May Newsletter
Tuesday, 11th November 2008
Human Rights Awards Dinner
Last year more than 270 people attended the awards dinner and nearly £200000 was raised to support the human and civil rights work of the New Israel Fund which, for more than 25 years, has been the leader in strengthening Israel’s democracy and promoting freedom, justice and equality for all Israel’s citizens.
Again, in the light of so many inspiring achievements in the field of human and civil rights in Israel, the New Israel Fund will recognise the people behind them.
Save the Date: Tuesday, 11th November 2008
William Frankel C.B.E. (1917 – 2008); Honorary President of New Israel Fund
It is with deep sadness that we all mourn the passing of William Frankel C.B.E. on 18th April at his home in America, aged 91. William Frankel was a truly liberal person – he stood for decency, integrity, understanding and tolerance. He was loyal to Israel, his friends and his colleagues. We will miss him dearly.
Prof. Gerald Cromer (1944 – 2008); Transforming Innovative Ideas into Meaningful Deeds
"Pluralism is not the same thing as tolerance,” Prof. Gerald Cromer said on a recent visit to Canada. “Tolerance implies a willingness to put up with the other side, but pluralism suggests that everyone has something to offer."
Prof. Cromer himself had an enormous amount to offer. He stood out as an Orthodox Jew who believed in religious pluralism for all Jewish streams, and an academic who realised that ideas only had value if they were put into practice.
Born in London, England in 1944, Prof. Cromer earned his Ph.D. from Nottingham University and immigrated to Israel in 1972. Until his death, he served as a Professor of Criminology at Bar Ilan University.
He was one of the founders of Netivot Shalom, Israel’s religious peace movement. In founding Netivot Shalom, he argued that Orthodox Jews were in a unique position to counter fundamentalist and extremist political arguments that erroneously placed the value of the land of Israel ahead of human life, justice and peace. He saw these concepts as central to Jewish law and tradition.
Prof. Cromer, who served devotedly on New Israel Fund’s Pluralism Committee, Grants Committee and SHATIL Committee, deeply influenced New Israel Fund through his incisive understanding of the country's shortcomings and his ability to prescribe innovative remedies.
Rachel Liel, Executive Director of SHATIL, recalls an example of this intellectual brilliance in defining New Israel Fund’s role. "He distinguished between the need for raising consciousness and conscience," she recalled. "He felt it was our role to raise the consciousness of the disadvantaged, while raising the conscience of the middle class on matters of social justice."
Prof. Cromer brought together Israelis from all walks of life in Jerusalem's Liberty Bell Park for a major Tisha B'Av event on the eve of disengagement, August 2005.
On Tisha B’Av 2005, the eve of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, Prof. Cromer helped produce the landmark event "For These Things I Weep", organised by New Israel Fund and symbolizing Prof. Cromer's own commitment to pluralism. At this traumatic moment of national division, Prof. Cromer's concept successfully brought together 1,000 Israelis from all backgrounds in Jerusalem, to hear speakers who included peace activists, right-wing settlers, rabbis, rap artists and many more. The event was a beacon of reconciliation at a time of crisis.
Prof. Cromer's sanguine determination to change society in the face of the momentous challenges confronting Israel will be sorely missed by the New Israel Fund family.
The Forgotten Issue by Sir Jeremy Beecham, Board member New Israel Fund UK, and Vice Chairman of the Local Government Association
The Bush visit to the Middle East, like the Annapolis Conference, naturally focussed attention on the vexed questions of the peace process, the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and the settlements. But there is a complementary issue, frequently overlooked by the international community, namely the situation of the Israeli Arabs, twenty per cent of the population.
I have recently returned from a visit to Israel as part of a delegation of US, Canadian and UK philanthropic organisations, mostly Jewish, which explored the issues on the ground, meeting people from both communities. It was a salutary experience; many, though not all of us, were familiar with the facts, but to see them on the ground was to see them in sharp perspective.
