ORT Israel
ORT Israel logo
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| Formation | 1949 |
|---|---|
| Type | Organizations based in Israel |
| Legal status | active |
| Purpose | education |
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Region served
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Israel |
| Website | ort.org.il |
ORT Israel is a non-government organization devoted to education in Israel.
"ORT Israel" (ORT is an acronym of the Russian Общество Ремесленного Труда – "Association for Vocational Crafts") is the largest educational network in Israel for science and technology education and has been operating in Israel since 1949 as a public benefit company. The network operates some 210 educational institutions including engineering colleges, middle and high schools, and one elementary school, in over 55 local authorities. Some 100,000 students attend ORT Israel schools and colleges and, to date, the network has trained some 600,000 graduates. Its students come from all sectors and populations in Israeli society.
Ort Israel began functioning in 1948, when Aharon Syngalowsky, then Chairperson of World ORT, came to Israel. With the dramatic increase in immigration from North Africa, Europe and the Middle East, new challenges in absorption and rehabilitation emerged. Thousands of new immigrants needed to be integrated into the new society, and to this end, jobs and vocational training were needed. Many senior figures in the country supported this idea, such as Zalman Shazar, then the Minister of Education, and later to become President, Zalman Aran, later to become Minister of Education, and Mordechai Bentov, the Minister of Housing. The management of ORT rented an abandoned building in Jaffa and another one on Nevi'im Street in Jerusalem.
The first ORT school in Israel opened in Jaffa in 1949[1]. Its beginnings were modest, with only short courses for discharged soldiers, in order to make it easier for them to integrate into the country's economy. The school was headed by engineer Zvi Rivlin. Thus ORT Israel was founded, and this was also the beginning of technology education in the State of Israel. The school operated for seven consecutive years in extremely crowded conditions. The first courses were in welding, carpentry, pajama sewing, weaving, radio, electricity, and typewriter repair. Hundreds of discharged soldiers and new immigrants passed through the school, studying mainly in evening classes. At the end of the 1950s, ORT managed to open the new and very modern school in Tel Aviv, Yad Eliyahu named ORT Syngalowsky.
During the 1960s, needs grew, and ORT decided to expand; the number of students in the network doubled, and doubled once again in the 1970s. The education authorities in Israel decided to make technological and vocational education a priority and demanded that more and more schools be built for this purpose. Between 1960 and 1975, 60 additional schools were added to the network to make a total of 80 schools. Thus, a decade later, the number of ORT students exceeded 70,000. The new schools were opened not just in the big cities, but also on kibbutzim, in development towns, in yeshivas and even among the Arab population.
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