Meet Rawia Aburabia
In the pecking order of Israel's underprivileged communities, the place of the Negev Bedouin community at the bottom of the ladder is unfortunately secure. More than 66% of Negev Bedouin live below the poverty line and close to half are unemployed with little access to sources of cash income. The vast majority have abandoned a traditional nomadic lifestyle for impoverished townships, and thousands live in unrecognized villages that lack even basic services such as electricity and running water.
As one of only five female Bedouin lawyers in Israel, Rawia Aburabia has a key role to play in helping her community. In 2009, she joined the Arab Minority Rights Department of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Israel's leading civil and human rights organization and NIF's flagship grantee.
Rawia is 30, but her list of accomplishments would make her extraordinary at any age. Prior to joining ACRI, Rawia advocated for the individual and collective rights of Bedouin, particularly Bedouin women, in various government ministries, as well as through civil rights organizations such as Yedid. As an NIF Law Fellow, she interned with Human Rights Watch where she developed an advocacy strategy for Israel's unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev. Rawia is an active member of the international board of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, and the Van Leer Institute Women's Working Group. She holds bachelor degrees in law and social work and an LL.M. from American University, and is Israel's premier expert on polygamy in Negev Bedouin society, having completed her master's thesis on the issue.
What motivates Rawia to this level of activity? "Growing up, the main message in my own home was that when you're part of an ethnic minority, you have to be best and offer more. And education is the best way to do that." Rawia's father was the first Bedouin physician and opened the first medical clinic for Bedouins in Rahat, near Be'er-Sheva.
Rawia's overarching personal mission is to foster a world where her own achievements as a Bedouin are not unique. "I want to be beyond being 'first'. It should just be that we have hundreds of physicians, lawyers - that that's the normal place to be. That's what I hope to achieve."
Meet the Berner-Kadish Family
This spring, Ruti and Nicole Berner-Kadish and their three sons Mattan, 14, Naveh, 11 and Segev, 7 were, for the first time a fully recognized legal family in Israel. On December 6, 2009, their 14-year legal struggle came to an end when Israel's Ministry of Interior finally agreed to register Ruti as Segev's mother.
"In practice we have always been a family," explained Ruti, "but for both of us to legally be recognized by the State as the mothers of our children gives us enormous peace of mind. It is not just the bureaucratic inconvenience that I could not go and register Naveh and Segev for school; it is the fear that if something happened to one of us, the children could be taken away from their other mother."
Ruti, born in Israel, and Nicole, raised in the US, first began dating in Israel in 1992. They had a Jewish wedding in Berkeley, California in 1994 and subsequently went to Canada in 2003 for a legally recognized marriage.
Their legal struggle began in 1996 after Mattan was born. Ruti recalled, "We visited the Israeli consulate and tried to register him as a child born to Israelis abroad. We were told that it was not possible to register one child with two mothers, even though according to the laws of the State of California we were both recognized equally as Mattan's legal parents."
ACRI took up their case and petitioned Israel's Supreme Court, which ruled in 2000 that the Ministry of Interior must record both Ruti and Nicole as Mattan's parents.
The Ministry of Interior appealed and asked for the case to be heard by an expanded panel of Supreme Court judges, and then refused to register their two younger children -- Naveh and Segev -- as Ruti's children. ACRI continued to argue the case, and when the appeal was finally heard in December 2007, the Supreme Court not only found in favor of Ruti and Nicole; they also reprimanded the Ministry of Interior for wasting the court's time. "It is important for our children to know that their lived reality at home - that each of them has two mothers and two brothers - is reflected in the law," said Nicole. "And that their family is recognized and protected by the State."
Meet Lakiya Yardeni
Lakiya Yardeni is a born leader. The 48 year-old mother of six reached Israel from Ethiopia via Sudan in 1989 and settled in the northern Negev city of Kiryat Gat. Soon she began organizing the women of her community in leadership courses. She currently runs the Embroidery Center operated by Ahoti (Sister for Women in Israel), an NIF grantee, which helps Mizrachi and other disadvantaged women realize their economic and cultural aspirations.
She recalls, "When I first started organizing leadership courses, the men refused to let the women come. I coaxed them. Please come just once a week, I said, and learn about Israeli society. In the end 70 women came."
However, Yardeni felt that the leadership courses were not enough. She wanted to develop programs that would help alleviate the economic distress faced by the women in her community. She decided to commercially market the traditional crafts of Ethiopian women - weaving, embroidery, sculpture and more - and thus the idea of the Embroidery Center was born.
Twenty-six women currently come to the center, and Ahoti markets their products mainly through the Comme Il Faut fashion chain. Among the women is Chahainesh, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia. She says with tears in her eyes, "I get between $20 and $30 for each item I make. This is the first money I have ever earned."
Yardeni observes that the money the women earn buys them more than basic necessities. She says, "It also buys them the respect of their husbands and pride in their own traditions and capabilities."
Meet Jena and Richard
African Refugees in Israel
Stateless, Homeless, Rightless
Rachel Liel on
Housing
Meet Amna Ka'anana
Alarmed by the killing of innocent civilians in both Israel and Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, and the deterioration of Jewish-Arab relations during the conflict, Amna Ka'anana decided to organize a joint Arab-Jewish protest.
