Ono Academic College

Ono Academic College (in Hebrew: הקריה האקדמית אונו) is a private college located in Kiryat Ono, Israel with over 18,000 students. With its vision of bridging economic and cultural gaps in Israeli society, the college attracts Druze, Bedouin, Palestinians, Ethiopian-Israelis, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and special needs students. History Ono Academic College was founded in 1995 by Ranan Hartman, son of rabbi and philosopher David Hartman, with the goal of opening up the country's higher education system to populations that are perceived as marginalized. The college was initially affiliated with the University of Manchester before becoming an Israeli school fully accredited by the Council for Higher Education in Israel. Starting out in a single trailer with 100 law and business students, enrollment has risen to 18,000 students at five campuses around the country: Kiryat Ono, Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya and Or Yehuda. The school offers 47 programs of study. OAC's satellite campuses in Or Yehuda and Jerusalem offer programs geared toward the Haredi Jewish population, allowing men and women to attend classes on different days, while Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leaders attend classes together in a special joint program in law. The college also has a substantial enrollment of Ethiopian-Israelis. In the early days of the school, after Hartman was asked by the Jewish Agency to accept an Ethiopian student to the law school, he arranged for scholarships for needy Ethiopian immigrants, and over 1,000 Ethiopian students have graduated from the institution, including Pnina Tamano-Shata, the first Ethiopian born woman to join the Knesset and become a government minister.