Liz & Terry Morris with "Isaacs Fund" students Naomi, Malka and Elad.

Rosemary and Teddy Isaacs spent most of their lives based in Sheffield, UK and were dedicated workers for the local Jewish community and on behalf of British and Israeli charities. Rosemary held a deep affection for WIZO and both she and Teddy (uniquely for a man) were inducted as lifetime vice presidents of British WIZO.

Teddy had been a successful businessman but it was always his ambition to leave a sizeable amount as a legacy to various charities which they supported. As such he created a charitable trust through which they made donations over a period of many years. However it was his deepest wish that the names of Rosemary and Teddy would live on after their demise and that they would leave as much in their trust as possible.

Now that sadly Rosemary and Teddy have passed away, their daughters, Jill Shaw of London and Liz Morris from Raanana have undertaken the terms of the trust and the responsibility to distribute the remaining funds. They have decided that one of the major beneficiaries will be ESRA projects in Netanya.

The ‘Students Build a Neighbourhood’ in Hefzibah is the main project which is being supported by the fund. This is such a wonderful idea and so simple in its concept as the Netanya local authority and ESRA have combined to help the Hefzibah community build itself through education and example. ESRA has undertaken to provide financial assistance to 11 students of higher education on condition that each of them lives in the area and assists three or four school children with learning difficulties and social skills on a weekly basis.

The results have been absolutely stunning. The students have been warmly accepted by school kids and parents alike, and the improvement in school grades, behavior in school and at home has been enormous. This social progress of the children has also reflected on their families and in the neighborhood as a whole to the extent that many of the parents requested to join an ‘ulpan’ in order to learn Hebrew and increase their own involvement in wider Israeli society.

The enthusiasm of both the university students and the children they work with is amazing, so much so that the students are keen to take on more responsibilities and to dedicate additional time to the project. However, by doing so it would mean they would not be able to supplement their income by taking on other work.

From this notion ESRA came up with the idea of using the Edward & Rosemary Isaacs Fund for the purpose of providing additional finance for some of the students and enabling them to add extra hours each week to the project. And so, as the new academic year opened, all six of the students entering the project for a second year were presented with a check as a stipend to enable them to dedicate more time to their kids instead of having to look for a second or third job to pay for their studies. Three of the students received funding from the Isaacs Fund and the other three were presented with similar scholarships from other donors.

Liz Morris was invited to present the checks on behalf of ESRA’s Isaacs Fund to Malka, Elad and Naomi and a small and informal ceremony was organized in one of the student’s apartments. A magical evening ensued which restored faith in human nature and enhanced the realization that we have wonderful and dedicated youth in Israel.

In total there were seven participating students at the meeting from differing backgrounds, each one with a different story to tell. Eleanor spoke of ‘my kids’ when referring to the school children under her charge. Malka and Elad were strongly in favor of continuing with the children they had coached last year so that they could help them obtain better Bagrut results. Rivka, who is starting her 3^rd year studying law at Netanya College stressed that they were not simply assisting the kids with homework, their aim was to also give them the tools to help them achieve, both socially and academically. She wanted to take on a new set of children this year in order to spread the beneficial effect wider but insisted that if any of her former pupils needed her, the door would always be open to them as well. Naomi, herself from the Ethiopian community and studying law, believes that she sets an example to her students of what it is possible to achieve. Collectively they talked about the way they worked together as a team, exchanging ideas and in organizing activities for their children – including running a summer camp for two weeks in August.

Each of the students spoke in turn and every one of them oozed enthusiasm for their work and was anxious to be able to dedicate more time to developing their children. It was clear that their past success was the greatest motivation for deeper involvement in the project.

It is wonderful to know that Israel has such dedicated youth and it was a great privilege for the Isaacs family to be involved in this project. This is the firm belief of Jill and Liz in the certain knowledge that Rosemary and Teddy would have glowed with pride to be associated with such wonderful work and to know that their charitable fund is being put to such a fine cause with such glowing and obvious results.

Watch a short video about this project here.