Our Heritage Foundation Extends Grant Opportunity to All Lubavitch Schools
The Our Heritage Foundation was founded five years ago by the Menachem Education Foundation to fulfill the Rebbe’s vision of every single Jewish child receiving a proper Yiddishe Chinuch. The program provides matching grants of up to $30,000 to Chabad day schools to enroll new students coming from public schools.
Since its founding, Our Heritage has awarded $1,637,000 in matching grants to over 35 Chabad day schools, enabling 704 Jewish students to receive a Jewish education around the world. In the 2024-2025 school year, Our Heritage has helped 129 students transfer from public schools to over 20 Chabad day schools, across the US, France, South Africa and even Riga, Latvia.
In honor of 50 years since Mivtzah Chinuch, when the Rebbe emphasized the importance of every Jewish child receiving a proper education, Our Heritage extends the grant to the Lubavitch schools as well, to help them enroll new students who are not attending Jewish schools.
The generous offer comes together with a heartfelt plea that we work together as a community to ensure that every single child in our reach receives a proper Yiddishe Chinuch.
“In today’s world, our children deserve an education that strengthens their identity, instills pride in their heritage, and surrounds them with a community that lifts them up. A strong Jewish education is the foundation for confident, committed Jewish leaders of tomorrow,” says Mr. Alex Swieca, Chairman of the Our Heritage Program.
The Our Heritage committee shares the message that if you know of a child who needs to receive a proper Chinuch, you can reach out to your local Chabad school and have them apply for the Our Heritage grant.
For years, the Rebbe extended efforts to ensure that every Jewish child receives a Torah Chinuch, and this story, told by Mrs. Shana Tiechtel, who served as principal of Bais Rivkah High School in Crown Heights for many years, illustrates how dear this mission was to the Rebbe.
She relates how she once got a phone call on a busy Friday afternoon from her boss, Rabbi Mordechai Aizik Hodakov. At that time, many Russian immigrants were moving to Crown Heights, and when she answered the phone, he asked her how many students in Bais Rivkah did not have Kosher kitchens.
Mrs. Tiechtel answered that they all did. He then asked how many Russian immigrants there were in Crown Heights and she answered that she didn’t know, because many girls were going to a different school in another neighborhood. Rabbi Hodakov replied, “The Frierdiker Rebbe did not establish Bais Rivkah so that the Russian children who come here should go somewhere else.”
Mrs. Tiechtel shares, “The idea was that we had to have a way to accommodate the girls coming from public schools. A school needs to know what’s going on in the entire community, and be there for all the whole community. Rabbi Hodakov’s message was, ‘Do you know where your neighbor’s child is?’ He felt that the school should know about every child.”
The Rebbe also highlighted this message in a Ma’aneh to a Rav who wrote to the Rebbe about how most Chareidishe Moisdos Chinuch do not accept children from families who don’t yet keep Torah and Mitzvos. In a response, published in a Drizin and Simpson family wedding Tshura, the Rebbe responded that not accepting them is “Hepech (opposite) of Shitas Lubavitch.” In the next line the Rebbe wrote that there is actually a greater need to accept these children since it is literally a matter of Pikuach Nefesh for their Ruchnius.
In another answer, published in a Kovetz given to the participants at the Kinus Hamechanchim in Eretz Yisroel, the Rebbe wrote that this opinion aligns with the idea in Gemarah that to take something precious away from something cheap is a great matter. Therefore, these children have precedence, we must bring their precious Neshamos into the right environment.
Rabbi Aron Simon, Principal of Cheder Chabad of Dallas, Texas, saw the Rebbe’s vision of the powerful ripple effect of a Jewish education when he enrolled all of the children from a family who did not yet keep Torah and Mitzvos, with the help of the Our Heritage grant. The children are thriving at Cheder today, living a life based on Torah and Chassidus and immensely enjoying the learning.
At the end of the last school year, after months filled with learning from his amazing Rebbi and one-on-one learning to catch him up to the class, Rabbi Simon sent a video clip of one of the children diligently pointing in his Chumash, following along and reading and translating to the Our Heritage committee to thank them for transforming the lives of an entire family.
These are only a few of the 704 Jewish children who have been able to attend Jewish schools with the help of Our Heritage, which has awarded over 1.6 million dollars in grants to Chabad day schools to accept new students.
As the 5786 school year approaches, the Our Heritage program requests that each member of our community join in fulfilling the Rebbe’s vision, by thinking about the children in his or her own community who still need to enroll in a Jewish school for the coming school year. It is not enough to focus on this initiative outside of our community, but we need to put efforts with our own neighbor’s children as well.
“To make a difference, and facilitate a child’s Jewish education was so dear to the Rebbe,” Rabbi Shneur says. “There is no greater time to do it than now, and I would like to thank the schools and donors of Our Heritage for partnering, and to Alex Swieca, Chairman, for his bold initiatives that place this program front and center.”
The Our Heritage program is dedicated in loving memory of its founding sponsor, R’ Shneur Hirsch OBM.
To find out more about the Our Heritage Foundation and the students who have been impacted by it, visit Ourheritagefoundation.com
To sponsor a child’s Jewish education visit https://www.ourheritagefoundation.com/donate
