Ono Academic College was founded in 1995 by Ranan Hartman,[3][4] son of rabbi and philosopher David Hartman,[5] with the goal of opening up the country's higher education system to populations that are perceived as marginalized.[6][7]
OAC's satellite campuses in Or Yehuda and Jerusalem offer programs geared toward the Haredi Jewish population, allowing men and women to attend classes on different days, while Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leaders attend classes together in a special joint program in law.[8] The college also has a substantial enrollment of Ethiopian-Israelis.[9][10] In the early days of the school, after Hartman was asked by the Jewish Agency to accept an Ethiopian-Israeli student to the law school, he arranged for scholarships for needy Ethiopian immigrants, and over 1,000 Ethiopian-Israeli students have graduated from the institution, including Pnina Tamano-Shata, the first Ethiopia-born woman to join the Knesset and become a government minister.[1]
In 2012, OAC opened a special track for students with Asperger syndrome that offers a bachelor's degree in business administration. The school also offers a specialized B.A. program for Druze women.[11] The Center for Academic Accessibility provides assistance to special needs students to assure that individuals with disabilities are not barred from obtaining academic degrees.[12] In 2013, the college established Ro'im Rachok, a 4-month training course which prepares young adults with autism for service in the Israel Defense Forces.[13]
In 2016, the college opened the Jonathan Wohl School of Music headed by Israel Prize laureate Noam Sheriff. At the dedication ceremony Sheriff spoke about the universal language of music and how this fit in with the goals of the college.[14]
A new multidisciplinary campus was commissioned at Savyon Junction to incorporate academic buildings, offices in 2020. Construction began in 2021. It was completed and opened in 2023.[15]
Ono Academic College and the Center for Israeli Legal Studies at Columbia Law School hosts visiting faculty from Israel, sponsors lectures and offers fellowships and exchange opportunities.[17]
In June 2017, the Shalom Comparative Legal Research Center at Ono Academic College hosted a week-long legal seminar for undergraduate students focused on labor law, intellectual property, equality, and the challenges that innovative technologies pose to the law at Yale Law School, New York University School of Law, and Fordham University School of Law.[18] In late 2017, the Shalom Comparative Legal Research Center at Ono Academic College collaborated with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva and the Swiss Center for Comparative Research in Lausanne to organize a three-day seminar on innovations in intellectual property law.[19]
Multicultural projects
In an attempt to integrate students from different population groups, the college offers a creative writing project in Arabic and Hebrew, a weekly phone-in program to establish rapport between secular and Haredi women, and a talk program led by Jewish and Muslim religious leaders to discuss ways of bridging the conflict.[1][20]
Controversy
Ono College has been criticized for its policy of gender segregation for students from the Haredi community. According to Haaretz, Jews and Arabs attend separate classes, although Arab students who are proficient in Hebrew have a choice of studying with the Jews or joining an Arab class.[21] The college has also been criticized for budgetary irregularities and inflated salaries.[22][23][24][25] In 2019, the college instituted a recovery program that reduced teaching hours, lowered hourly payments and cut administrative personnel.[26]
Notable faculty
Gabriela Shalev, rector of Ono Academic College, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations
