AMIT

AMIT Children Inc.

Founded	May 10, 1925 (1925-05-10)
Founder	Bessie Gotsfeld
Type	501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
Tax ID no.	13-5631502
Headquarters	New York City, New York
President	Debbie Moed
Chair, Board of Directors	Suzanne Doft
Chair, Board of Governors	Hattie Dubroff
Affiliations	AMIT Israel
Revenue (2013)	$9,731,950
Expenses (2013)	$9,027,254
Endowment	$200,000
Employees (2013)	37
Volunteers (2013)	47
Slogan	"Building Israel One Child at a Time"
Mission	To provide underprivileged children in Israel with family-centered childcare and to operate a network of quality schools in Israel within a religious Zionist framework.
Website	amitchildren.org
Formerly called	Mizrachi Women's Organization of America, American Mizrachi Women, Amit Women

AMIT (Hebrew acronym for Organization for Volunteers for Judaism and Torah and a homonym in Hebrew for friend) is an American Jewish religious Zionist volunteer organization, dedicated to education in Israel. AMIT operates more than 110 schools and programs providing a religious Jewish education while incorporating academic and technological studies.

AMIT maintains a balance of 70% of its schools in the periphery and 30% in the more affluent center of Israel. When new schools are admitted to the network, this balance is maintained.

AMIT's current focus is on raising bagrut scores across the reshet ("network"), maintaining high levels of military service among graduates, and training the next generation of its teachers. There is also an ongoing campaign to renovate the physical buildings at Kfar Blatt and Beit Hayeled which were last updated in the early eighties.

History

AMIT was founded on May 10, 1925 by Bessie Gotsfeld, and was then known as the Mizrachi Women's Organization of America. It officially incorporated on October 2, 1930. As early as 1934, AMIT was at the forefront of Youth children from Europe and their resettlement in Palestine. In the years ahead, and immediately following the end of the war in Europe, AMIT participated in the resettlement of thousands of children — many of them orphans — who survived the Holocaust.

The survivors of the Holocaust were followed by the large influx of Jews from North Africa and the Arab countries in 1948-49. Again, AMIT's resources were tested as its facilities were flooded by the pressing needs of tens of thousands of newly arrived immigrant children. In 1955, the first contingent of Ethiopian Jews arrived and in the 1970s, the great Russian immigration began. With each new development in Israel's history AMIT responded, opening new schools and facilities to meet the demands of a growing population of children in need.

In 1981, AMIT was designated by the Israeli government as its official Reshet (network) for religious secondary technological education. This landmark event set the stage for a major expansion of AMIT's educational facilities (which continues to this day) as municipalities with faltering school systems seek out AMIT to take over and dramatically improve their local facilities.

AMIT Today

AMIT operates 110 schools, youth villages, surrogate family residences and other programs, constituting Israel’s only government-recognized network of religious Jewish education incorporating academic and technological studies.

List of AMIT Schools

4

Archival Materials

The American Jewish Historical Society received a large donation of archival material and photographs related to AMIT and the organization's projects in Israel. The collection was minimally processed over the Summer 2011 and is available for research.

Photographs and materials relating to the Baltimore chapters' history are archived at the Jewish Museum of Maryland and can be viewed through their online collections.

See Also

• Education in Israel
• Ministry of Education (Israel)
• Other school networks recognized by the Ministry of Education:
  • Amal
  • Bnei Akiva
  • ORT
  • Or Torah
  • Tzvia

External links

• http://www.amitchildren.org/
• http://amitchildren.org/who-we-are/amit-history/