Shevah Mofet 4.06

Shevah Mofet is a high school on HaMasger Street in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was established in 1946 as a vocational school. Since the 1990s, new programs were inaugurated to meet the needs of the Russian immigrant population in Israel.HistoryThe school was originally called Shevah, named after a British World War II pilot, who was the uncle of one of the founders of the school. Founded in 1945, it was the second Hebrew high school in Tel Aviv, after Gymnasia Herzliya. It was founded on the ruins of the Mount Hope farm, founded by Clorinda S. Minor and others. The buildings is a design by the architect Genia Averbuch.Shevah was initially a vocational school teaching trades such as cabinet making, electricity, mechanics and sheet metal works. As the demand for such schools declined, it became an academic high school.In the 1990s, with the onset of mass immigration from the former Soviet Union, Shevah introduced a new educational approach to help Russian youngsters from falling behind due to the language barrier. Intensive Hebrew language classes were organized based on proficiency in Hebrew rather than age, and a program for parents was developed that included Hebrew language studies, Jewish history and culture.In the 1990s, Yakov Mazganov, a Russian professor employed as a security guard at the school, founded Mofet, a night school for Russian immigrants that operated in the Shevah building after school hours. In turn, this attracted more Russian Ph.D.s and former professors to teach, as they couldn't find a job anywhere else, due to their lack of Hebrew knowledge. Eventually a decision was made to merge Shevah and Mofet and the Russian teachers started teaching in the regular school, which became known as Shevah-Mofet. While classes at the night school often went on in Russian, all classes in the day school were taught exclusively in Hebrew. Mofet is an acronym containing the words Mathematics and Physics, but also means excellence.