Ron's World The VERY ENTERTAINING WORLD of Ron Jacobsohn
Some people are talkers and others are doers. Orna and Itzik Levi are one of doers. After creating one of the successful jewelry houses in Israel they decided to give back and crater school where members of the Ethiopian community can learn the craft of jewelry making and also get a job to make living of it. This is the inspiring story of two people who truly understand what giving is all about.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Some people are talkers and others are doers. Orna and Itzik Levi are one of doers. After creating one of the successful jewelry houses in Israel they decided to give back and crater school where members of the Ethiopian community can learn the craft of jewelry making and also get a job to make living of it. This is the inspiring story of two people who truly understand what giving is all about.
Itzhak Levy decided to take matters into his own hands when he saw the state neglected some of the poorest communities in Israel.
Itzhak Levy, Owner, Yvel Jewelry:
The School that Orna and I established in 2010 was the second stage of giving back. What we had done was reaching out to the most vulnerable community in Israel. What we want to do is we want to create a leadership in the Ethiopian community and to turn social cases into taxpayers. In order to do so we teach them the skills to become goldsmith, diamond setters, model makers, we teach them about the country, we teach them Hebrew, we teach them to become most of all proud citizens in a country that sometimes forgets to do so and we give them really a future by giving them also the possibility, once they graduate, to become a part of the Gameria factory, they own the company, they run it, they manufacture their own jewelry and with these sales they can really fund their own salaries and hopefully fund also the school activities, so they help us in order for us to be able to help them, it’s a partnership.
When Gennett Admasu came on-board to manage the school she was nothing less than amazed by the initiative.
Gennett Admasu, Manager, Yvel School:
This project really amazed me, and the whole idea was that of Itzhak and Orna, to take a weaken population that are New immigrants in the country, and to give them a profession with which they can make a living with dignity, and I was so impressed by this that I didn’t even raise the salary issue, saying that I will take the job’ and really when I first came I got the job it was part-time job, I came and I worked with the previous class of students, I was really amazed and I enjoyed my position and I kept going and now I work a fulltime job and I’m having a great time, I really enjoy it.
For Gameria graduate, Shimi Desaleah, who has been in Israel for 9-years and struggling to make ends-meet, learning a craft he can make a living off was not only a financial breakthrough but more than that it was gaining back his self-confidence he has lost when he immigrated to Israel.
Shimi Desaleah, Graduate, Yvel School:
I used to work at Berman Bakery, and it was a good job but very hard, it paid well but I had no profession, I had nothing and it was hard physical work. I was told; Go to Yvel, learn a profession, do work not by muscle force but work with the brain. It was difficult in school but eventually I made it and got a diploma. I’m excited, because previously I had no Hebrew skills, no nothing, and no profession but now I got a profession and I have a job.
Levy who has immigrated to Israel exactly 50-years ago, truly feels today he has managed to do something to help others not go through the tough times his family has suffered when they first moved to Israel.
Itzhik Levy, Owner, Yvel Jewelry:
I, personally, was born in Argentina, I was born in Buenos Aires and we moved as a family in 1963 to Jerusalem. It was a really pretty bad childhood. When Orna and I had established Yvel and built it up our goal was always to hire only Jewish immigrants and that’s what we did. It’s a Zionist social business more than anything else.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
And the Gamberia success story is expanding, now that businessman and philanthropist, Stef Wertheimer, has decided to join forces with the Levi’s to create a branch for their school also in The Galilee. For JN1 I am Ron Jacobsohn at the Yvel Headquarters in Motza, by Jerusalem.
