This week, I want to focus on one of AMIT’s smaller but extremely impactful programs, that successfully combines our “break the glass ceiling” philosophy with AMIT’s values-based educational approach. The school is the AMIT Tiferet Gur Arye Pre-Military Technology Junior College located in Rechovot. It is one of six pre-military junior colleges run by AMIT in partnership with the IDF.
The young men enrolled in this program generally come from disadvantaged segments of the population who experience serious difficulty maintaining stability and achieving their goals when they graduate from high school. The program aims to accompany each of these students from 18-25 years of age as they navigate pre-army education, army service, and their first job. It is a highly specialized mechina or preparatory program for these high-risk students.
The college offers a two-year educational program for grades 13-14, specializing in electronics, computers, and information technology, combined with study of Torah and Jewish history. Graduates of the program receive a Certificate of Practical Engineering and serve in the Israeli Air Force.
Rafi Maimon, Principal of AMIT Hammer in Rehovot, established the first pre-military junior school 15 years ago to prepare students not only for IDF service but for life. He was ahead of his time and realized there was an urgent need for a unique model, combining religious education, core ethical values and vocational training, that could help these young men keep their emotional and intellectual balance as they pursue productive careers in the future.
As Zuri Levi, the director of the college noted, “our students leave with a diploma as well as with values and personal empowerment so that after meaningful service in the IAF, at the age of 23, with experience and a profession in hand, they can integrate into the workforce, into hi-tech. We provide them with a jumping board to a better life. It is wonderful to see these young men, appreciate where they started from, the challenges they faced along the way, and then to watch them integrate into senior positions in the IAF,” Levi said. The IAF is one of the largest hi-tech companies in the Middle East. AMIT graduates work with the best aircrafts, including F-35’s and the Iron Dome, and gain proficiency in the IDF’s most advanced technologies.
This program is labor-intensive and requires extensive coordination, but it is high reward and enables us to change Israeli society for the better and in real-time, by preparing our students for lives of meaning.
