Israel Granting Program

The NCJW Israel Granting Program addresses the critical challenges still facing women in Israel today, and promotes further progressive action. NCJW emphasizes empowerment and leadership programs for women and girls as well as gender equality as the cornerstones of NCJW’s Israel Granting Program. Grant recipients include organizations and programs designed to address Israeli women’s rights and well-being in areas like economics, politics, education, domestic violence, and social justice.

If you would like more information or are interested in supporting NCJW’s Israel program, please contact Marianna Golyak at mgolyak@ncjw.org or Shari Eshet, director of the Israel office at ncjwisrael@gmail.com.

Bergen County Section contributes to the Israel Granting Program annually.

Israel Granting Program — 2016 Grant Recipients

NCJW, Inc. will give grants to six Israeli organizations whose work is focused on women’s empowerment, gender equality and religious pluralism. We have been partnering with projects in Israel since 1947 on a national basis. Bergen County Section supports this endeavor annually.

The 2016 Israeli grantees are:

• ISHA L’ISHA – Haifa Feminist Center: Fighting against trafficking in women and prostitution project.
• RIFIE — NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education at Hebrew University: Training Bedouin Women for the Workforce as Educators in the Pre-School Sector
• ISRAEL HOFSHIT – The Center for Training and Initiatives
• JERUSALEM OPEN HOUSE FOR PRIDE AND TOLERANCE
• YERUSALAMIT MOVEMENT
• HILLEL – The Right to Choose

These are all grassroots projects that work to improve the lives of women, children and families through women’s empowerment and progressive social change.

Israel Granting Program — 2015 Grant Recipients

Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center: Fighting Against Trafficking in Women and Prostitution project. Isha L’Ishahas been leading the fight against trafficking in women and prostitution and assisting trafficking victims long before such trafficking registered on the national agenda. Its project advocates for national policy changes in the treatment of women seeking to leave prostitution and seeks to educate service providers and the public about the abuses of the sex trafficking industry.

Research Institute for Innovation in Education (RIFIE): Training Bedouin Women for the Workforce as Educators in the Pre-School Sector. This unique NCJW Research Institute for Innovation in Education project empowers Bedouin mothers who wish to work outside the home by training them for paraprofessional work and placement in the early childhood education sector in their communities.

Israel Hofshit: Freedom in Marriage Now. The Freedom in Marriage Now campaign seeks to mobilize public pressure on key politicians through a two-tiered approach of media communications and community organizing with the goal of establishing civil marriage as an option in Israel for everyone, regardless of religion or sexual orientation.

Tmura – The Israeli Antidiscrimination Legal Center: Protecting Women’s Reproductive Choice. Tmura’s new campaign will work to protect reproductive freedom through litigation, advocacy, and public education on behalf of the rights of Israel’s most vulnerable women.

Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance (JOH). NCJW’s grant will support the organization’s work meeting the specific needs of those in the transgender community, who are too often excluded from programs and services available to gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. The grant will provide transgender activists in Jerusalem the security and flexibility to organize independently and unite with a stronger voice, as well as increase the access of transgender individuals in Jerusalem to services currently beyond their reach.

Yerushalmit Movement. Dedicated to building Jerusalem as a vibrant, pluralistic, and inclusive city, the YerushalmitMovement has helped reduce gender segregation based on religion, including the exclusion of women from public spaces in Jerusalem. NCJW’s grant will enable the Movement to create women-led forums in neighborhoods across the city to promote equality and improve quality of life. For the first time, Ultra Orthodox Jewish women and Arab women will be engaged in the conversation to encourage civic collaboration among women activists of diverse religious sectors.

Turning the Tables. Active in Tel Aviv since 2011,Turning the Tables addresses the vocational and economic advancement of women leaving the cycle of prostitution and sex trafficking. NCJW’s grant will establish a pilot program to extend services to new locations throughout Israel.

Women of the Wall. NCJW’s grant will support advocacy for women’s equality to gain the right to read Torah at the Western Wall. Despite the groundbreaking legal advances made by Women of the Wall in the past two years to ensure women’s right to pray freely at the Western Wall, roadblocks to full freedom remain.