World ORT

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World ORT is a non-governmental organization whose mission is the advancement of Jewish people through training and education, with past and present activities in over 100 countries.

ORT logo
ORT logo

World ORT is the coordinating body of separate ORT National Organisations in 58 countries. ORT's global budget exceeds US$250 million annually. ORT's work is heavily supported by governments and agencies around the world, and charitable funds raised by national organisations is supplemented on a matching funding basis at a ratio of approximately 20:1. [1]

ORT's current operations are in Africa, Asia–Pacific, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Baltic States, Israel, Latin America, North America and Western Europe.

Israel is the area of ORT's largest operation, with 90,000 students educated or trained at ORT’s 159 schools, colleges and institutions in 2003. ORT is Israel’s leader in technological and scientific education, whose graduates comprise 25% of Israel’s hi-tech workforce. [2]

Contents

[edit] The beginning

At the end of the eighteenth century, large tracts of Poland had been absorbed into Russia, the Russian Jewish population increased greatly. In 1794 a decree restricted the majority of Jews to an area known as the 'Pale of Settlement'. Jews were not allowed to leave the Pale nor to own land outside it; they were moved from their villages into towns within the Pale, and they could engage only in a restricted number of professions. Jewish merchants were taxed twice as heavily as non-Jews. Young men were conscripted into the army for excessively long terms. Crowded conditions and legal barriers to many kinds of work brought deepening poverty to the four million inhabitants; Jews had almost no means to support themselves.

[edit] The reforms of Tsar Alexander II

The reign of Tsar Alexander II (1855-81) was marked by great changes in the extensive Russian Empire, and the Jewish inhabitants were directly affected. The enlightened Tsar brought an end to serfdom and instituted wide-ranging reforms that destroyed the feudal system and encouraged capitalism. The economic reforms, while enabling a tiny percentage of Jews to become wealthy, had the opposite effect on the majority. They found themselves further marginalised by the new system, as they lost their customary employment on the great estates of the feudal landlords. New capitalist production needed factory workers and skilled craftsmen, but Jews did not have the necessary skills, having been excluded by law from many occupations. There was no organised training, and for most the situation became desperate.

Nikolai Bakst (1842-1904), a writer and professor of physiology at St Petersburg University, believed strongly that education and training for practical occupations were the key to the survival of Russian Jewry. Jews could no longer live in the poverty and oppression of the Pale without being taught how to support themselves and their families. He not only envisaged an organisation that would accomplish this significant activity, but also persuaded Samuel Poliakov (1836-88), a Jewish railroad entrepreneur, of the importance of his idea. Poliakov agreed to petition the Tsar for permission to establish a Jewish charitable fund in appreciation of the Tsar's twenty-fifth year of reign and offered to contribute 25,000 roubles (the equivalent perhaps of 1 million US dollars today). He was joined in his appeal by Baron Horace Gunzburg (1833-1909), a generous and respected leader of the Russian Jews and founder of the St Petersburg Jewish community. The Gunzburg family had attained high status in Russia as financiers and bankers, and Horace Gunzburg was accepted at the highest level of St Petersburg society. He contributed generously to the fund, which was to teach handicrafts and agricultural skills to the Jews in the Pale.

[edit] Foundations of ORT

On 22 March 1880, by order of the Minister of Interior Affairs, the Organisation for the Distribution of Artisanal and Agricultural Skills among the Jews in Russia ORT was established. The name 'ORT' was coined from the acronym of the Russian words Obshestvo Remeslenogo zemledelcheskogo Truda, meaning The Society for Trades and Agricultural Labour. The charter granted by the Minister simply gave permission to collect money for this purpose, but it was enough to get things moving. A window of opportunity had opened, and Bakst must have realised that there was no time to lose. In a surprisingly short space of time, just 18 days later on April 10, 1880, a private appeal letter was sent to 10,000 Jews throughout the Russian Empire. The people who were approached were the official and unofficial leadership of Russian Jewry, both religious and lay leaders. The appeal was signed by five financiers: Poliakov, Gunzburg, Abram Zak, Leon Rosenthal and Meer Fridland. It asked Russian Jewry to support this fund to alleviate the distress of their fellow Jews, by teaching them manual skills in order to support themselves. From the first, the appeal was extremely successful, and over 204,000 roubles were collected. A committee was formed with Professor Bakst as the Executive Director, and the organisation that was to have such a significant effect on the lives of disadvantaged people was able to begin its activities.

