Safed · Northern Israel
Raising a generation of leaders
Hasidav is an Israeli non-profit association in Safed. We teach yeshiva students, avreichim and rabbis in Northern Israel the professions of today’s labour market — and we run a gemach, a fund that lends money without interest.
01What the association does
Professional courses for yeshiva students and graduates, so that a person who has spent years in study can also earn a living. Four programmes: artificial intelligence and data, web development, financial literacy and bookkeeping, and a start-up track.
A gemach (גמ"ח) is an old institution of Jewish communal life: a fund that lends money without interest and is repaid, so that the same money can help the next person. It is not a grant and it is not charity. It is a loan made without profit.
02How it is built
None of these is a detail of scheduling. Each one is the reason a religious student from Northern Israel can attend without giving anything up.
Classes are held in the afternoon and evening so that they do not collide with the sedarim in the yeshiva. Shabbat and the festivals are never teaching days.
The teaching is done by observant Jews with working experience in Israeli technology companies. A student does not have to translate between two worlds; the mentor already lives in both.
The main language of instruction is Hebrew. For students who came from Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, teaching support is also given in Russian and Ukrainian.
A course that ends at the certificate ends too early. Graduates are helped towards actual work — preparing a CV, preparing for a technical interview, and being introduced to employers.
03Where this comes from
Hasidav is not a new beginning. It is the third organisation in one line of work whose subject has always been the same: helping people who arrived with nothing to stand on their own feet.
Founded in Prague by people who had come to work in a foreign country and were being charged eight times the real price for their own documents. Three rules: deal with the paperwork together, tell each other what an hour of work is actually worth, and share information about employers — including the warnings.
The same method carried to Israel and to a religious audience: study first, and next to it a trade that can support a family.
An Israeli amuta since 2018, working publicly under this name since 2020. Same subject, different century: Torah and hi-tech instead of trade licences and paperwork.
Were you there? If you remember G7 Prague, Academy Hidud or the first Hasidav courses, write to us. The history of these years exists today in a single written account — yours would make it more accurate.
04Transparency
Every detail on this website is taken from a public source, and every one of them links back to that source rather than asking you to take our word for it.
—For students and staff
These are internal services of the association, not part of the public site. They are listed here so that people who use them can find them.