TORONTO — A Toronto couple has raised $90,000 in the past two months to help a school in Israel, in memory of their son. The amount brings them halfway toward their goal of renovating the science labs at Yeshivat Hadarom’s junior high and high school in Rehovot.

The schools serve about 600 local students.

Jake and Vivian Anhang, along with a 30-person tribute committee including their daughter in Israel and son in Washington, D.C., are working to make the Eli Anhang Memorial Laboratories a reality.

Jake Anhang said he had hoped the campaign would be completed earlier, in order not to conflict with other campaigns, and, also, so that the school would be able to do the renovations over the summer, before classes start again in the fall.

Yeshivat Hadarom, which combines Jewish and general studies, is under the auspices of the Rabbinical Council of America. The complex also includes a hesder yeshiva – the first in Israel to combine Torah studies with army service – and a teachers’ college, as well as a nearby youth village and school.

Eli Anhang was killed in an accident two years ago at the age of 35, during a visit to New York. The father of two children who are now 6 and 9 years old, he worked in the high tech security field and was an alumnus of Associated Hebrew Schools and Or Chaim. He also attended Eitz Chaim Day School and Ner Israel Yeshiva.

In a letter that was sent to potential donors as part of a fundraising flyer, the Anhangs, who are already supporters of Yeshivat Hadarom, noted that Eli had a “profound love” for Israel, and that people remember his “constant smile and concern for others.”

Two rabbis who are affiliated with the institution – Rabbi Hersh Galinsky, dean of Yeshivat Hadarom and Gan Yavneh Youth Village schools, whom the Anhangs had hosted when he visited Toronto; and Rabbi Menachem Gopin, a former director of Mizrachi Canada from 1983 to 1999 and the school’s associate director general – had informed the Anhangs of a need to renovate the science wing.

The more the Anhangs heard, the more they thought that creating the “Eli Anhang Memorial Laboratories” at the school would be an appropriate way to memorialize their son, Jake told The CJN.

The current science labs, which are almost 50 years old, are still the original labs, “and even then they had done them on a shoestring,” said Anhang, who has visited the institution twice in the past two years with his wife.

Anhang said they were “quite impressed with the decorum and behaviour of the kids.” The school is also noted for its high academic standards, reflected in the bagrut (matriculation) scores of its graduating students, Rabbi Gopin said.

The project is “a tremendous mitzvah on the part of the Anhang family, and a wonderful memorial to Eli,” said Rabbi Galinsky, who remembers Eli as “a wonderful, thoughtful young man.” The laboratory wing will incorporate biology, physics and computer facilities.

Rabbi Gopin, who taught at Or Chaim when Eli was a student and whose son was a classmate of his, said he was “a very special young man. He always had a smile on his face… [and] a glint in his eye. There was always something bigger that he wanted to do in the future, something he was looking forward to.”

Yeshivat Hadarom is “a terrific place,” said Rabbi Moshe Stern of Shaarei Tefillah Congregation, a member of the tribute committee. A letter he wrote to potential donors noted Eli’s “endearing nature [and] sensitive soul” as well as “the goodness of his heart.” The rabbi hopes the project will serve as “a continuing force in memory of Eli.”

For further information about the campaign or to contribute to it, call 416-633-7677 or contact Canadian Friends of Yeshivat Hadarom at 2 Neptune Drive, Apt. 510, Toronto, Ontario M6A 3E6.