Visionaries
Administrator: This page links to the Visionaries page on the ORT America website. The alternative text below will be shown if you remove the link in the Redirect section below.
by Lynn M. Leeb, National Chair for Communications and Marketing (Click image to enlarge)
The world has always been filled with dreamers and visionaries – from early man to the Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution, the Space Age and the Information Technology Revolution – humanity has always strived and struggled to advance and find a better way.
The ORT dream began in 1880 when three wealthy Russians petitioned Czar Alexander II to establish a fund to help needy Jews. They envisioned a better life for their fellow Jews, through education in productive occupations that would allow them to escape poverty and survive with a sense of independence and dignity. And so ORT was born, and this fundamental founding principle has guided and underpinned ORT for 130 years of needs, responses and successes.
What 1880’s dreamer – what visionary – could have imagined a global network that would post so many singular accomplishments? (View ORT Accomplishments in Sunburst above.) But ORT’s history is told not just with facts and figures. ORT’s history is full of people, people who are predominantly Jewish, who are real, full of fears, frustrations, hopes and dreams, just like all of us. ORT people just happen to be students – and ORT has a unique definition for the word “student.”ORT students are men, women, boys and girls. The gifted student and the slow learner. The only child and the child from a large family. The persecuted. The motionally traumatized. The displaced and uprooted. The healthy and thebedridden. They all share a common bond as part of the hundreds of thousands of people who passed or are passing through ORT doors.
Relevancy is the soul of survival – the secret of ORT’s success.
ORT’s strength is its ability to adapt, and to move quickly as circumstances, politics and economics change, and to follow its people through migrations, expulsions, and emigration to the far reaches of the world.
ORT was always there, always ready to make a difference, always envisioning what was needed in that time and place, and reacting appropriately and effectively. So it was that visions became realities, and the dreams of three million Jews have been realized.
ORT at 130 years, creating tomorrow, today.
The challenge for ORT now is to assure these tomorrows continue – that its list of amazing accomplishments and “firsts” keeps increasing. And now it is ORT America’s supporters who must become the visionaries – to dream the impossible, to envision what can be done with the proper resources.
As part of this historical legacy, ORT America members are being called upon to continue the work of previous generations and to take this proud record of achievement to even higher levels.
ORT America, as the largest private contributor to World ORT, holds the key to the future.
In recognition of this special anniversary year, members able to increase their previous gift by any level will be honored as ORT Visionaries and listed on a special 130th Anniversary Scroll of Honor, proudly displayed on ORT America’s web site and through its national office.
Theodore Herzl once said, “If you will it, it is no dream.” Three Russians with a social conscience willed a program that would eventually become a global network that today stands proudly as the second oldest organization in the world serving the Jewish people.
And the dreams continue. . .
