Read
"The Battle for Israel"
by Daniel Sokatch
on the
LA Jewish Journal.
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For 32 years, the New Israel Fund has worked at the cutting edge of social change in Israel. If you care about equality for women...narrowing the huge social gaps...preserving Israel's dwindling green space...equalizing opportunity for the Palestinian, Ethiopian and other minorities...browse this site, watch the video interviews and learn more about the leading organization advancing equality for all Israelis.
NIF aims to ensure civil equality for all citizens of Israel and protection of human rights for everyone under Israel's jurisdiction. NIF's role in safeguarding and enhancing democratic practices in Israel has become increasingly crucial with the intensifying witch hunt against civil and human rights groups, arrests and interrogations of peaceful demonstrators, ongoing attempts to restrict the rights of Arab citizens and increasing threats to Israel's independent judiciary.
NIF is proud to be at the forefront of the struggle for human and civil rights in Israel. From women's and LGBT rights to the controversial issues of synagogue/state and minority rights, NIF has founded, funded or trained every significant human and civil rights organization in Israel.
Learn more:
Ending Segregation on the West Banks Roads•Healing the Humiliation• Fighting Discrimination against Ethiopian Israelis
Key programs and grantees:
The New Israel Fund aims to achieve full equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Israelis, to empower the LGBT community, and to educate Israeli society toward greater social acceptance.
In the 1980s, NIF became the first organization to seed and support civil rights organizations that have since achieved landmark legislation ensuring rights for LGBT individuals and couples, including the rights to adoption, equal pensions, inheritance, insurance and tax benefits. Thanks to the NIF family of organizations, Israel also recognizes gay marriages performed elsewhere.
Gay Father Allowed Home to Israel with His Twins • Park rangers tell gay couple: Family membership doesn't count for you • Lesbian Widow to Receive Government Pension
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) - ACRI's lawyers, many of whom were trained in NIF's Law Fellows Program, have been leading the struggle to ensure equal rights for Israel's LGBT community through litigation, advocating for legislation, testifying before Knesset committees, providing legal advice to attorneys and organizations on LGBT issues, and conducting educational and outreach programs.
New Family - Promotes recognition of all forms of family units and equal eligibility for rights and entitlements. New Family performs civil marriage ceremonies, provides legal advice, advocacy and public education.
The Israeli LGBT Association - A national, grassroots organization committed to improving the status of the LGBT community in Israel. NIF funding in 2010 supports classes for high school dropouts to enable them to complete their matriculation exams.
Aswat is a Palestinian lesbian organization, one of very few in the Arab world, which works to create a safe and anonymous space for lesbians, to promote their rights and to struggle against homophobia in the Arab community in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, an increasingly weak social safety net and unequal distribution of resources have more profound repercussions than ever before for Israel's most disadvantaged. In the last decade, successive Israeli governments have instituted massive cuts to education, health and social welfare budgets. This once egalitarian society now boasts a gap between rich and poor second only to that of the U.S. among industrialized nations. Minority groups such as immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union, Arab citizens, senior citizens and inhabitants of development towns in Israel's periphery are hardest hit.
NIF works to achieve social and economic justice in Israel by promoting economic empowerment of disadvantaged groups in Israeli society. Strategies include promoting the establishment of microenterprise, cottage industries and other innovative grassroots economic development projects; advocacy for legislation and policies to encourage a bottom-up economy; legal assistance for disadvantaged women; reframing economic theories and paradigms; and more.
NIF Family Fights for Affordable Housing•Jill Biden tours joint U.S.-NIF project•Passover busy time for Israeli new to catering•Hillary Clinton Praises NIF Supported Economic Empowerment Program for Women
Key grantees:
In the shadow of the Holocaust, Israel was among the authors of the UN Convention on Refugees. Despite this, Israel has no coherent policy regarding refugees and asylum seekers, and many are being held in detention or are in the process of applying for refugee status living in squalor in overcrowded shelters. More than 180,000 workers from developing nations live and work in Israel as caregivers, agricultural laborers, and construction workers. Without a path to residency or citizenship, both migrant workers and refugees are held hostage to the whims of exploitative employers and ever-changing government policy.
Even legal citizens confront challenges integrating into a diverse democracy. Immigrants from Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union and other non-Western societies are often unaware of the rights and duties of citizenship. The NIF family works on all these issues, educating for citizenship and empowering Israel's most disadvantaged to fight for their human and civil rights.
Fact Sheet on migrant workers • Israel to expel hundreds of migrant workers' kids• Israel's immigrant children fight deportation
NIF's Shared Society Program builds bridges between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Projects work to bring Jewish and Arab residents together to actively promote joint living, environmental justice, equality and fair distribution of resources, tolerance and mutual respect. Despite heightened tensions in recent years, NIF has intensified its efforts to nurture Jewish-Arab cooperation.
Creating a shared society is vital to Israel's security. Indeed, the long-term stability and ethical character of Israeli society depends on the degree to which all its citizens have a shared stake in its future. Today, more than ever, it is vital to invest in activities that aim to improve relations so that Jews and Arabs in Israel can live side-by-side in justice and equality. NIF supports projects that:
Key Grantees:
Learn More:
A Test of Wills Over a Patch of Desert • Israel's Mixed Cities: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back• The Dahmash Rollercoaster: Residents' homes won't be demolished - for now• Joint living fact sheet
Take action!
