People in Israel are beside themselves, wanting to know what they can do for distraught Jewish communities facing disaster in Florida and Texas.

Gilad Katz, newly arrived Israeli consul in Houston, whose home was also totaled, gave a wide ranging  interview to the Makor Rishon news paper in Israel, in which he described the destruction that Jewish families and Jewish institutions had to cope with.

One of the first insights that the Israeli consul shared was that Jewish families who face such an economic reversal will now find it impossible to pay  Jewish Day Schools, where tuition   can come to $20,000 per child.

The option of sending a child to public school would simply deprive that young Jewish soul of Jewish education, while forcing a Jewish child to learn in a Non Jewish environment.

This is where Israel can step in. The cost of Jewish education in Israel is minimal.

Vast resources exist in Israel and the Jewish Agency to provide immediate scholarships for Jewish children facing disaster enroll in schools throughout Israel.

Each and every community in Israel must now organize hospitality committees, to welcome Jewish children from the diaspora to stay with them for the duration of their studies, and to help them with every aspect of post trauma Aliya.

While Jews from the US had always viewed the idea of relocation to Israel, even for a few years, as a matter of choice.

For Jewish communities who have faced total loss in the wake of Hurricaines Harvey and Irma, the welcome of Jewish young people to learn in Israel is not a matter of choice.

This will be a question of their very survival as Jews.

Day School Jewish education remains the recipe for survival of Jews in the US, where the scourge of assimilation is difficult to cope with.

If a child cannot get Jewish education because of a natural disaster, let us in Israel reach out to that child and welcome each student into our homes, our schools and our hearts as we prepare for Rosh HaShahanah.

This is the time for every community in Israel, to conduct a survey, to see who has  warm family  and friendly school that could welcome a Jewish student from an American community  in distress.

Full disclosure: My sister

​Helen ​and I were  the products of a wonderful Jewish day school, Akiba Hebrew Academy in Merion, Pa. ​ ​

The only time I ever saw my father cry was when he told me that I got  scholarship to study at a day school, so that I could get a Jewish education that he never had.

The post Hurricanes deprive Jews of  paying for Jewish Education: ​​Israel can step in  appeared first on Israel Behind the News.

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David Bedein

David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center’s investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict – UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein’s 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education’   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein’s work can be found at:www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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