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New Israel Fund

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New Israel Fund
Founded1979
TypeNon-profit
NGO
Tax ID no. 94-8607722
FocusSocial rights, political rights
Location
  • 6 East 39th Street, Suite 301, New York, NY 10016-0112, United States.
    International Offices: Israel, Canada, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia
Area served Israel
Key peopleBrian Lurie (President)
Daniel Sokatch (CEO)
RevenueUS$32 million (2008)
Websitehttp://www.nif.org

The New Israel Fund (NIF) is a U.S.-based non-profit organization established in 1979, and describes its objective as social justice and equality for all Israelis.

Ideology

NIF describes itself as "the leading organization committed to democratic change within Israel". Its stated objective is "to actualize the vision of Israel's Founders, that of a Jewish and democratic state that, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, 'ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.'" It views Israel as "the sovereign expression of the right of self-determination of the Jewish people and as a democracy dedicated to the full equality of all its citizens and communities." It advocates for civil and human rights, religious tolerance and pluralism, and closing the social and economic gaps in Israeli society, especially those among Jews and Arabs.

In addition, Daniel Sokatch, CEO, says that in line with their "core values of democracy and equality, we support two states for two peoples and we oppose the occupation and the settlement enterprise."

In June 2012, NIF marched with a "progressive cluster" in the New York Celebrate Israel parade; the cluster included Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, B’Tselem USA, Partners for Progressive Israel, and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America.

Organization

The New Israel Fund is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit philanthropic organization in the U.S, with headquarters in New York City. The NGO also has offices in Jerusalem, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, London and Basel.

Leadership

In October 2009, Daniel Sokatch became the new CEO of the New Israel Fund, after working as the executive director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance and the San Francisco Jewish Federation. Rachel Liel, formerly director of Shatil, became Israel Executive Director on 1 November 2009. Rabbi Brian Lurie, former Executive Director of the San Francisco Federation and executive vice-president of the UJA, chairs NIF's board, following the term of Naomi Chazan, former Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset. Attorney Talia Sasson, best known for her authorship of the report detailing Israeli government support of illegal settlements, will succeed Rabbi Lurie as NIF president in June 2015. The board consists of 23 community leaders, activists, academics and philanthropists from the U.S., Israel and the U.K.

Other board members include Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, law professor Peter Edelman, economist Franklin Fisher, and Bedouin scholar Amal ElSana Alhjooj. International Council members include Israeli novelist Amos Oz, Nobel Prize winner Aaron Ciechanover, former Deputy Attorney General Judith Karp, former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, Michael Walzer, and Rabbi David Saperstein.

History

The New Israel Fund was established in 1979 and is credited with seed-funding "almost every significant cause-related progressive NGO in Israel". Since its inception the fund has provided over US $250 million to more than 900 organizations. NIF states that while its position is that "Israel is and must be a Jewish and democratic state" it says it was "among the first organizations to see that civil, human and economic rights for Israeli Arabs is an issue crucial to the long-term survival of the state."

Grantees

In 2008 it contributed about US$30 million to groups in Israel.

In September 2010, NIF published guidelines defining who is eligible to receive its grants on its website for the first time.

In 2014 NIF had a budget of $31,057,80, and awarded $14.7 million in grants to grantees including Adalah, B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Council for Peace and Security, Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy, Mossawa Center and Alliance Israélite Universelle; in addition, NIF directs "donor advised" grants in which supporters make gifts directly to NGOs on advice from NIF grant experts.

Other activities

Wikileaks=

2010 Wikileaks revealed that during meeting between U.S. Officials and New Israel Fund leaders and funded organizations, the New Israel Fund (NIF) Associate Director in Israel said that “she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.”

Left-wing journalist Jeffrey Goldberg said this commentary was “very unpleasant.”

