At the conclusion of a three-day meeting of the World ORT Union Executive Committee, it was announced that Gen. Chaim Herzog, former Israel Ambassador to the United Nations, was unanimously elected as its chairman. He succeeds Daniel Mayer, a leader of the International League for the Rights of Man and former French Minister of Labor.
The 110 representatives of ORT organizations from 27 countries were told that the 100th anniversary Congress of ORT will be held in Jerusalem May 31-June 5, 1980. ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training) was founded in Czarist St. Petersburg in 1880 and in its first century has served more than two million people in all parts of the world. More than 100,000 young people and adults staffed by 5000 teachers in over 700 vocational schools and programs all over the world will be covered this year by a budget of $80 million.
Another important announcement was the decision, which had caused controversy in its deliberative stages, to move ORT headquarters from Geneva to London The main reason was an expected saving of from $1.2 to $2 million a year. The major obstacle was the problem of personnel: 61 of those employed by ORT in Geneva will lose their jobs, while 40 will be moved with the organization.
IMPORTANT NEW PROJECTS
Among the important new projects to be undertaken is the founding of a special live-in “outreach” school in the Bat Yam suburb of Tel Aviv, aimed at rehabilitating the many dropouts or youngsters in difficult personal and family situations. The school will aim to wards housing 1000 15-21-year-olds, but plans to start with about 400 working upward for a three-year period. The ratio of students to teachers will be 10-1.
There will also be three new kibbutzim schools and two new factory schools connected with Fiat and Peugeot in Israel. By ORT’s 100th anniversary, the schools in Israel are expected to number 100. At present, Israel has 94 ORT centers with over 60,000 students, including schools in Arab communities.
ORT PROGRAMS IN ROME
ORT in Rome also serves the Soviet Jewish immigrants on their way to English-speaking countries with special language laboratories. Of the $1 million budget for Italy, $600,000 is spent for the Soviet refugee program. Among priorities discussed by the committee members in Rome was cooperation with Jewish community day schools, particularly in Latin America and Italy, in the field of Jewish education.
The ORT “Didactic Innovation Center” in Milan has in fact prepared a series of videotapes on Jewish themes to be used by the Jewish schools in Italy. In 1977 a one-day exhibition-seminar on 10 different types of audio-visual aids for Hebrew language teaching was held for all Italian communities. ORT cooperates in Italy with the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Education in research projects on modern methods of education and has published the results of nine separate projects since 1972.
Other problems discussed at the three-day meeting were schools in difficult areas of the would. It was notes that the ORT school in Teheran, which totaled 761 students last September is still functioning in the heart of the city.
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