A $2,500,000 Histadrut Scholarship Fund to aid vocational trainees, graduate students and research scientists in Israel will be set up by the National Committee for Labor Israel, according to an announcement made here by Rabbi Jacob J. Weinstein, national chairman of the committee.
The fund, which will be raised through the means of cash gifts to the Israel Histadrut Campaign and long-term commitments through the American Histadrut Development Foundation, will provide two types of scholarships. Perpetual scholarships may be established by donors of units of $2,500, while one-time single year scholarships may be sponsored for $250.
Besides scholarship aid at the secondary school level, the fund will grant stipends to university students in Israel and to budding scientists. During the past four years, Histadrut has granted 148 stipends for research and graduate studies in five major areas; social sciences and the humanities; labor economics; engineering; agriculture and natural sciences; and medicine. Research projects will be approved only if they are related to the immediate or future needs of Israel.
Rabbi Weinstein stressed that the new program would help “establish real equality of opportunity among the children of Israel, regardless of the present social, economic or cultural status of their parents.” He pointed out that “there must be no sense of frustration or bitterness among the youth, whose publicly supported education ends at the 8th grade.
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