Degel Menashe Announces 2023 Scholarship Awards
Updated: Dec 31, 2023
(December 8, 2022) The names of Degel Menashe’s 2023 scholarship winners were announced this week. Twenty-one recipients will share IS75,000 in award money averaging 30 to 50 percent of their tuition fees for the year.
The winners come from all over Israel, from Kiryat Arba, Nitzan, and Sderot in the south to Afula and Yesud Hama’ala in the north. They range in age from 37-year-old Arbi Hnamte, who is starting her last year of nursing school at the Hebrew University, to 11-year-old Dan Haokip (see last week’s Website article “Helping A Star to Be Born”), who trains at football with the junior youth team of Hapoel Jerusalem. They are planning for careers in such diverse fields as education, molecular biology, interior design, statistics, health management, and traditional Chinese medicine. Two are studying full stack development, which involves the application of computer technologies to commercial projects. Some were born in Israel, others came from India with their families at a young age, others have arrived in the last decade. All of them B’nei Menashe, they are a diverse group.
Their scholarships will be a great help to them. “I’m now starting my first year as a B.A. student in economics and business administration at Ariel University,” wrote Shoshana Menashe on her application form. “Because it’s far from where my parents live, I have to take a room in the dormitories, for which they pay. But they’re trying to save money to buy a home of their own and I can’t ask them for more, and so the tuition is up to me. It’s hard to have to work to earn the money for it while studying at the same time, which is why I’ve asked for financial assistance.”
Many of the scholarship winners feel that they are being enabled to fulfill an ambition that might otherwise be beyond their means. “My parents came to Israel in 1999,” wrote Simcha Chenkual, “and ever since I was small, the desire to study and contribute to Israeli society has been an important part of me. This year, I’ll be starting the Open University in Haifa, where I’ll major in psychology and education for those with learning disabilities. I have three younger brothers, and I hope our generation will be the first in our family to have the opportunity for academic study. A scholarship that will pay for part of my tuition will help me to make my dream come true.”
Yael Lunkhel, who is studying at Shenkar College in Tel Aviv, spelled her dream out more poetically. She wrote:
“I’m now on my way to obtaining a B.A. degree in industrial design and material engineering. This involves courses in math, chemistry, physics, and art. Everything in this world is made of something, and it will be my job to use these materials for both my personal vision and the products I design. For me, industrial design is like a magic show: matter from different spheres is taken and combined to make something new, which is revealed at the end when the magician removes his cloak in front of an amazed audience. Yet the magician knows that it’s not magic but a dance of science with creativity.
“When I think of myself at the end of my studies, I imagine being able to make the world a better place with my knowledge and skills. At the age of 24, I’ve finally taken the plunge and gotten down to fulfilling myself.”
Degel Menashe wishes all our scholarship winners a year of learning and achievement!