Democratic Values In Action

The Jewish Advocate, November 2, 2007

Monica Brettler

The New Israel Fund is first and foremost a Zionist organization. While a recent article in JTA suggests that the NIF denies Israel's legitimacy and right to exist, that is simply untrue. For 28 years, NIF has fought for social justice and equality for all Israelis, in the belief that Israel can live up to its founders' vision of a state ensuring complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, regardless of religion, race or gender.

On Oct. 25, the New Israel Fund's NIForum – despite competition from a Red Sox playoff game – enabled almost 200 community members gathered at Temple Isaiah in Lexington to hear from Israeli social change activists about the challenges facing Israel on issues of religious pluralism, gender equality and civil society building within the Bedouin community.

The event, moderated by Rabbi Howard Jaffe, was co-sponsored by Temple Emunah in Lexington and Beth El Temple Center in Belmont. The lead speaker was Naomi Chazan, former deputy head of Knesset and current board member of the NIF. Chazan is a passionate advocate for improving Israeli democracy and increasing accessibility for all Israeli citizens of Israel's democratic institutions. Chazan, with input from two young NIF colleagues, described the challenges confronting Israel as the country marks 60 years as an independent state.

NIF is a grant-making organization, with a board consisting half of Israelis and half Diaspora Jews. NIF's annual grants provide funding to Israeli organizations that operate in four sectors: enhancing social and economic equality; protecting civil and human rights; promoting religious pluralism; and protecting the environment. As part of the NIF effort to strengthen Israeli democracy, our grantees encourage the disempowered to speak out and assert their rights through their representatives in the Knesset and in municipal governments, and through the widely respected Supreme Court.

Together with other organizations, such as the Boston-Haifa Project of CJP, NIF uses dialogue, debate and coalition-building among diverse groups to promote the goal of a more 'just' Israel.

For example, in 2007, NIF grantees succeeded in passing legislation that altered the muchcriticized welfare-to-work program, which had discriminated against single mothers and the disabled. In Haifa, a dialogue group of 16 Arab and Jewish activists and professionals is now leading a public discourse around issues of Arab-Jewish joint living in Haifa, funded by Bostonbased grants made to Shatil, NIF's training and empowerment arm. Under the religious pluralism rubric, NIF is devoting major resources to promote Jewish identity among communities of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU).

Achieving meaningful coexistence in Israel's multi-cultural society, which is essential for Israel's survival as a democratic and Jewish state, requires patience, dialogue and mutual respect. NIF continues to support innovative solutions while advocating for the ideals of civil society that Israel should embody. In the words of Yitzhak Rabin, whose yahrzeit was observed last week, "We must think differently, look at things in a different way. Peace requires a world of new concepts, new definitions."

May we learn to work together to create a real and lasting peace in Israel. Monica Rosner Brettler is an attorney and the regional director for the New Israel Fund.