Rockets hit college in Karmiel

18.07.06

18 July 2006 Rockets hit ORT Braude, disrupt summer programmes A rocket hit ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel on Saturday, destroying some offices, shattering windows and pock marking other buildings with shrapnel. Another rocket damaged ORT Braude physics laboratories at the nearby Karmiel Science Park. More than 60 students were in the nearby dormitory building at the time but were unhurt. They were immediately evacuated by Shimon Hacker, Administrative Head of Organisation and Finance. The rockets were among some 100 Katyushas fired by Hezbollah at northern Israel on Saturday. ORT Braude was founded by World ORT in 1988 to provide young people from around the world the opportunity to study technological subjects. It now has more than 3,500 students half of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union or the children of such immigrants and offers a range of highly respected courses, many of which have been upgraded from Bachelor of Technology to Bachelor of Science degrees over the past three years. A spokesman for ORT Israel said: We would like to thank ORT Israels many friends around the world who have called and written to express their identification and solidarity with us and our students. Karmiel, a city of 44,000 residents twinned with the American cities of Pittsburgh and Denver, is situated in the heart of the northern Galilee region of Israel. It is known as the City of Coexistence because of its efforts to be a truly multicultural community. Damaged offices at ORT Braude. The Home Front Command has instructed the people of Karmiel and the surrounding region to remain indoors because of the on-going rocket attacks from Lebanon. Tomorrows scheduled ORT Braude board meeting has been relocated to Tel Aviv for safety reasons. ORT schools, like other schools in Israel, had already discontinued normal classes because of the summer holidays. However, the sites are usually used during the long vacation to host kindergartens, extra classes for struggling and gifted students, and other activities. Many of these activities in ORT Israels northern region, which includes 12 high schools, have had to be cancelled. The current crisis compelled the Israeli government last week to postpone several bagrut (high school matriculation) examinations until at least August. ORT Israel management now has to find the money and means to provide extra revision classes for candidates next month so that they can give their best possible performance in the tests. Other summer programmes involving older ORT students taking out younger ones on day trips have also had to be cancelled. Surveying damage at ORT Braude. ORT Braudes activities are concentrated in four areas: training students in engineering technologies; preparing students for careers in industrial engineering in the public and business sectors; providing a diverse range of courses through its Continuing Education Department; putting the excellent facilities at its 15-hectare campus, as well as its highly regarded faculty, at the service of industry and the community. In order to attract more international students, ORT Braude together with World ORT, the Jewish Agency and the Student Authority of the Ministry of Absorption has developed the Immigrant for Engineering programme. The programme allows prospective students to undergo admission examinations in their country of origin, participate in an online mathematics course and then go to Israel. At the absorption centre in Karmiel they undergo a two-month Hebrew course before embarking on an intensive preparatory programme for the psychometric test and lessons in mathematics, physics and English. The college is named after the late Max Braude. Born in Pennsylvania, Mr Braude was a chaplain in the United States Army and went on to become Director General of World ORT in 1956. Views of ORT Braude in more peaceful times. Founding the college was the initiative of another former World ORT Director General, Holocaust survivor Joseph Harmatz. His vision of an international school attracted supporters from around the world allowing World ORT to invest $23 million for the construction in the 1980s. Speaking from his home in Tel Aviv, Mr Harmatz who still sits on the board of ORT Braude lamented the fact that ORT schools were being targeted by terrorists. I was director of ORT Israel for 13 years and in that time we developed schools across the Galilee, in Nazareth, Kiryat Motzkin, Kiryat Bialik, Beit Shean, Maa lot They are all now targeted by rockets. And its not only the schools, its the children and their parents. World ORT, founded in 1880, is the worlds largest Jewish education and vocational training non-government organisation with some 270,000 students both Jewish and non-Jewish in 58 countries. Its largest operational country is Israel with 100,000 Jewish, Arab, Bedouin and Druze students at 162 institutions.