It’s been a tumultuous 20 years since real estate developer Ron Bruder launched Education For Employment (EFE) to bring job training programs to the Middle East and North Africa. Several of the organization’s priority geographies—notably Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza—have endured civil wars, uprisings, regime changes, and devastating attacks.

Yet Bruder, 78, has built a sprawling, remarkably flexible nonprofit. In May 2025, for example, EFE-Palestine added a 20-hour program to train physical therapists in response to the tremendous need created by post-Oct. 7 devastation. “We’re doing emergency medicine; we’re doing midwife training.…