Latest Articles OU Israel Program

Most who choose to go to the beach on a Shabbat morning don’t voluntarily give that information over to their rabbi or Torah teacher. But Yardena is different and so are her teachers. In the weekly parshat shavua class she attends in Ramat Hasharon, it is all about opening...

The view from the car window as we approached Kiryat Malachi was flat and straight for miles. It was very different from the familiar Judean hills surrounding Jerusalem. The lines of the hills and mountains around Jerusalem draw the eye ever upward towards the heavens. It always seemed to...

In a region too often associated with conflict, one initiative is doing its best to provide unconditional love and support.  Makom Balev, the OU’s youth movement for disadvantaged youth in Israel, recently celebrated its new center in Kiryat Malachi with a chanukat bayit (“dedication”) that those in attendance will...

The students at Kiryat Yearim Elementary School in Ramat Hasharon sat through their first period classes oblivious to the flurry of preparation going on in the miklat beneath their school yard. Eleven women were dashing here and there as they donned costumes, reviewed lines and transformed the miklat into...

On a clear day in Gush Etzion, you can see for miles. And if you know the history of the region, you can feel its spirit in your bones. You drive along the highway, pass the different yishuvim, point out Yeshivat Har Etzion, fall silent where hundreds fell in...

The children of Sderot and those communities hit by the Gaza War have suffered tremendously, and continue to suffer. But this Purim, they recognized the all they have received from Makom BaLev, the OU Israel program that has provided a safe haven for them, and they gave to others...

Purim music streaming from the truck, they drove from base to base delivering Mishloach Manot. As they pulled out, soldiers poured out of the buildings. There was singing, there was dancing, there were huge smiles all around. Many of the soldiers we visited fought in Gaza, and the mishloach...