Textile magnate, Israel Rogosin has donated a record $2,500,000 through the Rogosin Foundation to the first-year drive of the Israel Education Fund, a program of the United Jewish Appeal, it was announced at a press conference here today. Joseph Meyerhoff, the Fund’s chairman, and IEF president, Charles J. Bensley said the gift would be used to build high schools and related educational facilities and to provide teacher-training scholar ships in Israel.
Three of 13 IEF high schools currently under construction in Israel have been made possible by previous Rogosin Foundation contributions. All are comprehensive schools, the type of facility on which Israel’s educators are basing a large part of their expansion program. Two are in the new port city of Ashdod, which houses Rogosin Industries, Ltd., Israel’s largest producer of nylon and other synthetic fabrics.
The new Rogosin gift is the largest recorded individual donation to secondary education in Israel. “With this single stroke,” the IEF announcement stated, “Mr. Rogosin will broaden Israel’s education base as surely and decisively as he has strengthened its economic foundations.” Some of the 13 IEF schools in construction are expected to be open this fall. A number of libraries, youth centers and pre-kindergarten schools are also being built with IEF campaign funds. The fund was initiated last September by the United Jewish Appeal in response to crisis conditions in Israel’s secondary education, including lack of facilities and teachers and an imbalance in educational opportunities between immigrants of European and Asian-African origin. Most IEF facilities will be built in Israel’s two dozen new development towns and other areas of concentrated immigrant population.
Mr. Rogosin is an honorary trustee of the Hebrew Academy of Atlanta, Inc, and a director of the Yeshiva of Hudson County, New Jersey. He holds an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Milligan College of East Tennessee and is a trustee of Brandeis University of Massachusetts and an honorary fellow of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He has also been active as organizer and philanthropist in medical and related fields. He is an honorary member of the Society of New York Hospital and an incorporator of the Neurosciences Foundation of Boston.
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