This year Israel celebrates its 6Oth anniversary, and it has much of which it can be proud. But as successive Israeli Prime Ministers and Governments have acknowledged, there is an unacceptable gap between the State’s Jewish and Palestinian citizens, notwithstanding the pledge in Israel’s Declaration of Independence to afford equal treatment to all its citizens.
We saw and heard at first hand from both Jewish and Palestinian Israelis how far there is to go to fulfil that fundamental pledge. It should be recognised, however, that Israel’s Palestinian Citizens have the vote, there are elected mayors and councils and Palestinian members of the Knesset, and at long last a Palestinian Minister. There is moreover recourse to law and an independent judiciary, and in terms of both civil rights and material well-being Israel’s Palestinians compare favourably with the citizens of most of the region. Yet that is not the appropriate benchmark; what matters is how their condition compares to the Jewish majority (though there are many within that majority who are also disadvantaged).
The disparity is most starkly evident in the fields of education, housing and planning. Spending on Jewish children per capita is four fold that on their Israeli Palestinian counterparts. In both housing and planning there is a painful contrast between the provision in Arab towns and the much more generous provision in Jewish areas. Mixed towns have seen little or no new building for their Palestinian citizens since 1948. The problem is compounded by a planning system in which Israeli Palestinians are markedly under-represented.
In the fields of education and economic development these gross inequalities send a dual message. They offend the moral sense, and are quite contrary to Jewish values. Israel needs to develop and harness the educational and economic potential of all its citizens, not to mention the purchasing power of its poorer citizens, if is to thrive and prosper. The Or Commission, established to report on the second intifada of 2000, while critical of the Israeli Arab leadership, condemned the inequitable distribution of resources, but four years after its report little tangible progress has been made.
The philanthropic world, especially in the Jewish Diaspora, can contribute to realising the goal of equality between the sectors by direct project financing but also by pressing the Government of Israel to live up to its declared objectives.
The delegation found much to trouble it, but also much to inspire it, ranging from joint working by young Bedouin and Jewish women in education in the Negev to an art gallery in Um al Fahm exhibiting works by Jewish and Palestinian artists. Most of us came away strengthened in our resolve to try to ensure that the drive for equality ceases to be a forgotten issue, but rather assumes the high priority in Israel’s political, social and economic agenda recommended by the Or Commission. That way lies the most promising future for a state with a Jewish majority respecting the rights of its non-Jewish minority, and that minority respecting the aspirations of the majority for a homeland for the Jewish people.
From Slavery to Freedom in 21st Century Israel
“The foreigners residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself for you were foreigners in Egypt” Leviticus 19:23
“There are many similarities between the Jewish experience thousands of years ago,” said Solomon, a young refugee from Darfur, "and what we have
been through. History repeats itself.
This has been a miracle for us and even though we are not Jews, this has been our Festival of Freedom. Here in Israel we feel free and we hope to stay here until it is safe to go home.”
Over 500 African refugees and Israelis
attended a unique Passover seder.
Solomon was one of more than 300 African refugees who were served by nearly 200 Israelis at a special seder organised by New Israel Fund grantee Beit Tefilah Israeli (Israel House of Prayer) with support from a coalition of 15 other organisations including New Israel Fund and other grantees such as Bina: Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture and its Secular Yeshiva. Held 48 hours before the actual Passover seder, the event attracted local and international media attention including crews from CNN and Reuters.
“This was a very moving occasion for me personally,” explained Esteban Gottfried, Community Leader of Beit Tefilah Israeli, an independent liberal Jewish community in Tel Aviv comprising about 100 families from all walks of Israeli life. “It was very uplifting to see so many Israelis and African refugees dancing and singing together.”
The stories of the refugees brought the story of the Exodus
from Egypt to life for the Israeli participants.