Israel-US Civil Liberties Law Program

The New Israel Fund has trained more than 46 Israeli lawyers over the course of 20 years in human rights law. The lawyers are provided with the opportunity to get a LLM degree at the American University Washington College of Law specializing in human rights law. Graduates of the program have successfully argued cases in Israel around social justice, for environmental protections, to curb police brutality, and against discrimination.

New Initiatives For Democracy

In September 2014, the New Israel Fund announced a new initiative, New Initiatives for Democracy (NIF-D), that will provide for the seed-funding, partnering and incubation of new programs to construct the missing architecture for the progressive movement in Israel, as well as building bridges to non-progressive constituencies who share values and interests. Initial funding stood at more than $2 million in 2014, granted or seed-funded to eight new initiatives, from think tanks to media monitoring to online engagement and leadership training.

Gender segregation and women's rights

In 1994, a pair of NIF grantees successfully petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to force the Israeli military to stop discriminating on the basis of gender when it came to allowing women to qualify for flight training. The decision, known as the Alice Miller case, opened the door for women to serve in many combat roles within the Israeli army.

In January 2011, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that publicly–funded buses cannot enforce a policy of gender segregation. IRAC, a grantee of NIF, initiated the legal efforts to integrate the bus lines. NIF-backed efforts against gender segregation in public spaces included a Chanukah candle-lighting to protest gender segregation at the Western Wall plaza.

In late 2011, in response the disappearance of the images of women from advertisements in Jerusalem because of Haredi pressure, NIF launched the "Women Should be Seen and Heard" campaign. In winter 2012, NIF convened "30 social justice organizations" who put pressure on organizers of a fertility and gynecology conference from which women were banned from speaking, and that "nine out of ten Israeli doctors scheduled to speak had withdrawn."

NIF also supports Women of the Wall which fights for egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site.

Social justice protests

In the summer of 2011, as hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested for social justice, NIF reportedly raised $35,000 on behalf of the demonstrators. The NIF praised the social justice protest as an autonomous, grassroots movement. It said its own participation was limited in scope, which included providing tens of thousands of dollars in small grants to activist groups. It also acknowledged other activities, including "mapping the initiatives, which were initiated by Shatil and the New Israel Fund" and in terms of providing advice to the protesters and providing funding for the tent cities in the periphery.

NIF also organized a petition signed by nearly 4,000 people in support of the protesters. The petition was published in the Israeli edition of the International Herald Tribune.

Response to mosque arson

In October 2011, following the arson of a Mosque in the Galilee village of Tuba-Zangariyye, NIF mobilized more than 1,000 rabbis from around the world to sign a statement condemning the torching. The torching was reported to be a part of the Price tag policy. The NIF-backed statement was presented on 6 October by a delegation of dozens of rabbis and peace activists to the imam of the mosque.

BDS

NIF is opposed to the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. It has stated that it does not support global BDS and will not support organizations with BDS programs but that its policy allows NIF the discretion to "engage in dialogue with an important organization that signs one letter supporting divestment rather than summarily dismissing them". Naomi Paiss, Director of Communications, described the campaign as "a tactic that embodies the message that Israel cannot and will not change itself, and for that reason, we think it is inflammatory and counter-productive".

However, left-wing journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, an NIF admirer, noted that they continue to fund BDS "a little."

Torture Ban

In 1999, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the Israel Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, could no longer use various means of physical torture in its interrogations. The matter was brought to the court by three NIF grantees: Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, HaMoked, and Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The decision by Chief Justice Aharon Barak concluded "A democratic, freedom loving society does not accept that investigators use any means for the purpose of uncovering the truth." Eitan Felner, executive director of Btselem said that "The importance of this decision is that it says that certain ends, even crucial ones like fighting random violence against civilians, can't justify every means."

However, some of the groups who brought the case to the court claim that some forms of torture continue to be practiced.

Criticism and controversy

The ruling Likud Party of Israel has called the NIF an “anti-Zionist organization,” and said the organization is devoted to harming Israel. Both the Likud and Israel's Education Minister has urged a boycott of NIF due to what the education minister described as "...an anti-Zionist organization that invests all its time and money in harming IDF soldiers and the State of Israel as a Jewish State is involved."

