Product Code Database
In 1961, it expanded further by opening a school in France, where Sephardi communities were growing rapidly thanks to the emigration of Jews from North Africa that followed upon several former French colonies achieving independence. Its French network now serves communities in Paris, Toulouse, Marseille and elsewhere. Its schools teach secular subjects alongside its religious curriculum. It is now extending its activities into a wider cultural sphere by evolving its schools into multi-purpose Jewish community centres. It is financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, local communities and private individuals.
The organization began its work with an investigation of Jewish communities in Palestine and several neighboring Arab countries. It wanted to provide not only good teaching, but food and medical care to the students, whose immigrant families were often poor and struggling.
By 1970, the organization was running 23 schools and a summer camp in Morocco, 41 schools and a summer camp in Iran, and two elementary schools in Syria. Together with students of its first elementary school in France, in Lyon (see below), it had a total enrollment of 13,610 students.
In 1971, Ozar Hatorah opened two schools in Créteil and Sarcelles, suburbs of Paris. By 2012 these had some 1,000 students. Subsequently, it set up schools in Antony, Toulouse, Marseille, Strasbourg, Aix-les-bains, and other cities, bringing the total number of Ozar Hatorah schools in France to 20, some maintained with local funds. In the 21st century, Marseille has the second-largest Jewish population (70,000) after Paris.
Ozar Hatorah plans to develop the schools further as centers for Jewish community life, by building facilities such as a mikveh (ritual bath) and synagogue, and providing adult classes, day camps, and other community activities. In 2012, the 20 schools in France were headed by Rabbi Jean-Paul Amoyelle, who has worked with the organization since 1967. Lionel Laurent, "From Middle East to France, a Jewish school's journey", Reuters, 19 March 2012; accessed 25 September 2016 According to CRIF, more than 30,000 students are enrolled in Ozar Hatorah schools in France. After a rise in antisemitic incidents in France in the 21st century, the schools assigned guards to each school to improve security.
On 19 March 2012, four people were killed by a shooter at an Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, including a teaching rabbi and three children, two of them his sons. A teenager was also wounded in the attack. Police later identified Mohammed Merah, a French native of Algerian descent, as the shooter responsible for these and the associated deaths of three French Muslim army personnel in two other incidents on March 11 and March 15, and three police killed during the March 22 siege of his apartment. He also wounded a total of five people, four seriously. Police shot and killed Merah during the siege.
|
|
