‘Education is answer to division’, Parliament is told as Israel’s Open University launches British group

The Open University of Israel has launched a British group to help raise awareness about its effort to educate the country's diverse and complex population. The British Friends of the Open University of Israel was launched at the House of Lords on Tuesday. Lord Kestenbaum, chief operating officer at RIT Capital Partners PLC, was announced as the group’s first chairman. He welcomed 50 guests to the event and said he was honoured to take on the role, which would involve raising funds for Israel’s largest university, set up by the Rothschild family. Dorit Beinisch, chancellor of the university and the first women to serve as president of the Supreme Court of Israel, said: “It is the only university which allows everyone to enrol without any demands, enabling others to have access to higher education.” The university provides courses and training for a diverse student base, including Charedi men and Arab Muslim women, with single-sex classrooms arranged for both groups. Ms Beinisch said: “Israel is a complex and pluralistic society. We have many ideological groups and many economic and social gaps within a divided population. Education is an answer to this.” She told guests including Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to Britain, that while the country “may be proud of its achievements, it cannot take this for granted. “I believe the answer to our problems is to enable education for all walks of society, including underprivileged groups. “Without access to education they won’t be able to integrate.” She added it brought “tears” to her eyes to witness Arabs and refugees from Ethiopia and Russia take part in graduation ceremonies. A spokesperson for the new group said: “We want to widen the knowledge of the university within Britain and to raise funds. “I think it is something that is very necessary for the Jewish community to be involved with and know about. “We hear such a lot about the success of Israel but there is a lot of Israel that is more modest, which is why it is important and meaningful for British Jews to support it and encourage its development.”