Ethiopian schoolchildren in Israel struggling to keep up with their classmates will get an extra boost thanks to a new grant from the National Council of Jewish Women, Essex County Section.

The funding will support MILIM Ofakim, a United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey project developed with Yedid, an Israeli organization whose mission is to promote social justice in the Jewish state by operating “citizen rights centers” in poor communities throughout the country. MILIM specifically seeks to improve the integration of Ethiopian children into the Israeli school system. It includes afternoon instruction for children ages four to five and programs that help children and parents bridge cultural gaps within and beyond the Ethiopian community.

The new funding comes via the national NCJW’s Yad b’Yad Initiative to Nurture Knowledge.

“This was a natural for our members,” Cathy Silverman-Belenky, executive director of the Essex County Section, said in a statement. “This project fits perfectly with our mission to help at-risk children and families in Israel and as a way to show our commitment to the MetroWest community by providing support to a program that is working to give kids a chance for a better life.”

Barbara and Dan Drench of Mountain Lakes and Natalie and Richard Peck of Essex Fells, longtime supporters of NCJW and UJC MetroWest, are underwriting a $3,000 grant from the Essex County Section. UJC MetroWest provides about $14,000 to the MILIM project, according to Amir Shacham, director of UJC MetroWest’s Israel office.

“I’m really pleased that [NCJW] is undertaking this particular project, and in particular in Ofakim, which is our UJC MetroWest community,” Barbara Drench told NJ Jewish News in a phone interview. “They could have chosen any Yad b’Yad project, but the fact that they went [there] is very meaningful.”

Silverman-Belenky was already familiar with Ofakim, a southern Israeli town connected to UJC MetroWest through the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 program. She traveled there several times as UJC MetroWest’s Israel and Overseas coordinator, a position she held five years ago. “I saw first-hand the dire socioeconomic needs of that community, and I knew they needed additional assistance.”

Silverman-Belenky got in touch with Shacham, and together they decided which program would be a good match. MILIM (Hebrew for “words”) Ofakim is based on the American Head Start model and on affirmative action programs.

“The integration of the Ethiopian community into the normative Israeli society is one of the most challenging tasks of our time,” Shacham told NJJN in an e-mail. “The support that is coming from Diaspora Jewish communities enables the Ethiopian olim to get equal opportunities, preventing them [from becoming] an underclass.”

According to Drench, past president of NCJW’s Essex County Section, there are approximately 90,000 Ethiopians living in Israel. “Those who have been successful have been very successful, but for the rest of the population, it’s been a very difficult integration. The six-year-old who comes from Ethiopia cannot go into first grade with other six-year-olds in Israel. They’re just not on the same educational level, life experience level, life awareness level. They just have so much of a different start.”

In addition to preparing Ethiopian children for school and increasing their chances for a successful academic future, MILIM also assists Ethiopian immigrant parents to become full partners in their children’s education and works to improve relationships between Ethiopian parents and their native-born Israeli children.

“The fact that NCJW decided to adopt this project will allow us to continue this holy mission and show our partners in Ofakim that the NJ community through its various organizations is with them for the long run,” said Shacham.

For more information about MILIM Ofakim, call Silverman-Belenky at 973-740-0588