ORT No. 134 “Dimcho Debelianov” Jewish school is the result of a successful collaboration between ORT, the Bulgarian authorities and The Ronald S Lauder Foundation (from 2003 to 2019).
This Jewish state school in Sofia caters for students from preschool through to the 12th grade and is the only state school in Bulgaria offering Hebrew instruction.
ORT’s support, including the building of several science laboratories, has enabled the school to run advanced ICT-based curricula as well as extracurricular activities. The school has won several awards from organizations including NEC and Microsoft.
The school’s media centre has fully equipped studio and production facilities that enable partnerships with national television stations and the Nu Boyana Film Studio. It also proves the ideal base for ORT’s annual Digital Skills Academy.
It is a far cry from the 1930s, when ORT’s original activities in Bulgaria comprised small-scale vocational activities in woodwork, bookbinding, tailoring, and textiles. ORT programs were forced to close in 1940 but resumed post-war. During this time, the Jewish community dedicated a building for the establishment of an ORT school in Sofia, and a technical school was inaugurated in September 1947. Following the large wave of aliyah, ORT was training one-fifth of the remaining Jewish community before closing down again.
ORT relaunched its activities in Bulgaria in December 1995 when we set up an Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) in the Jewish school in Sofia. In 2003, the Bulgarian government and ORT signed an agreement officially recognising ORT as an operational body within Bulgaria.
Belgium
Belgian ORT was established in 1946 primarily to educate Jewish children who had returned from the camps so that they could enter regular schools.
Uruguay
Universidad ORT Uruguay became the country's first officially recognized private university in 1996 and is now the largest of its kind in the country.
Russia
Russia is the birthplace of ORT. The organization was founded in 1880 in St. Petersburg to provide Russian Jews with employable skills as a way out of poverty.