A shining example

Boys Town Jerusalem combines Torah and technology for synergistic education. Its latest project is 50 square meters of solar panels.

By SHARON UDASIN
Boys Town Jerusalem Solar Panels 52I (photo credit: Sharon Udasin )
Boys Town Jerusalem Solar Panels 52I
(photo credit: Sharon Udasin )
On the fourth floor of a 63-year-old Jerusalem educational legacy is a concrete spiral staircase leading up to an aging roof lined with 50 square meters’ worth of new photovoltaic solar panels.
The new solar system lines the roof of Boys Town Jerusalem, a private vocational yeshiva in Bayit Vagan established by Rabbi Alexander Linchner in 1949. The yeshiva aims to foster technological expertise among its students, who are trained in computer science, applied engineering and other skills that might be instrumental in their careers, which frequently begin in the army or air force.
Yoni Strimber, international development executive, says that after three years of pressing the the municipality and the government to acquire the right permits, the school was finally able to build its rooftop solar field in June, already connecting it to the Israel Electric Corporation’s grid by July and soon providing a new laboratory for some of the Boys Town students.
“The solar roof offers a perfect, pragmatic and shining message, if you will, to our students of how technology can be applied to enhance our environment and our lives,” says Strimber.
Through the hundreds of panels fitted on 500 square meters of the roof, the school generates about 40 kilowatts of electricity per hour, equivalent to about one-third of the school’s hourly energy consumption. But it is sold directly to the IEC for a feedin tariff, says school electrician David Darshan.
By selling the solar electricity to the electricity company, Boys Town is able to save about NIS 12,000, or about 22 percent of the school’s monthly electricity bill, CEO Natan Tal explains.
To date, Boys Town has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by more than 13,000 kilograms, says Strimber.
School officials – and soon students – will be able to monitor the system’s solar output by logging into a computer program that documents production over the Internet with a two-hour delay.
“We know exactly what we’re saving money-wise and carbon emissions-wise,” says Strimber.
The school is a nucleus for students from many different ethnicities and economic strata and has special tracks for boys from France and Ukraine, as well as a large group of native Israelis from Ethiopian immigrant families and a range of other Israeli boys interested in technology.
“We were here when this was no-man’s land, when Jordan was fire bombing us,” says Strimber.
Walking through the halls, one can hear a mélange of Hebrew, Amharic, French and Ukrainian, all of which mix together in the dormitories or on the basketball courts. But French students, who take part in a French-language program called Na’aleh Tzion, study in one wing of the school, and Ukrainians in the Or-dessa program also have their own section of the building.
“It is a Ukrainian program that operates here with the Zionist goal of hoping that they will come here to live,” Strimber explains, adding of the French program, “The hope is that the parents will follow. Boys Town is part of the big melting pot of Israel.”
The majority of the student body is Israeli-born, with only about one-quarter of this segment living on campus – about 400 students live in the dormitories. The boys range from secular to haredi, though they all take part in religious studies. Boys can study at the school from seventh through “14th grade,” as Strimber calls it – a two-year technical college experience to prepare them for specific jobs in the air force or army.
“We always try to pioneer in certain fields, to show leadership in industry and technology,” says Eddie Wolf, the head of public relations and employee of the school for more than 30 years.
He emphasizes that the army is receiving fully trained men in their units. “They know exactly where they will apply their studies, to which unit in the army. They save a lot of hours of military duty to have these men going directly to their jobs.”
Covering the school roof in solar panels was actually Wolf’s vision. Once decided upon, it required several years of battling with the municipality and the electric company to get the necessary permits, he says.
Wolf and Strimber are pushing for the robotics group in the school to create a robotic panel cleaner as part of their class projects this year.
The college-level applied engineering program will likely be assigning one of its students to construct a model for a tracking device that can harness the sun’s light according to its direction at different points in the day, says Wolf.
Financing for the rooftop solar system comes from the American Friends of Boys Town Jerusalem in New Jersey, which raises funds for about half of the school’s $8 million budget.
The solar panels join a wide range of other technological projects that the boys participate in annually. This includes the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Israel LEGO League competition, which is creating a pilot system for Egged bus drivers to be able to see through their blind spots, and participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
There are currently 50 students between the ages of 12 and 15 in the school’s robotics program. One of its successful projects is a device that warns hearing-impaired pedestrians in Jerusalem when the light rail is approaching.
“When the device the person is wearing senses the light rail, it will vibrate and then signal to him to move away,” says Strimber.
Other recent projects have included building a robotic seeingeye dog to help the blind cross streets, as well as a robot that is operated by hand gestures.
Strimber stresses that although the boys are constantly honing their technological know-how, they are equally immersed in Torah studies.
“Our decision to install the solar power center is a perfect example of the synergy,” he says. “When our school was founded in 1949, we pioneered an education system that combined Torah and technology. In the same spirit, we’re pioneering this project today as an educational institution using advanced solar power technology to produce clean energy, in keeping with the Jewish precepts of respecting and protecting our environment.” •