident victims or victims of terror, your heart opens up and you’ll do anything for them,” says Haltrecht.
Although Ekstein has been supporting the Alyn ride for many years, this was the first year that the occupational therapist from Toronto put her feet where her money is.
From October 29 to November 2, she averaged 100 off-road kilometers each day, going “where roads don’t go, which was really exceptional,” and raising almost US $7,000 for Alyn, which is well on its way to reaching its $2.5 million goal for this year’s ride.
Ekstein first got involved with Wheels of Love five years ago, when her best friend participated in the ride and asked her to help fundraise. At the time, her husband - Alan Lechem - was co-chair of the Israel Action Committee at Beit Rayim Synagogue, and the synagogue took on fundraising for Alyn.
“My husband decided,‘why just fundraise when I can also ride,’ so in 2004 he went with four members of our synagogue and then last year he went again. But this year I and another woman from our synagogue said,‘well if the boys can do it, we can too,’so we went this year and my husband stayed home with the kids.”
http://www.jewishtoronto.com/page.aspx?id=6710
reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO
Jewish groups call for changes at York University
Report about jewish donors’ thought reg. antisemitism in the University of York, ON
reviewed by Moishe Alexander, CFC CEO
By Giuseppe Valiante, National Post
York University teachers should be prohibited from expressing personal political views unrelated to the course they are teaching, according to a
report from a commission of Toronto-area Jewish groups on improving campus life for Jewish students.
The commission, composed of the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto, Hillel of Greater Toronto, Hasbara at York and the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy, compiled hundreds of submissions from students, faculty and Jewish community members after recent events at York “have left many members of our community shocked and shaken,” the report cited.
The final report cites episodes of “intimidation, harassment, ridicule and virulent anti-Israel sentiment” on the York campus over the past year.
Howard English, the UJA of Greater Toronto’s vice-president for communications, said the incidents have prompted Jewish donors to York to express concern to the administration. He added there is a history of anti-Israel expression at York.
“We’re talking about off-hand comments, or scurrilous comments … unwarranted or unjustified political personal opinion that is not based on fact or is unrelated to the course that an instructor is teaching,” said Mr. English.
“We had one case of a [teaching assistant] who told a student who was wearing a Israel Defence Forces T-shirt to never come into his class again with that T-shirt on,” said Mr. English.
The report asks York to establish a confidential hotline for students to report “abuse of the podium” incidents. It also recommends that York implement several other measures, including providing school security forces with “enhanced training in order to deal more effectively with disruptive events and individuals” and to “rigorously define the academic standards expected of all university-sponsored conferences.”
The report also recommends the university should no longer allow Vari Hall, a central meeting place for students, to be booked for political pusposes, for the universitiy to “increase the severity of sanctions for those who repeatedly violate the Code of Conduct,” and “empower York Security to issue reprimands … that would remain on a student’s academic transcript for a period of not less than two years.”
This list of recommendations was delivered to the York University Task Force on Student Life, Learning and Community, which was created in March by university president Mamdouh Shoukri to improve the atmosphere on campus.
Patrick Monahan, the dean of Osgoode Hall Law School and chair of the task force, was not available for comment yesterday. And the York University Faculty Association did not return calls as of press time.
It’s been a tough 50th anniversary for York University. Three of its unions went on strike for months last fall, delaying classes and final exams, the university’s endowment is down by 18% and recent reports cite that 7% fewer Ontario high-school students accepted a full-time, first year spot at York than last year.
Mr. English said York might feel a financial strain if Jewish students continue to feel intimidated.
“Well, we know that many Jewish donors to the university are very concerned … many Jewish donors have spoken in the most honest terms, in the most candid terms with [Mr. Shoukri] and other administration officials,” he said.
Mr. English said that he is not aware of a “mass withdrawl” of donations at this point, but said “the longer an atmosphere exists at York which is considered by many Jewish students to be intimidating or hostile, the greater the risk of donors withdrawing funds.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/06/16/report-calls-for-york-profs-to-keep-political-opinions-to-themselves.aspx