![Graduation, Haredi Campus Ono Academic College [m]](https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Graduation-Haredi-Campus-Ono-Academic-College-m-300x199.jpg)
Forerunners of change, Ono Academic College established a chareidi Campus as early as 2001, introducing thousands of chareidim into Israel’s public and private sectors. At present over 2,500 chareidi men and women are studying law, business, accounting, and health professions at the campus.
Over 2,500 chareidi men and women are currently studying law, business, accounting, and health professions at Israel’s Ono Academic College Chareidi Campus, while thousands more have graduated and are gradually enhancing the community’s capacity for self-sufficiency. The Ono chareidi campus, located in central Israel, is now the largest academic framework for the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel and the only one to be part of a secular institution.
Already in 2001 Ono Academic College recognized that the ultra-Orthodox community, Israel’s fastest growing Jewish community, must enter the business arena, lower its dependency on subsidies and participate in Israel’s mainstream economy. It established two campuses for the ultra-Orthodox community where men and women study for a prestigious academic degree that leads to lucrative employment opportunities. “This program and others at Ono Academic College distinguish and differentiate us from other academic institutions in Israel,” assures Rabbi Yeheskel Fogel, Director of the Chareidi Campus. “Ono has a social mission to achieve, and that means to ensure that all sectors of the Israeli society have an opportunity to acquire higher education, and as a result, to be active in Israel’s economy.”
Students are offered full degree programs in law, business and accounting, with majors in finance and the capital market, information systems analysis, and marketing and advertising, and beginning this year, health professions – occupational therapy and speech therapy.
“We have given a lot of attention to those details that enable the ultra-Orthodox students to feel comfortable in their surroundings. Men and women study on separate days and are taught by lecturers of their own gender,” Rabbi Fogel explains. Moreover, the chareidi facility is separate from the college’s main campus. Ono utilizes its own financial resources to award scholarships to the chareidi students, covering almost half of their tuition fees. The program is also supported by the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation, the Wolfson Foundation, and the Kemach Foundation.
![Rabbi Yeheskel Fogel, Director Haredi Campus, Ono Academic College [m]](https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Rabbi-Yeheskel-Fogel-Director-Haredi-Campus-Ono-Academic-College-m-200x300.jpg)
“This is a bold and innovative initiative that tackles the huge challenges facing Israel and the chareidi community, and it has already proved to be a great success,” Rabbi Fogel says. “While Israeli society and politicians are grappling with ways to bring about ‘equal sharing of the burden’, the fact that our ultra-Orthodox graduates are working together with the general public in the work place, in banks and businesses, makes me strongly believe that our programs are bridging the rift between the chareidi and secular communities.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
Until the chilonim call off their current attack on Torah, maybe this kind of activity should be reconsidered. Learning their “professions” at a college is always suspect.