Israel is preparing to invest millions of dollars in Jewish education in the U.S. after a year-long pilot program showed “unprecedented” growth in enrollment in participating schools, Amichai Chikli, Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, announced this week.
“In the past year, we have launched seven different pilot programs, each focusing on a different aspect of the challenge. In Atlanta, a unique pilot led by the Zalik Foundation provides scholarships to educators so they can send their children to Jewish schools,” he stated on Tuesday.
Chikli visited Atlanta this week during a working trip to the United States, he said.
One year after the launch of the pilot program, the ministry measured its impact and discovered a 5% rise in enrollment at participating day schools. By comparison, a 2% increase was considered significant in the post-coronavirus period, making the recent jump especially notable.
Atlanta is one of several Jewish communities that took part in Chikli’s ministry’s flagship Project Aleph Bet, carried out in partnership with the Jewish Federations of North America and philanthropic foundations.
The goal of the initiative is to strengthen Jewish education and increase the number of American children enrolled in formal Jewish education.
“Out of a deep belief that nothing is more important than strengthening Jewish education, we are preparing to expand the project dramatically in the coming year, and to invest, for the first time in the history of the State of Israel, tens of millions of shekels in Jewish education in the United States,” Chikli wrote in his Hebrew statement on Tuesday.
Jerusalem’s investment in the Diaspora “stems from its commitment as the nation-state of the Jewish people, as was enshrined in the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, and as stated already in the Declaration of Independence,” continued the Cabinet minister.
The Jewish state “bears a profound and ongoing responsibility toward the entire Jewish people around the world, including a commitment to strengthening Jewish identity, cohesion and a shared future,” he said.
