The World ORT Times
Autumn 2000

A Dream becomes reality

Adapting to change

One hundred and twenty years have passed since the birth of ORT.

While the organisation's history officially began in 1880, the story of ORT began long before with a series of events at the end of the eighteenth century.

With the Edict of Catherine II on December 23, 1791, condemning Jewish merchants from Moscow who were "ruining non-Jewish businesses", Jewish people were sent away from the cities to live in the Pale of Settlement. The founding of ORT was to become an imperative.

The founders

ORT was founded by a small group of visionaries to assist Russian Jews living in poverty and oppression without the means of supporting themselves.

The founders were businessmen, scientists, lawyers and Jewish intellectuals, who understood that the only escape from this distress, toward economic and spiritual independence, was not social assistance, not soup kitchens, nor government or community charity.

Their understanding of this led to helping the people to acquire the education and skills needed to find decent jobs, to earn decent salaries, and to live with their families as proud members of the community. This way of thinking was revolutionary for the Jewish population of Russia in those days.

de Gunzburg's legacy

For 40 years. Baron Horace de Gunzburg headed the Jewish community of St. Petersburg and a society for the promotion of education.

But most of all, he was known for his charitable work.

Baron de Gunzburg wrote:
"During my lifetime I have made large donations to charities and therefore I will not bequeath money superficially." He wrote these words in the hope that his children would follow in the traditions of the family, and the whole of the Jewish people by pursuing charitable causes.

These words proved to be prophetic, as de Gunzburg's descendants have taken an active part in charities to this day.

His descendants have continued his philanthropic work in Europe, the United States of America and more recently the de Gunzburg ORT Technology Centre in St Petersburg, Russia, which was inaugurated in 1985.

During the first week of June 2000 Jean de Gunzburg, a direct descendant of the Baron, welcomed delegates to the World ORT International Mission to St. Petersburg.

"One-hundred and twenty years after its foundation, thanks to WO and all of its contributors who expend their effort and talent, ORT has become an example in education worldwide, for Jews as well as non-Jews," Jean de Gunzburg, co-chairperson of the mission said of the effort put forth which has made 120 years a reality.

"But", he continued, "the need for education and training is now more apparent than ever before."

"Education of all of our children, both in the spiritual and the intellectual dimension, remains a challenge and a basis for the future," he said.