18/10/2019
Gila Katz, beloved teacher and long-time director of Midreshet Yerushalayim, Schechter’s flagship program in Ukraine, is retiring after devoting close to thirty years to building Jewish education in the former Soviet Union. Rabbi Irina Gritsevskaya is now leading Midreshet Yerushalyaim and Midreshet Schechter, the network of Schechter beit midrash study groups throughout Israel.
Born in Chernowitz, Ukraine to a family that survived the Holocaust, Gila was active in the Jewish-Zionist underground movement in the city in the 1980s. With the fall of Communism in 1990, Gila connected with Midreshet Yerushalayim to establish a number of groundbreaking projects including a TALI school in Chernowitz in 1991 and the first Ramah Camp in Ukraine in 1992, which to this day provides an unparalleled Jewish camping experience.
In 1997, Gila made aliyah and continued her involvement with Jewish education in Ukraine from Jerusalem. A generation of Ukrainian-Jewish youth count her as their mentor, teacher and friend. Gila was recently profiled in a featured Jerusalem Post article.
Learn more about her amazing story published in Jerusalem Post on November, 20 2019.
