Mechinat Avner Akko

"Mechinat Avner" Pre-I.D.F. Academy was founded in 2014 in the center of the city of Acre, with the mayor's blessing and with great hopes to bring about a significant positive change in one of the most challenging socio-economic and demographic areas.

We believe that one of the most dramatic Zionist-Jewish tasks today is addressing the Western Galilee.

It was therefore decided to establish an educational institution, to operate a community involvement and volunteering system, to contribute to the settlement of the Galilee, and to fulfill the duty of IDF service in the best possible way.

The founder of "Mechinat Avner" is Rabbi Achikam Getz, and it is named after his uncle, Avner Getz, who immigrated with his family from Tunis in 1949, and was killed in the Six Day War in the battle to liberate the Western Wall.

Dozens of young men, after graduating from high school and prior to their IDF recruitment, take part in a one-and-a-half-year training program of studying in a Beit Midrash. These young men, and the educational staff which accompanies them, live in rented apartments across the city in good neighborly relations with the Muslim population. Joined by graduates and other members, they form a community that we have established with the purpose of being socially  active for the community, changing things for the better and making the city center of Acre and the Galilee inhabited and blooming.

Apart of studying in the Beit Midrash, the training program includes also social entrepreneurship and community involvement, values-based individual practice, the acquisition of visionary skills and committing to the idea of ​​volunteering and doing good as required in the Israeli reality in general, and in the Galilee in particular.

After the training period, the young men are recruited for a significant service in the IDF, and as they are discharged from military service, they return to the city to integrate into the community that we have established in the city center of Acre, engaging with community involvement and volunteering as a way of life.

Among other social initiatives that we are part of, you will find, for example, the plan for integration of people with disabilities and autism in the program as part of a general plan to "reshape the opinion" of the public, to understand that people with disabilities can integrate in society just like others. As one of the mothers wrote to us: "Until my son came to the Mechinat Avner, he was the one who was different and exceptional everywhere, in Mechinat Avner Akko, it is the first time that he is equal among equals."

The students and members of our community are members of a "task force" that provides a quick response to address issues and matters that arise in the area, which the municipality and the bureaucratic system fail to address. For example, helping the elderly when moving, hosting youth in crisis until reaching a suitable framework, members who volunteer in MDA (Magen David Adom), and more.

We participate in a "Food Distribution" project and the students go every week to pack meals and distribute them to needy families with a vehicle that we hold especially for this purpose.

We volunteer regularly at several social child care centers in the city and help children and youth in the afternoon to narrow educational and knowledge gaps.

We volunteer in one of the city's elementary schools, where our students serve as "older brothers" for children who need a role model.

We initiate two new social initiatives for community involvement: "A respectful shop for the needy population" and "Volunteering Community System".

The above are few examples of how we fulfil our principle - to be a volunteer community believing in our ability and obligation to act for the repair of the world.

Led by the guidelines of our principle, there are five other focal points to our activities and volunteering operations:

Studying in the Beit Midrash and maintaining an extraordinary educational institution.

Establishing an involved volunteer community in the center of Acre in the Galilee.

Maintaining a social entrepreneurship system in the community.

Helping our graduates to fulfil the most effective IDF service.

Learn to live together Muslims and Jews and establish a community together with the graduates.

Mechinat Avner akko

Western Galilee Israel​

Mechinat Avner Pre-I.D.F. Academy was founded in 2014 in the center of the city of Acre, with the mayor's blessing and with great hopes to bring about a significant positive change in one of the most challenging socio-economic and demographic areas.

We believe that one of the most dramatic Zionist-Jewish tasks today is addressing the Western Galilee.