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The History of Youth Aliyah
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After the election of Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, the Nuremberg laws were enacted. Jewish children were among the first victims of discrimination and harassment. Recha Frier and Henrietta Szold implemented a plan of saving German Jewish children by sending them to collective farms and villages in Eretz Yisrael where they were reared and educated under the auspices of Youth Aliyah. During the war years over 11,000 children were rescued by Youth Aliyah. However, Youth Aliyah's greatest work began after World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel. Youth Aliyah welcomed children from each of the successive waves of immigration into Israel. Children arrived from war-torn Europe, from the mellahs of North Africa, from the countries of the Middle East. These children were given an opportunity to become productive Israeli citizens. Villages and nonresidential high schools offered sophisticated support systems, academic courses, vocational training and life skills management. Today Youth Aliyah services disadvantaged native born Israeli children, abused and neglected children, children with learning problems, recent immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopians, Argentineans, etc. Hadassah has responsibility for three Youth villages, Meir Shreyah, Hadassah Neurim and Ramat Hadassah Szold. Hadassah Neurim Youth Village
Ramat Hadassah Szold Youth Village
The cornerstones of the three to six-year program are language skills, numeric and cognitive thought. In addition to classroom work, students receive tuition in small groups. Formal teaching is supplemented by a range of extra-curricular activities designed to build self-confidence and self-esteem, including arts and crafts and work on the animal farm. This new and progressive system of education is being developed to serve as a model for the entire country. The Shul is named for Miriam Freund Rosenthal, the elementary school and the Center for Learning Disabilities is named for Charlotte Jacobson and the new High School was recently named in memory of Henrietta Szold. The farm has been named in Ruth opkin’s honor as well. Hadassah also provides educational enrichment programs for five day centers named after our past National Hadassah Presidents and the first Director General of Youth Aliyah: Faye Schenk, Rose Matzkin, Frieda Lewis, and Moshe Kol. Meir Shfeyah Youth Village
This village is gaining a reputation as a center for arts in the lower Galilee. Shfeyah is the home of the Deborah Kaplan Sports Center, the Bonnie Lipton Center for the Performing Arts, the Parker Edelstein Music Center, and the Altura Lone Soldier's Home. During September 2005, the Shfeyah Winery began operation and produced its first vintage of 5000 bottles of premium wine in February 2007. The winery is run by a staff of 11th and 12th grade students under the supervision of the village agricultural director and a local wine maker. We are proud to announce that our first vintage of Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot is now available for sale at the James Richardson Duty Free Shop at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. |
Hadassah Neurim Youth Village, which is co-owned with the Jewish Agency, has 200 boarding students and 200 day students, attracting and training gifted teenage athletes. It was established in 1948 to serve pupils evacuated from the Ben Shemen agricultural village during Israel's War of Independence. Some new projects incorporated in Neurim are: therapeutic horse-back riding for the physically disabled and a special soccer track sponsored by Maccabi Netanya. These are in addition to the special athletes’ track designed especially for the talented youngsters from Ethiopia, now enrolling also olim from the FSU and Israeli-born who train at The Marlene Post Sports Center.
Ramat
Hadassah Szold Youth Village, located near Haifa, outside Kiryat Tivon,
currently hasover 300 pupils aged 12-18, of whom around half are
Israeli-born, and half are immigrants, mostly from the FSU and
Ethiopia. 
Meir Shfeyah Youth Village was founded in 1923 as a school for orphans and refugees and became a project of Junior Hadassah in 1925 until 1956 when the Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization assumed responsibility. Shfeyah is a residential youth village and comprehensive, agricultural high school for 300 external students and 300 residential students between the ages of 12 –18 who live, study and work here throughout the year. Shfeyah serves diverse groups of students who for various educational, social and/or economic reasons require residential placement in order to succeed and fulfill their goals.