Our Organizational Mission

The Society for the Advancement of Education, Jerusalem (SAE) is a social-educational organization that works to instill academic and social excellence as a bridge and leverage for integration into Israeli society.

SAE initiates, develops and operates educational solutions for youth in schools, residential schools, and educational programs and projects with the goal of shaping and creating opportunities for excellence and for helping youth realize their full educational potential and instill social values.

For more than 55 years, SAE has succeeded in touching the lives of tens of thousands of youth from a full range of different circles of Israeli society and to create social mobility for them through high quality, uncompromising educational achievement.

Groundbreaking Educational Initiatives

Alongside commitment to the existing educational activities, we choose to advance original, groundbreaking initiatives for youth who have limited access to broad, high quality education. Our desire is to give all youth, wherever they may be, the opportunity for good economic integration into Israeli society and self-sufficient living without economic dependency.

Developing educational solutions for each community is conducted after a process of research, study and adaptation to the needs and cultural characteristics. For each development process, the SAE identifies and employs a professional from inside the population for whom we seek to provide solutions. All departments of the SAE headquarters – pedagogy, resource development, building and psycho-social support – are partners in the process of forming the new initiative.

In recent years, Rabbi Bezalel Cohen, Attorney Ali Haider and Ms. Vered Bachar, all graduates of the Mandel Program for Educational Excellence,have been involved in developing new initiatives.

The three arenas in which we are currently focusing our best practicesand expertise are: the Haredi community, the Arab community and the geographic-social periphery.

In creating new, original solutions for these communities we aspire to create a critical mass of activities that can generate tangible, sustainable change that will be a harbinger of greater development. The main support we hope to receive is intended for these development processes.

The Haredi Community

SAE works within the Haredi community framework with the goal of creating a bridge and new avenues for children of the community as they come to integrate into Israeli society, while preserving their beliefs and Haredi identity.

SAE runs two exceptional Haredi institutions: Hachmey Lev Yeshiva and Shoshanim Seminary High School for Arts and Sciences.

Hachmey Lev Yeshiva High School

A Haredi yeshiva high school that integrates religious studies with studies for a full matriculation certificate. The Yeshiva, which includes a boarding school, enables religious Talmidei hachamim to integrate Torah with derech eretz and to actualize their abilities while receiving tools for success in life and integration into the world of employment.

Shoshanim Seminary

The first four-year high school in the country for Haredi girls that provides education and piety alongside education required for high quality matriculation, through a focus on arts and sciences. The high school is intended for graduates of the “Beis Yaakov” elementary schools or other Haredi institutions, who have high level abilities for in-depth learning,curiosity and creativity.

The Arab Community

As a stable, veteran organization, SAE made a strategic decision to advance educational achievement among the Arab community in Israel. The decision was made out of a true desire to actualize the principles of equality in general and equality of opportunity in education specifically, through promoting multiculturalism among our institutions and in Israeli society in general.

Out of a sense of ethical mission to stop processes of hatred and racismthat have worsened in recent years, we decided to invest resources and planning to advance these goals, with the main consideration of advancing leadership and excellence among Arab youth.

In this framework, we established the Sindiana Arab Youth Village for Young Leadership and the Jafra Leadership Program for high school graduates.

Sindiana Arab Youth Village for Young Leadership

A unique project, the first of its kind in Israel. This is an initiative of SAE and a group of social entrepreneurs and educators from the Arab sector in cooperation with Givat Haviva and the Menashe Regional Council.

Sindiana is a holistic educational framework that offers a solution for personal development and empowering students’ educational and social abilities, developing activist leadership rooted in Arab culture and the youth’s circles of belonging alongside exposure to the culture of the wider world.

The educational model of a youth village, including a boarding school and agricultural farm, provides youth with a framework that integrates optimal conditions for learning, a personal and group support system, informal educational activities and significant practical experience in learning and agricultural work.

The Youth Village is based on three central foundations: academic and social excellence, culture and identity, and leadership. It constitutes a meaningful educational values framework, that will prepare and develop acohort of young and influential community leaders.

The campus is intended for youth from the Arab community, with strong learning abilities, leadership characteristics, and desire to develop, to dream to influence and to achieve socially and academically. The campus is an educational center that works to foster values of academic and social fulfillment, leadership and identity among youth with the goal of developing avenues for success in academia, employment and community.

The Jafra Leadership Program

The Jafra Leadership Program was born out of the vision of developing young Arab leadership with awareness and commitment to change making activities, founded on humanist values and Arab culture. It is a year-long, locally based program to develop young leadership and excellence currently operating in three towns (Sakhnin, Abu Snan and Tur’an).

The participants in the program are young Arab high school graduates in the year before academic studies. They meet twice a week and go through an educational process whose goal is to increase their self-awareness and sense of belonging and to provide social and leadership skills through community involvement, familiarization with Israeli society and preparation for higher education.

In addition to the weekly meetings, each group attends seminars and tours around the country, during which they meet a variety of communities. In addition, the participants gain experience in leading community projects and actively volunteering in social and community organizations in the towns they live in.

The Geographic and Social Periphery

SAE was established out of recognition that with the assistance of appropriate educational care and cultivation, youth from the weaker social and geographic periphery can reach their individual potential and reach academic and social excellence. For this purpose, SAE established and operates boarding schools for educational excellence, which are a critical factor in creating social change.

SAE has five boarding schools for educational excellence around the country: Boyar, Ein Carmit, Steinberg Residence, Ort Netanya. In addition, a boarding school is part of Ulpanat Talya – a special track for religious girls from throughout the country who are gifted or excellent students, which enables students to study for matriculation in technology and an academic track for an undergraduate degree in computer science. “Talya” enables access for students to integration in academia, industry and employment alongside building their personal and spiritual worlds.

The boarding schools are intended for students with high level academic abilities who are interested in actualizing their abilities in a challenging educational environment including community involvement with the goal of becoming leading, influential citizens in Israeli society.

All the boarding schools have:

• A comprehensive program of educational support personalized for each student, including a learning center, individualized tutoring and learning groups.

• Diverse enrichment programs for leadership development, values education, empowerment and more.

• Pre-military preparation programs and accompaniment for students in their first steps in military service.

• Lectures, meetings with graduates, leaders in business, academia, society and industry and other inspiring figures.

• A wide range of afterschool activities: music, computers, sport, theater, dance, capoeira, photography, voice training and more.

• Diverse projects for community involvement, including volunteering in senior centers, activities with children and impoverished populations, Leket projects throughout the country, community gardening and volunteering in a hostel for people with special needs.

Speaking in Numbers

SAE’s ongoing activities are supported by the Ministry of Education (80% of the budget), parent tuition payments (10% of the budget) and fundraising and resource development (10% of the budget).

In the development processes, the main funding for the initial stages is raised through SAE fundraising. In order to bring an educational initiative to a situation of ongoing, sustainable activity, in which the Ministry of Education and parents of students participate, we must invest significantly during the initial development year and in the first years of operation.

The Society for Advancement of Education views these processes as a central axis of its work, and, therefore, engages all its human resources to advance them, and makes significant efforts to present these initiatives to bodies and individuals who have the capacity to support them.

The realization of entrepreneurship today requires raising an additional $1.5 million per year of philanthropic resources on top of existing state and municipal funding. These philanthropic funds are designated towards R & D, seed money and for achieving a balance within the next two to three years.

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