ORT Dedicates Technology Centers in Ukraine

When the ORT Lyceum in Kiev officially opened in September, it signified a major acceleration of Jewish education and community life in the former Soviet Union. The new school, which offers the most up-to-date facilities and technological curricula, currently serves nearly 200 students and can accommodate up to 250. It falls under the banner of ORT's "Regeneration 2000," a program launched last spring combining Jewish studies with the latest in computer and Internet technology to attract young Jews in the former Soviet Union. The concern, in the words of Regeneration 2000 funder Milton Gralla, is "educate or evaporate." If the current generation of young Jews does not learn about their heritage, Judaism may cease to exist in the former Soviet Union.

Women's American ORT leaders traveled to Kiev and two other cities, with other participants in the World ORT International Mission to Ukraine, to attend the dedications of the new school, as well as several ORT Technology Centers, which are computer facilities housed in existing Jewish day schools run by other organizations. The ceremonies were attended by representatives of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and the local municipality, the regional governor and representatives of the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine.

Also in Kiev, an ORT computer lab, providing new equipment for 400 students, was dedicated at a yeshiva. An ORT computer facility inaugurated at the Israeli Cultural Center will serve members of the Kiev Jewish community. In Dniepropetrovsk, an ORT Technology Center was dedicated at the largest day school in the former Soviet Union, serving 650 students, and a new laboratory was opened at a teachers training seminary for young women.

Mission delegates also toured a school in the city of Zaporojeh, the site of an ORT Technology Center under construction. Once the facility is completed, ORT Technology Centers will be operating in eight cities across the former Soviet Union.

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