The Yael Foundation sees education as a long-term social contribution and new opportunities for children
November 3, 2026 • Sponsored
Some of what a child gains at school is visible by the end of the term, and some of it only becomes clear much later. Access to learning and the knowledge kids gain matter today, while their full value for a child’s development may only show up years later. That’s the lens Uri Poliavich, co-founder of the Yael Foundation, brings to supporting education. His philanthropic initiatives focus on creating learning opportunities whose results are worth looking at over a much longer stretch than a single school year.
Education as the core of Uri Poliavich’s philanthropy
Education is one of the main areas Uri Poliavich supports through his philanthropic work. A four-year-old in kindergarten and a teenager in high school need very different things from their teachers. Supporting education well means keeping both in mind and making sure a child who finishes one stage has somewhere to go next. Uri Poliavich pays particular attention to Jewish education for children in different countries. For him, a seat in a classroom is only part of it. Kids also need a place where their history and traditions are part of everyday learning. This direction took practical shape when the entrepreneur helped create the Yael Foundation, which works across a range of learning formats.
Supporting Jewish children through the Yael Foundation
The Yael Foundation, which Uri Poliavich co-founded in 2020, supports education initiatives for Jewish children in many countries. The organization’s work spans 48 countries and 145 institutions, with more than 29,000 children taking part in its programs.
- Kindergartens. Early learning and a child’s first experience of a school setting.
- Day schools. Regular classes that follow the school curriculum.
- Sunday schools. Extra classes, including Jewish history, culture, and traditions.
- Special education. Learning initiatives for children with special educational needs.
- Informal programs. Activities and group events outside the regular school schedule, including through Yael Camp.
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Families can pick the format that suits their child: a kindergarten for a toddler, Sunday school for a kid who already attends a regular school, or camp during the summer break. Having all of these options under one foundation means a child doesn’t have to start over at each new stage. That continuity is what turns separate classes into a long-term investment in education.
Identity-Centered Education in Practice
Children in the Yael Foundation’s programs learn Jewish history, traditions, and culture as part of their regular studies, not as a separate add-on. Uri Poliavich, who co-founded the foundation, sees this as central to the approach. Leadership skills and time with peers get just as much attention as lessons. Uri Poliavich supports this model because its results don’t end with graduation: kids who know their community’s culture tend to stay connected to it as adults.
Some things are easier to learn outside a classroom. That’s the idea behind Yael Camp, where Jewish traditions are part of daily camp life rather than a separate lesson. In this setting, kids can practice working as a team, take responsibility for specific tasks, and show initiative. By supporting this format, Uri Poliavich helps create extra room for building skills that stay useful to children long after the program ends.
What children learn often makes its way into family conversations. Learning about Jewish holidays, history, and customs gives kids a reason to turn to the experience of their parents and grandparents. In this way, classes can add to the way families pass down traditions without replacing it. Uri Poliavich’s support for these programs opens up more ways to preserve cultural knowledge that stays relevant well after the school years.
Education as a Way to Expand Opportunities for the Next Generation
For Uri Poliavich, supporting education is about creating opportunities children can use later on. Learning gives them knowledge and skills that can become the basis for their future growth, but you can’t measure that result just by the number of classes or participants. Those figures show the scale of the work, while its long-term value shows up in whether kids continue their education and put what they’ve learned to use. Seen this way, the education initiatives Uri Poliavich supports work as a social investment whose results reach well beyond the current school year.
- The long-term value of education programs can be viewed on several levels:
- Access to learning. The number of children in the programs reflects the scale of educational support.
- Knowledge and skills. Learning outcomes show what participants actually take away from their classes.
- Further education. Whether kids keep studying can be one sign of how they use the preparation they received.
- Using knowledge later in life. How children apply what they’ve learned outside school shows the broader value of their education.
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The quality of a program depends on the people running it. Teachers and organizers decide what happens in class every day, so they matter as much as the program itself. Uri Poliavich has long built his management style around finding the right people and then trusting them to do their work. In education, that trust makes a lot of sense. A teacher who sees the same students week after week knows sooner than anyone when a lesson needs adjustment, and a different method is worth trying.
How Education Shapes Communities Over Time
A school is rarely just a place for kids. Parents come to holiday events, meet with teachers, and help out with school projects, and over time they get to know one another. The education initiatives Uri Poliavich supports have this effect too. Families who first met at a kindergarten drop-off often end up organizing things together for the wider community.
The long-term value of investing in education also lies in passing knowledge and experience on to the next generation. Children who take part in learning programs today may later use that preparation in their careers and in community life. For the education initiatives Uri Poliavich supports, this outlook is an important part of their potential value to society. At the same time, the real impact of these programs on communities can only be measured with data on their results collected over a long period.
Uri Poliavich’s work in education shows how supporting learning can serve several goals at once: making education available, passing on cultural knowledge, and creating opportunities for children’s future growth. Through the Yael Foundation, Uri Poliavich supports a range of learning formats whose value goes beyond the number of participants or classes held. That’s the long-term nature of this kind of investment: the effort goes into learning today, while some of the results only become visible over time. For Uri Poliavich, education remains an area of support focused not only on children’s current needs but also on the opportunities ahead of them.
Featured image courtesy of the Yael Foundation
