MK Peretz with JCT Vice President Stuart Hershkowitz
MK Peretz with JCT Vice President Stuart HershkowitzJerusalem College of Technology

Israel’s Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and National Projects Rabbi Rafi Peretz (Jewish Home) on Tuesday visited the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) and the site for its forthcoming Tal Campus for Women: a 30,000-square-foot (2,787.1-square-meter) campus that is poised to become one of Jerusalem’s most important capital projects over the next five years.

The new Tal Campus is slated as the permanent home for up to 3,000 of JCT’s female students in nursing, computer science, electro-optics, industrial engineering, accounting, and management. The campus will provide increased opportunities for Religious Zionist, haredi, and Ethiopian women to pursue higher education and attain quality employment in Jerusalem’s high-tech industries. The project is part of the vision JCT shares with the Israeli government to strengthen Jerusalem as Israel’s academic capital, enabling members of all sectors to integrate into the workforce, contribute to its economy, and become highly skilled and professional leaders of Israel’s rapidly advancing technology, science, and health fields.

“The development of the Tal Campus is especially important for empowering diverse populations, including religious and haredi women, through higher education. This ambition aligns with my ministry’s top strategic priorities,” Peretz said. “The current, temporary Tal Campus does not provide the proper environment to allow religious women to study and then integrate into Israel’s employment market. Given the need to build a dedicated and high-quality campus for these women, I am looking at different ways to support the construction of the Tal Campus in the coming year.”

Built in Givat Mordechai and adjacent to JCT’s existing Lev Campus for Men, major transportation routes, and the new southern entrance to Jerusalem, the state-of-the-art women’s campus is being designed by the award-winning architectural firm Kimmel Eshkolot Architects.

“Over the years, many courses of study have been added to the current Tal Campus, along with a significant and consistent increase in enrolled students,” JCT President Prof. Chaim Sukenik said. “These trends, in addition to Israel’s rising workforce needs in high-tech and healthcare, necessitate the construction of an innovative women’s campus just like the one we are building. Given that a significant percentage of our female students choose to live and work in Jerusalem following graduation, the establishment of the new Tal Campus is of paramount importance for Jerusalem’s future. We sincerely thank Minister Rafi Peretz as well as the Jerusalem Development Authority for their willingness to support and assist this initiative.”