NB School of Design, University of Haifa

About the school

The school began as the WIZO Haifa Academy of Design and Education, founded in 1971 by the Women’s International Zionist Organization to train artists and art teachers. It was named after Neri Bloomfield, a Jewish-Canadian philanthropist who helped establish it, and in 2004 it moved into a refurbished building in Haifa’s German Colony.

In 2024 it became part of the University of Haifa, the first university in Israel to house a dedicated design school. It is headed by Prof. Leah Peretz, who previously led the fashion department at Shenkar. The school keeps its German Colony campus and its departments: Fashion Design, Visual Communication, Architecture and Photography (including a film course), plus a master’s programme in Environmental Design and Education.

Fashion

The Department of Fashion Design is headed by Dr Rachel Getz-Salomon and runs as a four-year programme. The university describes it as the only fashion design programme in Israel that awards a university degree.

Graduate collections have explored themes such as identity, memory, migration and cultural heritage, using techniques including embroidery, knitting and fabric development. Because the school sits inside a research university, fashion students can also take courses in other fields such as literature, marine sciences, languages and art history.