It is with a feeling of thanksgiving and prayer to Hashem and an uplifted atmosphere of satisfaction and pleasure that some one hundred thousand students, boys and girls respectively of the Chinuch Atzmai schools serving all the sectors and communities of Jewry, will commence their school year this Thursday, per the aspiration of Torah leadership, the founders and progenitors of Chinuch Atzmai. These students will occupy the several hundred schools throughout the cities and settlements of all of Israel.
The opening of this school year represents a blessed increase, expansion and intensification in all aspects of growth. Tens of thousands of Jewish children will begin their studies this year in schools which have educated their predecessors to proud adulthood following the path of Torah and Jewish tradition as transmitted down through the ages and continuing along the path of our ancestors and leaders from time immemorial.
HaRav Eliezer Sorotzkin, director-general of Chinuch Atzmai, highlighted the energetic and outstanding activity taking place in these times to absorb hundreds of immigrant children from France into Chinuch Atzmai schools. This activity involves complex logistics including the construction of additional schools for these children. This is being made possible through the mobilization of support from leaders of the world of Torah and Chassidus in America, and especially through the initiative of the Admor of Kaliv. These leaders head the foundation established in recent months to extend generous and ready aid so as to guarantee a Torah education suitable for the children of French immigrants settling now in Israel within the classrooms of Chinuch Atzmai schools throughout the country.
The Chinuch Atzmai schools will open their gates his week under the dark shadow of financial crisis threatening its continuation because of the lack of funding for student transportation via the Keren Hasaot Transportation Fund established by Torah leadership. Gedolei Yisroel asked everyone to sponsor the travel of at least one child for one year which amounts to NIS 1,200. Signing the call were Maran Rosh Hayeshiva HaRav AYL Shteinman, HaRav Nissim Karelitz, HaRav Chaim Kanievsky, HaRav Gershon Edelstein, HaRav Dov Landau and HaRav Yaakov Edelstein. Donors can call: 1-700-50-66-22, or a bank transfer to Bank Poalim, Branch 655, account 339991.
