- Phone: +972-3-683-2626
- Email: info@jaffainst.co.il
Established in 1982, the Jaffa Institute is an Israeli nonprofit that assists impoverished residents of Greater Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Bet Shemesh. Our mission is to provide disadvantaged individuals with the educational, nutritional, therapeutic and social support they need to escape the cycle of intergenerational poverty. To this end, we run over 40 diverse programs touching the lives of thousands each year.
These programs encompass a wide range of activity areas, such as daily after-school educational enrichment centers and residential facilities for vulnerable youth, a twice-monthly food security initiative, cyclical vocational training courses for unemployed women, weekly wellbeing programs for the elderly, including Holocaust survivors, and other therapeutic and social programs. Whilst our programs vary in frequency and methodology, all strive to improve the lives and futures of those we serve by addressing the most difficult and complex challenges with which they are faced.
The Asher Naim Memorial Scholarship Fund is named in honor of prominent Israeli diplomat Asher Naim. Ambassador Naim served as the cultural attaché to Japan and the United States as well as Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Finland, South Korea, and Ethiopia. As Ambassador to Ethiopia, Naim led negotiations to allow Jewish refugees to flee the country’s violent civil war.
These negotiations culminated in Operation Solomon, in which 14,900 Ethiopian-Israelis were airlifted to safety in Israel. For his role in this daring rescue, Amb. Naim received the Most Distinguished Civil Servant Award. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1995, Ambassador Naim continued his volunteer activities assisting Ethiopian immigrants to integrate into Israeli society, raising substantial funds and awarding a total of 5,000 scholarships to needy students.
As a devoted advocate, Ambassador Naim worked tirelessly to improve the lives of Ethiopian-Israelis until his death in 2016. In honor of Ambassador Naim’s memory, the Jaffa Institute respectfully requests your assistance in supporting the Asher Naim Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Among the total Jewish population in Israel, Ethiopian immigrants have the highest poverty rates (adva.org).
One in three Ethiopian-born people receive social services, with 80% requiring intervention for dysfunctional
family behavior or poverty and unemployment (CBS).
Though their situations have improved in recent years,
Ethiopian-Israelis still grapple with significant educational gaps; students of Ethiopian origins have
matriculation (bagrut) rates of 64.3%, compared to 80.5% among their peers (CBS).
Only 51% of EthiopianIsraelis who matriculate continue onto higher education, which affects their transition into the labor market and ability to secure jobs in prestigious fields (Taub Center). In addition, those of Ethiopian descent earn at the very bottom of the national income threshold, with women earning even less than men (adva.org).
The Jaffa Institute’s Scholarship Program provides hard working youth from disadvantaged Ethiopian backgrounds the same access to higher education as their more affluent peers. Despite experiencing severe obstacles to academic success, these individuals have demonstrated their motivation to succeed by graduating from high school and earning acceptance to colleges and universities. The program offers these promising students financial assistance to start or continue their higher education and acquire the knowledge and skills to begin a career that will enable them to achieve future economic independence and stability.
Gal*, 28, who grew up in the Kiryat Shalom neighborhood in South Tel Aviv, has just completed his second of four years of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Ariel University. Tal grew up in a single-parent household where he worked to help support his family. He writes: “The year so far has been good, and I have been able to study well. I have been volunteering with two elderly ladies: Sima, who prefers visits to talking on the phone, and Dina, who likes to complain about everything, but once you get to know her she is very special!”
Scholarships provide Ethiopian-Israeli students with a grant of approximately $2,000 per person, each year for three years.
Be sure to assign your donation to the "Asher Naim Memorial Fund" in the drop-down menu.
We recently opened a new branch of this program to provide 15 chronically unemployed women from the Ethiopian-Israeli community of Kiryat Malakhi with the tools and support to achieve financial independence and freedom from intergenerational poverty through vocational skills training, empowerment workshops, food packages, scholarships, and therapeutic and employment support. We aim to eventually serve at least 60 Ethiopian-Israeli women in total each year through five two-month cycles, each accommodating 12- 15 women.
The cost of participation of one Ethiopian-Israeli woman in a two-month cycle of the Welfare to Wellbeing program is approximately $4,600 per year.
Be sure to assign your donation to the "Asher Naim Memorial Fund" in the drop-down menu.
Our programming assisting Ethiopian-Israeli students at our Bet Shemesh Educational Center (BSEC) residential high school, provides students of Ethiopian descent with specialized educational, cultural enrichment, and language programming. Immigrant children can struggle with poverty and social and linguistic isolation, which may limit their academic and employment opportunities. Students undergo a thorough assessment upon arrival to identify their strengths and weaknesses and staff arrange targeted educational support.
Additionally, the BSEC provides access to our flagship Autotech program, an advanced academic major (10 matriculation study units) in transportation studies taught in an experimental study environment using vehicles, models and simulation programs. At the end of year 12, students receive a Certificate of Accreditation, as well as a Technological Qualification Certificate. Finally, the field trips help the students strengthen their connection to Israel and understand the land’s history, traditions, and geography.
