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Israel to invest $40 million in North American Jewish day schools
(JTA) — Citing “a major crisis in Jewish education,” Israel’s Diaspora ministry plans to pour about $40 million into training educators at Jewish schools in the United States and Canada.
Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, announced the initiative, called “Aleph Bet” after the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, on Monday. He hopes enrollment will increase at Jewish day schools, fearing that “we are losing large parts of the Jewish people,” and said the initiative would “focus on training teachers for Jewish education and Israel studies as well as principals for Jewish day schools,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
Chikli did not elaborate on how his ministry would spend the allocation of NIS 150 million, nor did he detail when funds could start making their way into North American Jewish schools. His office did not respond to a request for comment. Israel’s governing coalition plans to approve a state budget next week, ahead of a May 29 deadline.
North American Jewish schools have received varying levels of Israeli government support for years, according to Paul Bernstein, CEO of Prizmah, a nonprofit supporting Jewish day schools. He said staff members of day schools were optimistic about the additional funding despite lacking details about where it would go.
“There’s quite a lot of chatter. People are excited by the fact that the State of Israel really sees the importance of Diaspora education, and is recognizing that the strength of the Diaspora is integral to [a] strong Israel and strong relationships,” Bernstein said. “Irrespective of all that’s going on in the world, that is a very positive and important long-term development.”
The announcement comes at a time of tension between Israel’s right-wing governing coalition and North American Jewish communities. A chorus of U.S. Jewish leaders has criticized the government’s proposed overhaul of Israel’s judiciary, and last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a speech at a signature conference of North American Jews in Tel Aviv in the face of anti-government protests. Chikli, who assumed his role in January, has defended the judicial overhaul while acting as an ambassador of sorts to an often skeptical audience of Diaspora Jews.
Chikli, whose father is a Jewish educator in Mexico, had previously indicated that he sees Jewish day schools abroad as an important destination for Israeli aid. He has said repeatedly — including on Monday — that children who do not attend Jewish day schools are at risk of being lost to the Jewish people.
“We are in the midst of a crisis where it is possible to lose an entire generation of Jews,” he said during the funding announcement.
Early in his tenure, Chikli floated the idea of working with philanthropists to subsidize day school tuition in the Diaspora. More recently, he has signaled that covering tuition — which can range from several thousand dollars at haredi Orthodox yeshivas to more than $40,000 a year — is less of a priority.
“Jewish education in private schools is very expensive, and at times out of range for the average family,” he told Hamodia, a haredi publication, in April. “This is where we step up to the plate. This isn’t to say we’re giving out free scholarships … but we invest, as noted earlier, in the teachers, in the school systems, to ensure Jewish education, and continuity of Jewish generations. We want to raise the pride of Jewish studies teachers.”
Attending a Jewish school is widely considered a strong predictor of lasting Jewish identity, although that may be because parents who prioritize Jewish identity are more likely to send their children to Jewish day school. Enrollment in Jewish schools in North American Jewish schools is growing, largely because of the growth of Orthodox communities, where the vast majority of children attend private Jewish schools.
Outside of those communities, most North American Jewish children do not attend Jewish day schools. But the pandemic saw Conservative, Reform and nondenominational day schools grow as well, according to a survey by Prizmah, following more than a decade of decline. The survey found that schools have maintained those enrollment gains even as the pandemic has ended.
Meanwhile, Hebrew schools and other supplemental Jewish schools have shrunk by nearly half since 2006, according to a recent report by the Jewish Education Project. Chikli did not specify whether any of the new funding could go to such schools
Chikli’s father, Eitan Chikli, is the rector of the Hebraic University in Mexico City, which receives some funding from his son’s ministry. Previously, he was the longtime director general of Israel’s TALI Education Fund, which promotes pluralistic Jewish education in Israeli schools and also produces materials for use in Jewish schools abroad.
The elder Chikli told the Jerusalem Post in January that he would not discuss the funding his university receives with his son, who he said is fastidious about avoiding conflicts of interest. But he said that teacher training was an urgent problem for Jewish schools.
“The biggest problem Jewish people in the Diaspora face today is Jewish education and lack of a high level of teachers for Judaic studies,” Eitan Chikli said in January. “The most difficult problem is that there is no new generation of proper teachers for Hebrew and Judaism.”
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The post Israel to invest $40 million in North American Jewish day schools appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Revealed: Hamas Money Laundering Network in Turkey Linked to Iran
Presidents Hassan Rouhani of Iran, Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Vladimir Putin of Russia pose for a picture after a news conference during their meeting in Ankara, Turkey, September 16, 2019. Photo: Pavel Golovkin/Pool via REUTERS.
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet revealed on Sunday that Hamas, under the direction of Iran, is operating a clandestine network of money exchangers in the heart of Turkey, using the country’s financial infrastructure to fund terrorist activities against Israel.
According to documents obtained by Israeli authorities, the network is composed primarily of Gazans who manage the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars directly to Hamas and its leadership.
These funds are received from Iranian sources, stored, and then forwarded to the terrorist organization to support its operations.
The documents released by the IDF detail a portion of these financial activities, including transactions totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Three individuals of Gazan origin have been identified as key operatives within the network. Tamer Hassan, a senior official in Hamas’s Ministry of Finance, resides in Turkey and operates under the leadership of Khalil al-Hayya. Khalil Farawneh and Fareed Abu Dayer also act as money changers within the network, facilitating the movement of funds under Iranian guidance.
