Behind the Headlines 50 Years of Women’s American Ort

Women’s American ORT will be celebrating 50 years dedicated to providing quality vocational education along with a knowledge of Jewish heritage to Jewish youth throughout the world when it holds its 24th biennial convention in Jerusalem Oct. 23-27, the first time this meeting has been held in Israel.

In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Beverly Minkoff, chairman of the National Executive Committee of Women’s American ORT, traced the growth of the group from its founding by five women in Brooklyn in 1927 to an organization of 135,000 members in 1055 chapters across the United States. It is also the largest group within World ORT.

Mrs. Minkoff noted that the original founders of the women’s group were the wives of men who were members of the American ORT Federation which had been founded a few years earlier or had come from Europe where they had been familiar with the work of ORT since it began in Russia in 1890. One of the original founders, Florence Dolowitz, now 88, is honorary president of the organization.

Women’s American ORT grew slowly in its first quarter century. By 1950 it had only 13,000 members in 105 chapters. Mrs. Minkoff said the growth began because of the need for ORT schools in post-Holocaust Europe and the new State of Israel and because Nathan Gould, now its national executive vice-president and executive director, joined it and worked to expand the organization.

NUMEROUS WORLDWIDE ACTIVITIES

During the post-war period, Women’s American ORT provided materials for classes held in DP camps and sponsored the construction of the Aron Syngalowski Center in Tel Aviv, which Mrs. Mink-off said revolutionized vocational education in the Middle East. The women’s group also helped as ORT moved in with vocational aid for Jews in Morocco and South America, areas where Jewish organizations had not gone before, according to Mrs. Minkoff. She said as Jews left North Africa the American group sponsored projects in France, such as a school in Lyons.

In Israel, ORT has some 80 different types of schools including apprenticeship centers sponsored by American Women’s ORT and the new Engineering School at Hebrew University. Women’s American ORT recently started a program with the Israeli Ministry of Education and the World Zionist Organization which allows American youngsters to take American 10th and 11th grade curriculum courses in Israel while undergoing a work-study program which gives them a chance to get to meet and know Israeli youths of the same age.

One of American Women’s ORT’s proudest achievements was the opening of the Bramson ORT Training Center in New York to train electronic technicians and other related fields. Mrs. Minkoff said it took the women’s group 10 years to convince ORT that “American Jewish kids would go to a technical school.”

She said the school opened with its full complement of 50 students and with more wanting to get in. She noted that some of the students are college graduates who found that they could not get a job with a degree in liberal arts. ORT has always stressed that “vocational education is not just for dropouts,” Mrs. Minkoff noted.

A large percentage of ORT’s members are young women between the age of 20 and 30, Mrs. Minkoff said. She said about 20,000 new members join each year and she believes most of these are also young women. She said that most of them are married, but as women today are getting married later ORT has chapters for singles.

ORT’S ATTRACTING POWERS

Mrs. Minkoff believes these women are attracted to ORT because they believe in quality education. She noted that ORT chapters take an interest in the education in the public schools in their communities because they believe an educated public is the basis of a sound democracy. Women are also attracted to ORT because of its “dynamic approach” to the Jewish community, Mrs. Minkoff said, its “ardent support of Israel,” the opportunity to discuss public issues and because it allows each member to demonstrate her potential in the local group and move onto the national scene.

Mrs. Minkoff said she joined Women’s American ORT 25 years ago after attending a meeting in Malverne, Long Island, and learning of the group’s interest in education. She said she had a teaching degree but had gotten married and had not taught. She noted that the Malverne group grew to 300 members in two years and eventually spawned two other chapters.

She explained that ORT’s growth has also come about because it has always believed that the Jewish communities in the United States must care about the other Jewish communities of the world and because ORT “recognized the strength of Israel depends on the strength of the diaspora and vice versa.”

Mrs. Minkoff said that ORT will continue to grow because “we are entering into an age of technology.” She said that at the convention, at which some 2000 persons are expected to participate, ORT will plan to increase its membership to 200,000 over the next 10 years and to double its present annual contribution of $3 million to the World ORT Union. Mrs. Minkoff noted that at the Jerusalem convention, husbands, for the first time, will be allowed to participate.