The National Board of Hadassah has authorized a grant of an additional $200,000 over and above its current levels of support to Youth Aliya to provide for absorption of Jewish youth from Ethiopia now arriving in Israel in record numbers.
Ruth Popkin, Hadassah president, said that the National Board also agreed to a Youth Aliya request to utilize the Frieda S. Lewis Seminar Center at Hoshaya in the Galilee as an emergency absorption center for the Ethiopian youngsters.
The $200,000 allocation will help provide food, clothing and other basic necessities for the young Ethiopians, and help meet the cost of programs to speed their entry into Israel society, she added. In addition, Popkin stated, The Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center physicians and support personnel will provide medical services to the Ethiopian youths.
Hundreds of young Ethiopians are expected to be settled temporarily at the Hoshaya Seminar Center, which is now nearing completion. The Frieda S. Lewis Center — named for the immediate past president of Hadassah who now chairs the Hadassah Medical Organization — originally was envisioned as a focal point from which young people in the Youth Aliya program could learn more about the Galilee region as a potential permanent home.
Officials of Youth Aliya — a department of the Jewish Agency World Zionist Organization — have estimated that the Hadassah facility in Hoshaya may be needed for at least three years as an absorption center for Ethiopian youth. More than 8,000 Ethiopian Jews already have been resettled in Israel, and 1,100 of them through Youth Aliya. Another 1,400 to 1,600 Ethiopian youth are expected over the next few months.
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