Israeli authorities stressed that despite the devastation in Gaza, Hamas continues to pursue terrorist plots against Israel and is actively attempting to rebuild its capabilities, including through operations outside the Strip.
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Israel’s Netanyahu to Discuss Second Phase of Gaza Plan with Trump Later This Month
Trucks transport tanks on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Israel, November 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the second phase of a US plan to end the war in Gaza was close, but cautioned several key issues still needed to be resolved, including whether a multinational security force would be deployed.
Netanyahu, speaking to reporters alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Jerusalem, said that he would hold important discussions with US President Donald Trump at the end of the month on how to ensure the plan’s second phase was achieved.
The prime minister’s office in November said that Trump had invited Netanyahu to the White House “in the near future,” although a date for the visit has not yet been made public.
Netanyahu said that he would discuss with Trump how to bring an end to Hamas rule in Gaza. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is entering its second month, although both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce agreement.
Netanyahu said that it was important to ensure Hamas not only upholds the ceasefire but also follows through on “their commitment” to the plan to disarm and for Gaza to be demilitarized.
Israel retained control of 53 percent of Gaza under the first phase of Trump’s plan, which involved the release of hostages held by terrorists in Gaza and of Palestinians detained by Israel. The final hostage remains to be handed over are those of an Israeli police officer killed on October 7, 2023 fighting Gazan militants who had invaded Israel.
“We’ll get him out,” Netanyahu said.
Since the ceasefire started in October, the terrorist group has reestablished itself in the rest of Gaza.
GERMAN CHANCELLOR: PHASE TWO MUST COME NOW
According to the plan, Israel is to pull back further in the second phase as a transitional authority is established in Gaza and a multinational security force is deployed, Hamas is disarmed, and reconstruction begins.
A multinational coordination center has been established in Israel, but there are no deadlines in the plan and officials involved say that efforts to advance it have stalled.
“What will be the timeline? What are the forces that are coming in? Will we have international forces? If not, what are the alternatives? These are all topics that are being discussed,” Netanyahu said, describing them as central issues.
Merz said that Germany was willing to help rebuild Gaza but would wait for Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump, and for clarity on what Washington was prepared to do, before Berlin decides what it would contribute but that phase two “must come now.”
NETANYAHU: WEST BANK ANNEXATION REMAINS A SUBJECT OF DISCUSSION
Netanyahu said that he would also discuss with Trump “opportunities for peace,” an apparent reference to US efforts for Israel to establish formal ties with Arab and Muslim states.
“We believe there’s a path to advance a broader peace with the Arab states, and a path also to establish a workable peace with our Palestinian neighbors,” Netanyahu said, asserting Israel would always insist on security control of the West Bank.
Trump has said he promised Muslim leaders that Israel would not annex the West Bank, where Netanyahu’s government is backing the development of Jewish settlements.
The “question of political annexation” of the West Bank remains a subject of discussion, Netanyahu said.
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Frank Gehry, renowned architect who began life as Frank Goldberg, dies at 96
(JTA) — Frank Gehry, a Jewish architect who became one of the world’s most renowned innovators in his field for his contributions to modernist architecture, including the famed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has died at 96.
His death following a brief respiratory illness was confirmed on Friday by the chief of staff at his firm, Meaghan Lloyd, according to the New York Times.
Gehry was born Ephraim Owen Goldberg on Feb. 28, 1929, to a Jewish family in Toronto. In 1947, Gehry moved to Los Angeles with his family and later went on to graduate from the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture in 1954.
The same year, he changed his name to Gehry at the behest of his first wife who was “worried about antisemitism and thought it sounded less Jewish.” He would later say he would not make the choice again.
Among Gehry’s most acclaimed works, which feature his signature, sculptural style, are the Bilbao Guggenheim, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris and the DZ Bank Building in Berlin.
Gehry also often returned to the motif of a fish, including two large fish sculptures in the World Trade Center in New York City and on Barcelona’s seafront. Some tied the fish motif to his recollections about his Jewish grandmother’s trips to the fishmonger to prepare for Shabbat each week.
“We’d put it in the bathtub,” Gehry said, according to the New York Times. “And I’d play with this fish for a day until she killed it and made gefilte fish.”
Gehry began to identify as an atheist shortly after his bar mitzvah. But in 2018, while he was working on ANU-Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, he told the Jewish Journal that Judaism had influenced his career nonetheless.
“There’s a curiosity built into the [Jewish] culture,” he said. “I grew up under that. My grandfather read Talmud to me. That’s one of the Jewish things I hang on to probably — that philosophy from that religion. Which is separate from God. It’s more ephemeral. I was brought up with that curiosity. I call it a healthy curiosity. Maybe it is something that the religion has produced. I don’t know. It’s certainly a positive thing.”
In 1989, Gehry won the prestigious Pritzker Prize, considered one of the top awards in the field of architecture, and in 1999 won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. In 2007, Gehry also received the Jerusalem Prize for Arts and Letters and in 2016 won the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-president Barack Obama.
His survivors include his wife, Berta Isabel Aguilera, daughter Brina, and sons Alejandro and Samuel. Another daughter, Leslie Gehry Brenner, died of cancer in 2008.
The post Frank Gehry, renowned architect who began life as Frank Goldberg, dies at 96 appeared first on The Forward.