Presidential visit

On 1 September the new building of the New Dvir Waldorf School for Special Needs was festively opened by Israel’s President, Reuven Rivlin.

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The New Dvir School had grown and needed a new building. Once a building had been found and renovated, it was opened by Jerusalem’s mayor Moshe Leon and Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin. During the celebration Reuben Shaliv’s book «Special Needs Education» was handed over to the President. Reuven Rivlin quoted Rudolf Steiner’s concept of the «art of education», in which he recognized Steiner’s search for innovative forms of learning and educating that harmonized with the reformed Jerusalem education system that encompasses a hundred schools, including New Dvir.

The New Dvir school was founded in 1997 on the initiative of parents of children with special needs, followed in 2001 by the foundation of a Kindergarten, Ofek. Eventually both institutions were in such high demand that they merged into the New Dvir School in 2004, which has since then been under the patronage of the city of Jerusalem and the ministry of education. Around three years ago, a pedagogical cooperation started with the nearby Seligsberg secondary school, and the New Dvir school has now moved to their premises.

New Dvir is a multicultural school for children from the city and beyond, whatever their family’s orientation: religious, secular, Arab, ultra-orthodox or anthroposophical. The 28 students who are between 6 and 21 years old are spread across five classes.

Israel has 28 Waldorf elementary and seven secondary schools with 7000 students all in all.

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