The participants in the seder read from a special Haggadah prepared by Beit Tefilah Israeli, which combined traditional Passover texts with contemporary songs and poetry. During the seder refugees stood up to tell their personal stories. Roma, a 15 year old boy from Sudan, spoke about his experiences of civil war and starvation. “At Passover you eat matza because you did not have time to bake bread,” he says. “But matza tastes pretty good to me because I remember when I had no food.”
The New Israel Fund family has been at the forefront of the struggle to ensure that the more than 4,000 African refugees are granted basic human rights and humanitarian assistance while they remain in Israel including food, clothing, housing and health treatment as well as the right to work. New Israel Fund strongly supported the recent establishment of the Coalition for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, which coordinates activities on behalf of African refugees.
"Each year at Passover Jews are urged to feel as if they were the very generation that came out of Egypt," observed Gottfried. "For those who attended the event in Tel Aviv, the presence of so many refugees who had reached Israel via Egypt and the wilderness of Sinai, made Passover feel very immediate."
New Israel Fund Family Welcomes Israeli Government Initiative against Polygamy
Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog has unveiled a new government programme to tackle polygamy in Israel’s Bedouin sector. The pilot project in a Negev settlement will provide assistance for polygamous families and focus on raising awareness on the profound implications and community dysfunction caused by polygamy.
“Our organisation has officially stated that polygamy has no place in a modern society,” explained Safa Schada, Executive Director of New Israel Fund grantee Ma’an – The Forum of Negev Bedouin Women’s Organisations. “We welcome the government initiative, but I think a lot more resources and determination must be put into fighting polygamy if we are to solve the problem.”
The Bedouin Women’s Rights Center in Beer Sheva is the flagship project for Ma’an, an umbrella organisation for 12 grass-roots Bedouin activist groups. The Center represents Bedouin wives in civil courts and Sharia religious courts in claims against their husbands. “Over 90% of the nearly 100 cases we handled in 2007,” explained Schada, “involved the problems resulting from polygamy.”
Bedouin society is Israel’s poorest socio-economic sector and most Israeli Bedouin husbands struggle to support one wife, let alone two or three. As a result out-of-favour wives often receive no financial support from their husbands, explained Schada.
Bedouin women address an empowerment rally organised by
NIF grantee Lagiya: Association for the Improvement of the
Status of Women.
Research by Prof. Elian al-Karinawi, Head of the Social Work Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, clearly demonstrates the negative effects of polygamy. He found that children in polygamous families suffer more psychological problems than the offspring of monogamous families and have higher rates of criminal activity and dropping out of school.
Prof. Al-Karinawi estimates that 25% of Israeli Bedouin men have more than one wife but both Abu Zeila and Schada feel that the figure is closer to 40-50%.
Schada agrees that at this stage the Israeli government should focus on educational efforts and programmes seeking to persuade Bedouin men that polygamy is not in their own interests. “But ultimately law enforcement must be used,” she insists, “as has been successfully done in some progressive Islamic countries.”
Message From Ellen Goldberg, New Israel Fund Executive Director
This month’s newsletter has very sad news alongside very uplifting and inspiring news. We mourn the death of two London-born New Israel Fund leaders who dedicated their lives to Jewish and Israeli causes – William Frankel OBE who was Honorary President of NIF in the UK and Prof Gerald Cromer, Israeli Board Member of NIF (international). Both first-rate professionals, individuals committed to justice and progressive causes, connected to their Jewish roots in very strong ways, and both men of great ideas and bold actions. New Israel Fund around the world has been honoured and fortunate to have them as supporters and leaders. May their memories be for a blessing.
The other news this month highlights the essence of New Israel Fund as an organisation. Whether it’s enabling Israelis to learn about the plight of refugees – and the asylum seekers to learn about Jewish values at a Pesach seder - or working with Bedouin women to fight the injustice of polygamy, NIF is about partnership, empowering people, a sense of justice for all, and most importantly, acting on one’s convictions.
If these inspire and resonate with you, we hope you’ll act on your convictions, and become a partner and supporter of New Israel Fund.