The first ORT committee distributed money to Jewish schools for new handicraft and agricultural training. It provided loans to artisans and purchased small tracts of farm land for families to work. For Jews, most of these activities had been expressly banned by law until that point.

[edit] External links

World ORT

  • [3] - Official Site
  • [4] - International Cooperation
  • [5] - World ORT Archives

Israel

  • [6] - ORT Israel
  • [7] - Acco Rose
  • [8] - Afula
  • [9] - Afula Zimmetbaum
  • [10] - Ashdod Rogosin Maritime
  • [11] - Ashkelon Adivi
  • [12] - Ashkelon Afridar
  • [13] - Aviv Virtual School
  • [14] - Bat Yam Ramat Ofer
  • [15] - Bat-Yam Habonim
  • [16] - Bat-Yam Melton>
  • [17] - Beit Shean
  • [18] - Beit-Shean Zalman Arab religious
  • [19] - Binyamina Rothschild HaShomron
  • [20] - Bnei Brak ORT Neve Sara Harzog
  • [21] - Danya-Ussafia
  • [22] - Gedera Technological
  • [23] - Giv’ataim ORT Technikum
  • [24] - Haifa Carmel
  • [25] - Haifa Hanna Senesz
  • [26] - Hatzor HaGlilit Everett
  • [27] - Holon
  • [28] - Holon ORT Shalom Aleichem
  • [29] - Jerusalem Minkof
  • [30] - Jerusalem ORT Joseph Harmatz
  • [31] - Jerusalem ORT Spanien
  • [32] - Karmiel Braude College
  • [33] - Karmiel Horovitz
  • [34] - Karmiel Kramim
  • [35] - Karmiel Megadim
  • [36] - Kfar Neora
  • [37] - Kfar Saba
  • [38] - Kirya-Bialik Afek
  • [39] - Kiryat Gat
  • [40] - Kiryat Motzkin
  • [41] - Kiryat Motzkin Yitzhak Rabin
  • [42] - Kiryat Motzkin Yonatan Netanyahu
  • [43] - Kiryat Tiv’on Greenberg
  • [44] - Kiryat-Bialik
  • [45] - Kiryat-Bialik Dafna
  • [46] - Lod ORT Helen Asher
  • [47] - Lod ORT Zeil
  • [48] - Ma’aleh Adumim ORT Astronomy and Space
  • [49] - Maalot
  • [50] - Migdal Ha-Emek Rogozin
  • [51] - Nazareth Illit Moshe Sharet
  • [52] - Nazareth Illit Yigal Alon
  • [53] - Netanya Guttman
  • [54] - Netanya Hermelin
  • [55] - Netanya Levovitz
  • [56] - Netanya Lvovich
  • [57] - ORT Acco
  • [58] - ORT Israel Schools Database
  • [59] - ORT Sharet Henegev
  • [60] - R & D
  • [61] - Ramat-Gan Abin
  • [62] - Tel-Aviv Geula
  • [63] - Tel-Aviv Syngalovski HC
  • [64] - Tel-Aviv Yad-Shapira
  • [65] - Tzrifin Auto
  • [66] - Tzrifin Technological
  • [67] - Yerucham
  • [68] - Yokne’am Yigal Alon

Latin America

Western Europe

  • [76] - France
  • [77] - Germany
  • [78] - Switzerland (ICD Geneva)
  • [79] - United Kingdom

CIS and Baltic States

  • [80] - CIS and Baltic States Head Office
  • [81] - Dniepropetrovsk School
  • [82] - Ekaterniburg TC
  • [83] - Kazan ORT School
  • [84] - Kharkov
  • [85] - Kharkov Technology Centre
  • [86] - Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum
  • [87] - Kishinev School
  • [88] - Makeevka Centre
  • [89] - Minsk Centre
  • [90] - Moscow ORT Technology College
  • [91] - Moscow ORT Technology School
  • [92] - Moscow Technology Centre in Lipman School
  • [93] - ORT Odessa School
  • [94] - Riga Technology Studio
  • [95] - Samara School
  • [96] - Samara TC
  • [97] - Saransk Training Centre
  • [98] - Simferopol
  • [99] - St. Petersburg ORT-Gunzburg
  • [100] - Ukraine Administrative Office
  • [101] - Vilnius School
  • [102] - Zaporozhie School

North America

Africa

  • [113] - ORT South Africa
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