Israeli school bounces back from terrorist attack

05.07.06

05 July 2006 Morale boost for ORT Ronson High School following rocket attack A group of 10 students at the ORT Henry Ronson High School in Ashkelon, which was hit yesterday by a Hamas rocket, has won first place in a national business competition. The 9th grade students will represent Israel in an international competition in Switzerland in August following their victory in the Young Entrepreneurs Project created by the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem and Bank Leumi. The students won the contest with their Easy-Holder a cork ring designed to prevent finger injuries when hammering a nail into a wall. The packaged product, which includes 12 units and nails, is currently sold at 10 branches of the Israeli chain of home improvements shops, ACE. Margaret Thatcher lays the corner stone for the ORT Henry Ronson High School in 1986. This is the second year in a row that an ORT Israel school has won first prize in the competition: last year ORT Ebin in Ramat Gan went on to represent Israel internationally. A view of the school. Yesterday evening, a Qassam rocket landed in the schools yard. Fortunately no-one was injured. Most of the students are on summer holiday, however there are currently some 80 pupils attending special, supplemental courses in maths and English to help them with their matriculation exams. The ORT Henry Ronson High School, which is named after the father of British property magnate and major ORT supporter Gerald Ronson, has a roll of 1,810 students and a faculty of 155 and has a reputation for nurturing underachieving students as well as nourishing gifted ones. Ivor Levene OBE, the Executive Director of British ORT, said he and his colleagues had been horrified to hear of the rocket attack against the school. Fortunately no-one was hurt despite the stated intent of the terrorists to target schools, Mr Levene said. Our schools are centres of learning and should be a safe haven for students. We pray that this will be the last attack of its kind. World ORT, founded in 1880, is the worlds largest Jewish education and vocational training non-government organisation with some 270,000 students Jewish and non-Jewish in 58 countries. Its largest operational country is Israel, where it has more than 100,000 students Jews, Israeli Arabs, Druze and Bedouin in 162 educational establishments.