It’s a shame most American Jews don’t get to see how badly Jews in the north and south of Israel need our help.
Rarely do American Jews visit towns like Kiryat Yam or Ashkelon. It’s difficult to believe that parts of Israel suffer severe economic problems if all you see is Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Haifa.
Ironically, last year’s Lebanon War and the attacks from Gaza refocused American attention on the plight of the poorer areas of Israel.
The Jewish federations in North America, including the two local ones in San Francisco and Oakland, did a nice job in raising $360 million for the Israel Emergency Campaign (IEC) to help those beleaguered areas.
But so much more money needs to be raised to fight the blight, unemployment and deficient educational programs in the north and south.
Israel’s education minister admits that fewer kids in those areas graduate high school. She says many schools there are old and crumbling, and that there is a need for more enrichment programming.
Those areas also are hurting economically. The IEC has funneled money to an offshoot of the S.F.-based Koret Foundation to provide low-cost loans to struggling Israeli businesses. And that’s a good start.
While the IEC still has some money left for programming, it will be gone in a matter of months. A new fundraising campaign needs to be started. But there is no need to reinvent the wheel here.
When Rabbi Brian Lurie was executive director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, he envisioned a program in which American donors would directly fund the people and programs in the neediest towns in Israel, and empower residents to push the Israeli government to help them, too. Eventually Project Renewal was born, and federation after federation adopted a needy town.
When Lurie later became director of the United Jewish Appeal (now part of United Jewish Communities), he resurrected what was then a dormant Project Renewal, renaming it Partnership 2000.
Now, years later, it appears that Partnership 2000 has caught fire at some federations but never achieved the national clout of Project Renewal. In fact, the S.F.-based JCF quit Partnership 2000 to run its own charitable programming in Israel.
If there is anything we learned from the Israel Emergency Campaign, it’s that a lot more needs to be done in both northern and southern Israel. If Partnership 2000 cannot be reignited, it should be reborn under another name.
With Israel’s 60th birthday only months away, American Jews must help shore up the neediest communities in the Jewish state.
Our hope is that our federations and the UJC once again accept such a challenge.