|
|
|
|
The Abraham Fund Is Bringing Jewish and Arab Citizens Together in Israel
Supporting Grassroots Coexistence
In 1989, Alan B. Slifka, an American businessman and philanthropist, joined with Dr. Eugene Weiner, a rabbi and professor of sociology at the University of Haifa, to create a new organisation dedicated to strengthening relations between the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel.
Nearly 20 percent of Israel’s population -some one million citizens- are of Arab descent. With the exception of a small group of people who live in mixed cities, the majority of Israel’s Arab and Jewish citizens live in separate communities, attend different schools, and grow up behind a veil of misunderstanding and prejudice. Slifka and Weiner recognized that the ability of Israel’s citizens to coexist in harmony would be critical to Israel’s future.
The Abraham Fund is the only not-for-profit fundraising and educational organisation dedicated solely to enhancing coexistence between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens. Named for Abraham, the revered ancestor of both Arabs and Jews, The Abraham Fund is a non-partisan organisation that supports grassroots coexistence projects to bring Jewish and Arab citizens together to learn about one another and break down destructive stereotypes.
Today, The Abraham Fund is incorporated in the U.S., with 3,400 contributors in the U.S., Israel, Canada and Europe. Since the advent of its grant-making efforts in 1993, The Abraham Fund has distributed more than $5 million to more than 350 different coexistence projects across Israel.
The Abraham Fund has developed a strategy that remains true to its original vision, but which has changed and evolved over the last ten years as the Fund has learned more about the challenges of funding coexistence in Israel.
The Abraham Fund’s first project, begun in 1989 and completed in 1992, was to compile a comprehensive directory of 383 Israeli institutions, all of which had coexistence projects and programmes. The Directory demonstrated the depth and breadth of coexistence programming, and proved to be a valuable compendium of information for the agencies and the public.
| The Abraham Fund - and its donors - are bringing coexistence to the forefront of public awareness in Israel. |
The organisation’s strategy now consists of the following:
1. To financially support grassroots coexistence programmes in Israel through the grant-making process. Each year, the Fund solicits applications from NGOs which have developed Arab-Jewish coexistence projects. These applications are carefully screened by a panel of evaluators (comprised of Jewish and Arab Israelis and Americans) who recommend programmes for funding. All projects supported by The Abraham Fund fall into one of three broad categories: advancing the professionalization of educators and leaders in coexistence, education for coexistence in the community and education in the formal school system. Abraham Fund-supported projects take place in a variety of different settings, from kindergartens to high schools, community centres and social service agencies, hospital and clinics, after-school theatre workshops and photography classes, and more. In addition to awarding grants, The Abraham Fund’s office in Israel is active year-round as a resource for project directors, helps organisations develop new programmes, and provides advice and assistance in running programmes.
2. To raise funds from donors (primarily in the U.S. but with a new fundraising campaign in Israel) in order to fund existing projects and encourage organisations to initiate new programmes.
3. To use a variety of tools and techniques to reach out to Israeli leadership and society in order to inform and educate people about coexistence as an issue. This includes publishing brochures, newsletters, and other information (both in the U.S. and Israel), maintaining a website and implementing a public information campaign about its activities.
4. To educate the public about The Abraham Fund, its work, and the issue of coexistence by organizing educational outreach programmes in the U.S. and in Israel, which includes speaking in various settings (e.g. churches and synagogues, forums at non-profit foundations and Jewish organisations, the State of the World Forum). In 1998, the organisation published with the Continuum Publishing Group The Handbook of Interethnic Coexistence, the first single volume bringing together multi-disciplinary thinking on the issue of coexistence in Israel and around the world. To launch The Handbook, The Abraham Fund initiated a series of educational conferences about coexistence at major U.S. universities, including Brandeis University, American University, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Future conferences are planned at the University of Haifa and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
5. To encourage Israeli leadership to recognize coexistence as a matter of national importance. To this end, The Abraham Fund has created an advisory group, The Israel Public Council, which includes 70 prominent members of Israeli society. Some of these members include former Yitzhak Navon, former President of Israel, Professor Moshe Many, former President of Tel Aviv University and Judge Abd-El Rahman Zu’bi, Israel’s first Arab member of the Supreme Court.
In 1998, The Abraham Fund’s Board of Directors voted to begin the development of two major new initiatives outside of its usual grant-making and educational activities. First, The Abraham Fund will develop large-scale ‘signature’ coexistence projects which will have an impact on a national level. The signature projects are expected to focus on various aspects of education and training, in keeping with The Abraham Fund’s emphasis on coexistence education and on the professionalization of the field. The new projects will be differentiated from other Abraham Fund-supported programmes by both their size and their scope.
Second, the organisation is working to establish a National Coexistence Institute which can develop policy, advocacy, and practical teaching materials and methodologies for schools and universities.
Since 1993, The Abraham Fund has granted more than $5 million to more than 350 different grassroots coexistence projects in villages, towns, and cities throughout Israel. The organisation’s grants range from $5,000 - $25,000, and results show that The Abraham Fund is making a difference.
Nearly 30,000 children have learned about coexistence through educational programmes and after-school activities.
More than 2,500 teachers across Israel have received coexistence training and used coexistence curricula and materials developed by Abraham Fund-supported projects. These efforts have a ‘geometric’ effect, as teachers have then taught lessons of coexistence to their students.
More than 17,400 Arab and Jewish adults have been brought together to work on improving their neighbourhoods, thanks to The Abraham Fund’s support of community-based projects.
Grants from The Abraham Fund have directly assisted more than 6,000 Arab and Jewish women through health, advocacy, and social service programmes.
Donor dollars have helped raise additional monies from foundations and government agencies in Israel and the U.S., leading to greater project support.
The Abraham Fund - and its donors - are bringing coexistence to the forefront of public awareness in Israel, and beginning to change the agenda of policy makers and public officials as they begin to realize the importance of Arab-Jewish coexistence and consider funding coexistence education on a national level. The organisation is helping to shape the field of coexistence in two key ways. First, by developing its grant guidelines to reflect the importance the organisation places on coexistence education, The Abraham Fund encourages NGOs to increase their programming in this arena. Second, The Abraham Fund has published a variety of educational materials such as booklets and brochures that outline coexistence theory and illustrate how NGOs are putting theory into practice. The Fund also publishes materials to raise awareness among American Jewish organisations and help donors understand the importance of coexistence funding.
Private funding is critical to support new and existing coexistence projects; to train new coexistence professionals and encourage organisations to hire these professionals; to educate teachers, case workers and other professionals to incorporate coexistence into their classrooms and social service projects; and to continue to enhance awareness of coexistence so that government funding for coexistence will increase.
This article has been written by Alan B. Slifka.
Feedback please to
j.verhoeven@euconflict.org