Journal of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center
No.16, Spring  2008


 

THE RINA AND JOEL SARRAF SCHOLARSHIP FUND

 

 

Distribution of scholarships: (L. to R.) Prof I. Rabinowitz, Mr. J. and Mrs. R. Sarraf, Mr. E. Amir, Mr. Y. Navon

In May, 2005 Rina and Joel Sarraf established a special fund associated with Tel-Aviv University, which will annually distribute scholarships to the value of $33,000 to students of Iraqi origin. Certainly this is an initiative which other Iraqi Jews would do well to emulate.

Joel Sarraf, who divides his time between Miami, Florida and Herzliyya Pituah, explains that the scholarships are intended for students who are Israeli citizens, have done military service, and come from low-income families.

The President of Tel-Aviv University, Prof. Itamar Rabinowitz, in his address at the Fund’s opening ceremony, said: “I have been fortunate to make the acquaintance of Rina and Joel Sarraf. I found them to be a wonderful family whose aim is to help others, including their own family: all their nephews and nieces who graduated college did so with their financial help”.

Israel’s fifth President, Yitzhak Navon, who has been involved in the Sarraf family’s generous project in Israel and abroad, explained that the fund is a truly great project which provides real help.

Anat Lev, one of their nieces, spoke in the name of numerous family members as she addressed her uncle Joel and his wife Rina: “We are twenty-three cousins. Most of us were able to study thanks to the family fund you set up a few years ago. Another thirty family members will have their tuition paid by you. We who have received these scholarships have in return made a promise to be active in social affairs. For what you have done for us I would like to thank you on my own behalf and also for all of my cousins”.

The writer Eli Amir who gave the main speech at the ceremony, on “Iraq”, said: “Iraq is the only country in the world where young people were hanged just because they were Zionists. The greatness of Iraqi Jewry was that it read the political map correctly, organized itself in time, and immigrated to Israel. … Iraqi Jews here have continued the tradition they had already founded in Iraq: to do everything they could to provide education. Rina and Joel have provided support for this tradition by setting up the special scholarship fund; for this we would like to thank them”.

Joel did not hide his joy: “Today I had the good fortune to be able, together with my family, to set up a fund during my own lifetime and so to become a partner, however minor, to the younger generation, the future of our people. I swore, in the days when I was still unemployed, that when I am better off I shall do my best to contribute to others. I’m glad that my wife Rina, myself and other family members can do this today on behalf of the education of future generations, here at Tel-Aviv University”.