LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The Jim Joseph Foundation awarded $15.9 million to aid Los Angeles Jewish day schools and train Jewish educators to use the Internet.
Five Jewish high schools in Los Angeles will benefit from the San Francisco-based foundation’s $12.7 million challenge grant: Yeshiva University High Schools of Los Angeles Boys School, YULA Girls School, Milken Community High School, New Community Jewish High School and Shalhevet High School.
The grant aims to “both stabilize and incrementally increase the enrollment of students from middle income families, as well as to build capacity in the schools to support day school education,” according to the foundation.
The foundation’s support is crucial at a time when Jewish schools are coping with the effects of the economic recession, said Rabbi Heshy Glass, head of YULA’s Boys School.
A second grant, for $3.2 million, will underwrite the Jim Joseph Foundation Fellowships- Leading Educators Online Program.
Under the program, Jewish educators from schools, congregations, camps and community centers will be trained to lead online communities of their fellow professionals in various educational fields.
During the two-year program, the 14 selected fellows will keep their present positions while attending three retreats in the United States and two 10-day seminars in Israel. The seminars will be held on the Bar Ilan University campus in the new $11.5 million Jim Joseph Building for Jewish Education and Values, which will be dedicated Oct. 20.