"I only expected about 90 people to attend the rally," she explains, "so I was surprised when we had 300 people all dressed in white and holding olive branches, about half and half, Jews and Arabs."
Ka'anana, an observant Muslim, is the Executive Director of NIF grantee Awareness for You, which runs empowerment courses for
Arab women in the village of Kfar Kara near Hadera.
"I have always wanted to initiate activities that bring Jews and Arabs together," she explains. "The war in Gaza acted as a catalyst for that. The conflict placed a lot of pressure on joint living and I suddenly felt it was really urgent to do something significant."
She invited several dozen Jewish and Arab activists to her home to discuss the situation, and they hit upon the idea of the rally to protest the killing of innocent civilians, whether in Sderot or Bet Lahiya.
"Now the war is over it is no less important to continue the dialogue. Only through dialogue will we reach peace."
Last month, NIF Executive Director in Israel Rachel Liel was interviewed about a number of issues that NIF is involved with in Israel. Watch these short clips and discover what you might not know about building a better Israel.
Orthodox Communities
Meet Yulia and Stas
For the second year in a row, NIF sponsored a wedding. Unlike most weddings in Israel, this one was a Jewish alternative ceremony, joining the lives of two young people without the assistance or interference of Israel's Orthodox-only Chief Rabbinate.
In Israel, the only way to have a legally recognized wedding is to have an Orthodox ceremony. Yulia and Stas, the bride and groom, chose a public ceremony in Tel Aviv to help raise awareness about the need for a civil marriage alternative in Israel. To learn more about Yulia and Stas, and to watch more videos about their wedding preparations, click here.
Last month, NIF Executive Director in Israel Rachel Liel was interviewed about a number of issues that NIF is involved with in Israel. Watch this short clip and discover what you might not know about building a better Israel.
Meet Amiad Lapidot
When Amiad Lapidot was in school a teacher would chastise him, telling him that if he did not work harder, he would end up collecting garbage. Amiad recounts the story with a chuckle. After working hard in school, getting a BA in Geography and an MA in City Planning as well as completing several fellowships in environmental programs, Amiad is fulfilling his dream; collecting garbage.
With the assistance of the New Israel Fund and SHATIL, Amiad has built an organization dedicated to sustainability in Israel. Eretz Carmel, named after a moshav located in the lush, green mountains of the Galilee, aims to reverse and improve the current reality of environmental awareness in Israel, which is decades behind much of the Western world. Through resourceful education methods and practical implementation of its Compost HaKerem project, Eretz Carmel is pushing to achieve a sustainable world where people live healthily and in harmony with the environment, while safeguarding the existence of future generations.
One of the organizations most successful projects is a composting initiative. What began as a one-man crusade has grown in scope to a program adopted by several villages throughout the North. Simply separating out the organic materials from the trash meant for the landfills, where organics cannot decompose quickly due to lack of oxygen, significantly reduces the amount of trash. The organic materials are then added to a community compost pile, and after six months, the organic garbage turns to compost that can be used in the garden at home or in public gardens. The venture has also saved the villages money, as transporting garbage is a costly endeavor.
Amiad practices what he preaches. Aside from composting at home, he single handedly built a home for his family, which is acknowledged as a prototype for environmental design.
Arab Women
Orthodox Women
Meet the next generation of leaders in Israel
Meet Shoshana
At Gedera High School, Ethiopian Israeli youth are gaining strength by giving through participation in SHATIL's Back from the Edge program to help youth-at-risk get back on track. The program is implemented locally by NIF grantee Friends by Nature, which works to strengthen the community.
While children who need it get Homework at Home help -- in itself an innovation in Israel -- a group of them are giving back as well. Called Maratziot, a widely used acronym that stands for Young Teachers, this group of eight motivated youngsters spend four hours weekly tutoring seventh graders in the subjects in which they themselves are strong. The group meets weekly with Shachar, one of two young Ethiopian counselors employed by the high school, for supervision.
Shoshana, 15, gets tutoring at home in English (she is striving for a five unit matriculation in English the highest possible) and in turn tutors a seventh grader in biology. Asked why she is wearing a red string around her wrist, Shoshana says, "To bring me luck."
"For what?"
"To realize my dream. I want to become a doctor."
When asked what she likes to do in her free time, Shoshana laughs shyly and says, "I don't have any free time." In addition to carrying a heavy load at school and being a Young Teacher, Shoshana is a leader in the Sheba Scouts and participates in a special science program at the Weitzman Institute.
The Young Teachers don't just teach. "I also help the seventh graders get used to being in a new school," says Shoshana. "I remember what it was like for me: There were higher expectations and I felt pressured. And their parents - like mine - don't know how to help them."
As Shoshana speaks, a teacher who taught her for three years walks by. "You can see who she is," she says. "She will go far. She is motivated and she achieves. But she needs constant support."
That "constant support" is what Shoshana and the Ethiopian pupils at Gedera High get from Friends by Nature both in school and out. In the harsh reality faced by many Ethiopian youngsters, the sensitive work of Friends by Nature, which comes out of a deep and personal understanding of Ethiopian culture and issues, is a ray of hope.
© New Israel Fund 2010
