With a Jewish population of nearly 1.5 million, New York City offers a wide array of Jewish learning opportunities—including Me'ah, as of next fall. Efforts to promote and develop Me'ah in the New York metro area began in July 2003 with a grant awarded by the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, leading to the recruitment of Moshe Margolin in November as Regional Director to head the project.

To date, Margolin, who is also the executive vice president of Histadrut Ivrit of America and the lead facilitator in developing collaborative efforts between Hebrew College and Histadrut Ivrit, has won an enthusiastic response to the idea of establishing Me'ah sites from synagogue leaders in Manhattan as well as on Long Island. And despite the challenges of competing with New York's many existing adult Jewish education programs, Rich Feczko, director of Me'ah, projects that Me'ah will not only meet its starting goal of establishing two to three New York classes in fall 2004 but also double that number in 2005.

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