Im Tirtzu

In January 2010, Im Tirtzu placed newspaper advertisements depicting then-NIF President Naomi Chazan with a horn sprouting from her forehead (as a pun, since both the words "horn" and "fund" use the same Hebrew word "Keren") as part of a campaign which accused NIF of responsibility for the Goldstone Report. Im Tirtzu alleged that 92% of all Israel-based negative reporting in the Goldstone report came from NIF-supported groups.

Im Tirtzu's campaign drew criticism. Gershon Baskin, writing in The Jerusalem Post, accused Im Tirtzu of using an "anti-Semitic motif" as part of a "witch-hunt" that "is reminiscent of the darkest days of McCarthyism".

A report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) challenged Im Tirtzu's allegations, saying, "according to Im Tirtzu's own study, 16 NIF-affiliated groups comprise just 14 percent of all the sources for the Goldstone report." JTA also reported that the "16 NGOs named in report are a small portion of the more than 300 groups funded by the NIF, many of them having to do with building infrastructure, assisting immigrants, and defending the rights of women, the disabled and religious and ethnic minorities."

NIF estimated that 1.3% of the citations in the UN report originated from reports by organizations supported by the New Israel Fund.

Chemi Shalev, writing for Haaretz, defended the NIF, writing "one cannot really overstate what an utter travesty this fanatic jihad against the NIF was".

Birthright Israel

In November, 2014 Birthright ended all relationships with New Israel Fund. Among the reasons was NIF's desire to influence policies in Israel.

Ford Foundation funding

In 2003 and 2008, the Ford Foundation provided five-year grants worth $20 million each to NGOs in Israel through the New Israel Fund. The foundation was the focus of criticism because most of its donees are liberal. The foundation adopted new, stricter funding guidelines after the World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. At the beginning of the second five-year grant, the Ford Foundation said it would not renew its grants to Israeli NGOs, which had provided roughly one-third of the New Israel Fund's donor-advised giving, citing its policy of creating sustainable funding, which is also being applied to much of its NGO funding worldwide.

Washington Times

Conservative columnist Armstrong Williams delivered criticism of NIF, quoting Col. Benny Yanay (a member of the IDF officer group Consensus) as describing NIF as a group that “acts against Israel — against the soldiers of our country. It is important to me that people recognize the New Israel Fund for what it is. It is supported by foreign governments and organizations so that Israeli soldiers will be weakened.” Wiliams quoted Knesset member Yariv Levin saying that “The NIF’s lobbying and its funding activities are all part of a campaign to destabilize the IDF. They wasnt to ruin the good name of the IDF, making it more possible to take soldiers to international courts.”

