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February 1, 2002/19 Shevat 5762, Vol. 54, No. 20
Gray to spread message of Boys Town Jerusalem
BARRY COHEN
Editor
Rabbi Ronald Gray
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Rabbi Ronald Gray first had contact with the Boys Town Jerusalem school during his sabbatical year in Israel in 1983. He lived in the same neighborhood and visited the school out of curiosity.
One year later, he left his congregational pulpit in Indianapolis and became executive vice president of the New York office of Boys Town Jerusalem, where he has since remained.
"I fell in love with Boys Town well before I got involved with them professionally," he says.
Gray will speak Feb. 17 at Har Zion Congregation in Scottsdale to publicize the importance of Boys Town Jerusalem and to meet with the organization's financial supporters.
During his sabbatical year, Gray says he learned about the driving mission of Boys Town Jerusalem - an academic institution providing a comprehensive education for disadvantaged Israeli and immigrant boys - from students and from its founder Rabbi Alexander Linchner, who passed away in 1997 at the age of 89.
"Above and beyond an outstanding education, what sets Boys Town apart is the value system the kids are imbued with," remarks Gray. "The hallmark of Boys Town is that it turns young boys from disadvantaged backgrounds into young men with limitless futures."
Gray explains that Linchner founded Boys Town Jerusalem in 1948 as a reaction to the Holocaust. According to Gray, after Linchner learned that one and a half million Jewish children had been killed by the Nazis, he decided to move to Israel to start a school for orphans and immigrant children that would provide a quality three-fold education of academic, vocational and Jewish studies.
Currently, the school, housed on an 18-acre campus in Jerusalem's Bayit Vegan neighborhood, has 1,000 students, ranging from junior high school to junior college.
Gray says he will devote part of his Feb. 17 talk to a man who lived the ideals of Boys Town of Jerusalem, Jan Zwartendijk, a Holocaust hero who risked his life to save nearly 3,000 Jews.
In the summer of 1940, Zwartendijk, honorary Dutch Counsel in Kovno, Lithuania, wrote visas for Jews to gain entry to the Dutch Island of Curacao, explains Gray.
During his lecture, Gray will be accompanied by Tucson resident Jan Zwartendijk, Jr., one of the children of Jan Zwartendijk.
For the past 17 years, Gray says he has worked to spread the importance of Boys Town Jerusalem, a school that exemplifies a well-rounded education and teaches the need to treat humanity fairly and ethically.
The primary function of the Boys Town Jerusalem New York office is to raise funds for the school, Gray says. Boys Town Jerusalem also has offices in Toronto and London, as well as stateside in Philadelphia and Delray Beach, Fla.
Gray, a 1970 graduate of Yeshiva University, says though he is no longer a congregational rabbi, through Boys Town Jerusalem, he now serves a "congregation without walls."
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Details
What: Boys Town Jerusalem lecture
Who: Rabbi Ronald Gray
When: 9:30-11:30 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 17
Where: Har Zion Congregation, 6140 E. Thunderbird Road, Phoenix
Cost: free
Call: 480-991-0720
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