The National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education is a multi-faceted charity that protects, feeds and educates thousands throughout the NY metro area and around the nation.
The NCFJE, founded in 1940 by Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneerson, is one of the first Chabad-Lubavitch charities established in the US. The principle mission of NCFJE was to provide Jewish public school students with a free Jewish education through the Jewish Released Time program. Until the 1960's, the Released Time Program attracted as many as 10,000 Jewish students weekly.
Shortly after the founding of NCFJE, Rabbi Jacob J. Hecht was appointed to lead the organization and charged with expanding the range and intensity of the its activities. Many of the Released Time children came from households which experienced a range of economic and social hardships. In response, the NCFJE implemented a broad range of educational and humanitarian services.
Throughout the decades, NCFJE was known as the vehicle through which the challenges of the day were addressed. 
The rescue of nearly 1,000 Jewish children from Iran, the founding of the Colony of Hope in Israel and the implementation of counseling and hotline services in the wake of the Crown Heights Riots and the Brooklyn Bridge Shootings are all part of the legacy of fast, effective action on the part of NCFJE.
Today, the NCFJE runs the array programs spearheaded by Rabbi J. J. Hecht with the objective of providing fast, discreet and dignified service to all sectors of the Jewish community.
So much has changed though the years, yet our mission remains the same; helping children and families through education and charity. Since 1940, the NCFJE has devoted its resources and its energies to provide social services and religious education to the community. Our schools, programs and activities include Released Time Program of Greater New York, Shaloh House in Boston, several Chabad Centers in the Hudson Valley and Nassau County, as well as affiliated Release Time Programs on the West Coast. The NCFJE also operates residential children’s summer camps in the Catskills region of New York State, Day Camps in New York City, Toys for Hospitalized Children Drive, the Jonas and Sadie Rennert Summer Student Fellowship, as well as several religious Seminaries.
Programs of the NCFJE spread from the tip of Montauk up to the Hudson Valley along the Eastern half of New York State. Our programs which educate, care for and provide social services to the needy impact and help improve the lives of tens of thousands citizens of our great State of New York.
