The Jewish community in Rome plans to significantly expand and improve its school, subsidize tuition and shore up its finances through a “once in a lifetime” €25 million ($27.6 million) initiative that has mostly been funded by the Lauder Foundation and the Yael Foundation, the president of community, Victor Fadlun, told eJewishPhilanthropy.

In total, the two foundations pledged €14 million ($15.5 million) toward the project. This represents the first major collaboration between the Yael and Lauder foundations, both of which support Jewish schools and education initiatives around the world, and the two organizations added that there will be more partnerships to come. 

“I have been waiting decades to partner with people like Uri and Yael [Poliavich, the founders of the Yael Foundation], and this partnership represents the best news for Jewish schools in Europe over the past 20 years,” Ronald Lauder said in the statement. 

Uri Poliavich added that the partnership with the Lauder Foundation “is especially vital as parents and children are seeking out Jewish educational alternatives due to rising Antisemitism. Jewish schools need to become centers of excellence, competing with the best non-Jewish schools in their countries or regions, to attract students who will become tomorrow’s Jewish leaders.”

According to Fadlun, the plan has three main components: the purchase of an abandoned school building, the renovation of another and renting out a third in order to provide a steady income stream to the community.

“We are planning to make a gentle revolution in the didactic sector of the community, in our schools,” he said. “It’s a project that I can define as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The effort has been in the works for roughly a year and a half, according to Fadlun. “But this has been in our dreams for 20 years,” he added, stressing that he is “so happy and grateful” to the Yael and Lauder foundations.

The Scuole Ebraiche di Roma (Hebrew School of Rome) — one of the largest Jewish schools in Europe — currently operates out of two buildings in Rome, the main building within the city’s Jewish ghetto and a second building outside the ghetto that houses the kindergarten. In total, the school educates roughly 1,000 pupils from kindergarten through high school. Under the new plan, the Jewish community will purchase an abandoned, derelict building located adjacent to the ghetto from the Roman municipality. 

Fadlun said the municipality was charging the community relatively little for the building, which has been abandoned for 30 years, because it is being used “for a social purpose.” He added that this building has Jewish history, as it previously housed a public school that many Jewish children attended. 

The community will renovate that building, which will become the high school, as well as the existing schoolhouse in the ghetto. 

The kindergarten building will be rented out, which Fadlun, a real estate investor by profession, said the community expects will bring in roughly €800,000 ($883,000) each year. “That will ensure cash flow every year to manage the school,” he said.

With the additional space from the new building, the community will be able to increase the number of students by approximately 25%, Fadlun said. He added that the revenue from renting the kindergarten will also allow the school to subsidize the tuition of additional students. 

Fadlun said all of this made the plan a “very good investment” for philanthropists. “We believe this renovation is the project of a century, and are incredibly honored to be part of it,” Lauder said in a statement. 

According to Fadlun, the Lauder Foundation became involved with the project first and the Yael Foundation came on board this summer. 

The Yael Foundation, which launched in 2020 and supported a smattering of Jewish education initiatives around the world, has brought on new leadership in the past year and increased its budget to refocus the organization’s efforts. The foundation has also recently launched a training program for Jewish day school principals from around the world and announced plans to fund the construction of a new Jewish school in Cyprus. 

“Growing up in an area that lacked such educational opportunities, I feel personally compelled to ensure Jewish children have access to exceptional Jewish learning,” Poliavich said in a statement. “Together with our partner, the Lauder Foundation, this project represents just one of the many we’re going to embark on to support Jewish education across Europe.”

In a joint statement, the organizations said that they had “already potentially identified a few more projects involving the building of new Jewish schools in locations where none had previously existed.”

Fadlun said he was sure that the community would raise the remaining €11 million. He said the community was already in talks with additional foundations and private donors, both international ones and from the local Jewish community, but welcomed others who were interested to reach out. 

“We already have about 60% of the funding, so we are very confident. Some of the money will come from within the Jewish community,” he said. “There is a lot of enthusiasm about this project.”