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"The Bet Shemesh Residential Center has played an indispensable role in the growth of our students and their noteworthy scholastic achievements"
-Daniel Vaknim
Mayor of the city of Bet Shemesh
The Bet Shemesh Educational and Residential Center was established in 1982 under the auspices of the Ministry of Education with the Jaffa Institute taking over operations in 1986. The Center is a junior and senior high boarding school for boys, dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged children. Founded with only the barest of essentials for its first sixteen students, the campus is now fully equipped with newly furnished classrooms, modern computer facilities, a beautiful synagogue, and a science and technology center. Having since been established as an autonomous U.S. 501(c)(3) organization, the Center currently enrolls 220 children from some of the most destitute areas in the country.
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 With the overall objective of improving the lives of as many children as possible by offering them the highest level of education, the Center offers its students a warm and loving environment, while providing comprehensive Jewish religious and secular education. The Bet Shemesh Center's high academic standards were officially recognized when it was awarded the prestigious National Education Prize from the Ministry of Education in 1995 and again in 2004. |
Our students come from poverty-stricken areas, such as Bet Shemesh and Jaffa, where social and economic hardships make "normal" family life difficult if not impossible to achieve. As the students begin their studies in the seventh grade at age 12, and complete them in the twelfth grade at age 18, they are vulnerable to the social pressures that traditionally arise during adolescence.
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 Students are selected to come to Bet Shemesh through referrals by social workers from all over the country. A prospective student is typically identified by the school social worker as "at risk of dropping out of school" or as a "marginal student who, due to social and family pressures, is unlikely to succeed." Despite these grim predictions, the Center's staff believes that each child has the potential to succeed -given the appropriate, holistic, educational and social support coupled with access to necessary resources.
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