Ask Prime Minister Netanyahu to block legislation that would give the ultra-Orthodox absolute control over conversion in Israel. Prime Minster Netanyahu has said he will not bring the bill before the Knesset. We must hold him to this pledge. Click here to learn more and take action.
One would think that, having finally achieved a Jewish homeland in Israel, Jews could practice their religion - or not - untroubled by government interference.
To some extent, that's true, but much remains to be done. The ultra-Orthodox establishment that controls Israel's civil sphere continues to exclude other streams of Judaism on issues ranging from marriage to conversion. Many non-Orthodox Israelis develop a profound resentment of religious coercion, leading some to reject their Jewish identity in favor of a solely national affiliation. Moreover, religious extremism too often joins forces with extreme nationalism, to the detriment of democracy and to the pursuit of peace.
NIF believes that a tolerant Israel will be a more socially cohesive Israel within Israel itself, in its connection to Jews in the Diaspora, and in its relationships with non-Jewish citizens and neighbors. Work with us towards the ideal -- one nation on earth, with all members free to conduct their religious, spiritual and cultural lives according to their own conscience.
Learn More: High Court of Justice Orders School to End Segregation • Reform Movement Dedicates Israels First-Ever Synagogue Built with State Funds • New Law Promotes Pluralistic Education
In a space smaller than New Jersey, seven million people are building a country faster than its resources can sustain. The Israeli environment is threatened by water shortages, headlong development of remaining green spaces and severe industrial pollution.
NIF aims to achieve environmental justice for Israel's citizens, particularly the most vulnerable populations, by promoting sustainable development and working to preserve Israel's dwindling natural resources.
NIF is a key partner in the Green Environment Fund, which is at the forefront of Israel's environmental movement and the largest funder of environmental NGOs in Israel. Together with Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Samuel Sebba Trust and the Morningstar Foundation, we are creating solutions for a safer, healthier, cleaner and greener Israel.
Jumping into the water without negotiations or preconditions • Drying Stream to Flow Again in Northern Israel•Holyland Affair "Good" for the Greens•Court Rules That Bedouin Village Must Be Connected to Sewage Infrastructure
Take Action!
Say NO to the back of the bus!
At the insistence of the ultra-Orthodox minority, gender segregation is becoming more commonplace. Women are being forced to sit at the back of the bus and segregated in other public places like the Western Wall plaza and even sidewalks in certain neighborhoods. Learn more about the issue and take action!
Women don't have it easy in the Middle East, and supporters of Israel take pride in the opportunities afforded to Israeli women. But service in the IDF and the modernity of daily life mask tremendous difficulties for many Israeli women. Social institutions, traditions and religious laws have kept girls and women at a disadvantage in schools, in the workplace, in divorce cases, and as victims of violence. Israeli women in minority and disadvantaged groups have disproportionately high rates of unemployment, poverty, health problems and abuse of basic rights.
NIF founded or funded most of Israel's women's rights organizations and networks, dating back to our establishment of Israel's first Rape Crisis Center network more than twenty years ago. We've achieved landmark legislation, including the Equal Employment Opportunity law, and precedent-setting court rulings. Our programs work to empower Israeli women to change their lives, communities and Israeli society.
Fact Sheet• Negev Bedouin women join rare demonstration against "honor" killings • Hotline founded for women offended by 'kosher' buses
Get involved!
New Generations is an open and vibrant community of young professionals, social activists, and community leaders in their 20s and 30s, who are committed to the work of the New Israel Fund, the leading organization promoting social justice and equality for all Israelis.
Click here to learn more.
With an investment of over $200 million to more than 800 grantees, NIF has a vested interest in a strong, vibrant civil society in Israel. But grant-making alone isn't enough. To ensure that the Israel of the future is a more just place for all Israel's citizens, it is critical to equip the next generation of activists with the tools to effect meaningful and lasting social change. Through our fellowships and programs, which train, empower and develop new leaders, NIF is paving the way for a better tomorrow.
SHATIL Launches High Profile Negev Leadership Initiative•From Astrophysicist to Rising Star in Israel's Social Change Leadership•Moving Young Russian Immigrants toward Social Change
Programs and grantees:
Israel's education system has struggled to meet the challenge of providing equal opportunities to all students, whether rich or poor, native or immigrant, Jewish or Arab. A complex network of schools caters to each sector of the population with separate public school systems for secular Jewish, modern Orthodox and Arab children, and independent schools for the ultra-Orthodox. These school systems do not receive equal funding in the best of times. Disadvantaged communities have been hit especially hard by deep government cuts in education over the past decade. While wealthier families can compensate for the inadequacies of the school system with tutoring and enrichment activities, such opportunities are beyond the reach of the more than 650,000 children living at or below the poverty line.
NIF is working to equalize resources and broaden educational opportunities for disadvantaged children and youth. Our program has a particular focus on Mizrachi (Jews of Eastern descent), immigrant and Arab children.
Court Orders Emmanuel School to Explain Continued Segregation• More Classrooms for Israeli Arab Schools•Back from the Edge: A Miracle for a Russian Immigrant in Lod
Key projects and grantees:
© New Israel Fund 2010
