HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Michael Cherney Foundation is a charitable
foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cau ...
created by
Michael Cherney Michael Cherney ( he, מיכאל צ'רנוי, russian: Михаил Чёрный, also Mikhail Chernoy, Mikhail Semenovitch Chorny or Mikhail Chernoi; born 16 January 1952) is an Uzbek-born Israeli entrepreneur and industrialist. He is known for h ...
, a Russian-born Israeli entrepreneur. He defines the foundation's mission as helping democratic nations in their war on terrorism and assisting fellow émigrés to
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
from
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
and other post-Soviet nations realize their intellectual potential and become successfully integrated into the Israeli society.


History

The Foundation was born on 1 June 2001, on the night of the Palestinian
Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing On 1 June 2001, a Hamas-affiliated Islamist terrorist blew himself up outside the Dolphinarium discotheque on the beachfront in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 21 Israelis, 16 of whom were teenagers. The majority of the victims were Israeli teen ...
in
Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
. When Michael Cherney learned the number of victims – twenty-one dead and over 150 wounded – he realized that rendering assistance required a systematic organized effort.


Mission

Besides direct money grants to and paying the bills for survivors and families of the deceased, the Cherney Foundation undertook a media project that included publishing a book called ''Dolphinarium: Terror Targets the Young'', an oral history made of interviews taken by journalists Dmitry Radyshevsky and Polina Lempert with the parents who lost their children and the teenager victims themselves. The book was published in three languages (Hebrew, English, and Russian). The book was used as a basis for a documentary film, ''Empty Rooms'', also sponsored by MCF. It was directed by
Willy Lindwer Willy Lindwer (born Wolf Lindwer, 18 March 1946) is a Dutch documentary film producer, director, photographer and author. Biography Willy Lindwer was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where he studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy. ...
, an award-winning Dutch director, and produced by
David Gurevich David Gurevich is an American playwright and novelist of Russian origin. David Gurevich was born as Vyacheslav Gurevich in Kharkov, Ukraine in 1951. His father was an Air Force pilot and his mother a doctor. He was one of a few Jewish students ...
. The film played at a number of festivals and received a Silver Award at Worldfest in Houston in 2003. Subsequently, the Michael Cherney Foundation helped other terror victims, both in Israel and abroad, ranging as far as Dagestan in the Caucasus and the survivors of the infamous Beslan school terror attack. The help Cherney rendered both by cash grants and underwriting treatment – for example, MCF paid for a new wing for Beit Levenshteyn Hospital, a nationally famous rehabilitation facility. The Foundation has helped a number of Soviet-born émigrés in Israel who, for a variety of reasons, “fall through the cracks” of the system. These range from personal grants, such as the Tabakin family of nine siblings, orphaned and destitute, who resisted the attempts of social services to separate them and put them in different orphanages, to institutional ones – Israeli Veterans Union, an association of WWII Soviet Army veterans; Culture and Art Center for the Russian community in Jerusalem; “Russian and Israeli Writers for Civil Society and Against Terror", a project of the Israeli Writers Federation, and many others. A great deal of attention has been paid to youth programs, from tickets to Purim Bowl for disabled children to a boarding school for Russian children in Migdal ha-Emek and a first school for recovering Russian-born drug addicts, and many others. During the last Lebanon war the Foundation paid for hundreds of children to be evacuated south away from Hezbollah rockets. The Foundation also established grants for ex-Soviet youths in all major Israel universities, a program that has already benefited over 120 young people. The Cherney Foundation also sponsors a Jewish school, the Maimonides University, in Moscow. The Foundation pays attention to sports as well, financing youth boxing club in Safed, a soccer club in Hadera, as well as individual athletes for the Olympics. Besides ''Terror Targets the Young'', the Michael Cherney Foundation has sponsored the publication of several books, generally on Judeo-Christian subjects. Among them are ''Babylon and Jerusalem'' (Nauka, Moscow), by Jan Willem van der Hoven, the founder of
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) is a Christian Zionist organisation based in Jerusalem. History The International Christian Embassy was founded in 1980 by evangelical Christians to express their support for the State of Israe ...
, which also includes a collection of essays by Russian Orthodox church intellectuals. The Foundation also sponsors a series called ''No To Extremism: Anti-Fascist Library'', which includes a biography of
Menachem Begin Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. ...
and ''From Hell to Paradise and Back: The Jewish Question: Lenin, Stalin and Solzhenitsyn'' by Arkady Vaksberg, a prominent writer and historian who was a co-author of ''Stalin's Prosecutor: The Life of Andrei Vyshinsky''


References

{{Reflist


External links


Michael Cherney Foundation
Foundations based in Israel Jewish refugee aid organizations Organizations established in 2001