References

  1. ^ "frequently-asked-questions". New Israel Fund. 2010. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  2. ^ "Contact Us". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 18 September 2012.
  3. ^ Sanders, Edmund (8 February 2010). "Israeli conservatives attack U.S.-based philanthropy as unpatriotic". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
  4. Pine, Dan (8 September 2011). "Local leader Brian Lurie named next president of New Israel Fund". jweekly.com. Retrieved 13 March 2013.
  5. ^ "Mid-Year Report" (PDF). New Israel Fund. 2009. Retrieved 9 February 2010.
  6. "We Are NIF". New Israel Fund.
  7. "New Israel Fund Principles". New Israel Fund.
  8. NIF In the Hot Seat
  9. New Israel Fund, With More Partners, will March Again in New York’s Annual ‘Celebrate Israel’ Parade
  10. Chemi Shalev, 'New NIF head Brian Lurie: "The occupation is a cancer that is eating us",' at Haaretz, 2 August 2012.
  11. ^ Guttman, Nathan (18 September 2014). "New Israel Fund Shifts Cash in Push for Progressive Politics". The Forward. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  12. ^ "Board of Directors". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  13. "International Council Members". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  14. "The Paradox of Ethnicity and Citizenship". New Israel Fund.
  15. Shefler, Gil (20 September 2010). "NIF denies plans to change funding policies". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  16. "NIF Funding Guidelines". New Israel Fund. September 2010. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  17. "NIF Grants – 2014". NGO Monitor. 20 August 2015. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  19. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/06/wikileaks-new-israel-fund-endorses-end-of-jewish-state/
  20. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/the-demise-of-the-lefts-favorite-not-pro-israel-group/2012/03/27/gIQALhnFeS_blog.html
  21. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/the-new-israel-fund-steps-in-it-a-bit-updated/244628/
  23. "New Initiatives for Democracy". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  26. Johnson, Jenna (15 July 2011). "Israeli 'Freedom Riders' ensure women's place at front of the bus". The Washington Post.
  27. "2010 Annual Report". issuu. 7 September 2011. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  28. "Chanukah Candle-Lighting at Western Wall Protests Gender-Segregation". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  29. Bronner, Ethan; Kershner, Isabel (14 January 2012). "Israel Faces Crisis Over Role of Ultra-Orthodox in Society". The New York Times.
  30. Sztokman, Elana (10 January 2012). "Women-Only Fertility Conference Is No Answer". The Sisterhood. Forward.com. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  31. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/world/middleeast/3-ultra-orthodox-men-arrested-in-western-wall-standoff.html?_r=0
  32. Guttman, Nathan (26 August 2011). "New Israel Fund Alone in Funding Israel Protests". The Forward. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  33. Guttman, Nathan (26 August 2011 (online), issue of 2 September 2011). "New Israel Fund Alone in Funding Israel Protests". The Forward. Retrieved 23 April 2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. "New Israel Fund Comes Clean on Role in Tent Protests By: Jewish Press Staff". The Jewish Press. 17 January 2012. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  35. "A Letter from SHATIL Director Ronit Heyd". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  36. "Full-Page NIF Ad in IHT Israel Edition". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  37. ^ "New Israel Fund Australia receives praise from Muslim leaders". J-Wire. 12 October 2011. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  38. Shaalan, Hassan (3 October 2011). "Price tag: Mosque torched in Upper Galilee". Ynetnews. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  39. ^ Paiss, Naomi (28 October 2010). "Don't Divest; Invest". ZEEK. The Jewish Daily Forward. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
  40. A Leftist Critique of BDS
  41. Goldberg, Jeffrey (17 November 2010). "The New Israel Fund, Dipping Its Toe Into the BDS Swamp". The Atlantic. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
  42. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/the-new-israel-fund-dipping-its-toe-into-the-bds-swamp-updated/66699/
  49. http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Likud-Bayit-Yehudi-MKs-cancel-appearance-at-NIF-funded-conference-389736
  50. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190964#.VeBfW_lViko
  51. ^ Kampeas, Ron (9 February 2010). "Breaking down the Im Tirtzu report on New Israel Fund". JTA. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  52. Baskin, Gershon (9 February 2010). "A dark day for democracy". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
  53. "Christians fume over ad showing Chazan wearing horn". The Jerusalem Post. 3 February 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
  54. "Lies, Damn Lies, and the Im Tirtzu Report - Analysis of the Im Tirtzu Report on the New Israel Fund". New Israel Fund. Retrieved 1 March 2010.
  55. Shalev, Chemi (6 November 2011). "An evening in New York with the enemies of the state". Haaretz. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
  56. http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Birthright-Israel-cuts-ties-with-New-Israel-Fund-383088
  57. http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/26/birthright-israel-terminates-partnership-with-controversial-new-israel-fund/
  58. Guttman, Nathan (6 April 2011). "Ford Foundation, Big Funder of Israeli NGOs, Pulling Out". The Forward. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  59. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/3/williams-financing-the-flames-while-on-a-burned-ou/

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