| Three hundred
miles southeast of Prague, on the banks of the River Danube, lies
Bratislava, the bustling capital of the Republic of Slovakia. Here,
the city's 2,000 Jews are reclaiming Jewish life, and here, too, The
Ronald S. Lauder Foundation is an important part of the process.
 The
Lauder Gan Menachem Kindergarten in Bratislava, Slovakia
In 1995, The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation established The Lauder
Gan Menachem Kindergarten in Bratislava, an innovative program
where children study and play using the Hebrew, Slovak and English
languages. Each new school year brings a steady increase in the
size of the student body at the kindergarten as more and more young
Jewish parents come forward to identify with their heritage and
seek to provide their children with a strong Jewish education.
The goal of
The Lauder Gan Menachem Kindergarten is to educate the parents
simultaneously with, and through, their children, and we have therefore
put a strong emphasis on parent participation and involvement in
our holiday programs. Parents came with their children to a celebration
for Rosh Hashanah, enjoyed a joint meal in the Sukkah on Sukkot,
danced with the Torahs on Simchat Torah. In a city and a country
that suffered so much under Fascism and Communism, The Lauder
Gan Menachem Kindergarten is a bright light of hope in the reawakening
of Jewish Central Europe.
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