ADVANCING EQUALITY FOR ALL ISRAELIS

As Americans have learned since 9/11, protecting civil and human rights in a nation under threat is a tough fight.   For almost sixty years, Israel has functioned as a democracy in a state of siege.  Consequently, Israel's civil and human rights issues are omnipresent and difficult to resolve.

The New Israel Fund works to help Israel live up to its founders' vision of a state that ensures complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants without regard to religion, race or gender.  This work is at the core of our identity as a cutting-edge organization taking on the most difficult issues.  From women's and LGBT rights to the controversial issues of synagogue/state and minority rights,  NIF has founded, funded, trained or led a coalition of every significant human and civil rights organization in Israel.

At any given time, the NIF family is: Mobilizing public support for legislative and legal remedies or for the enforcement of existing laws, policies and procedures that promote equality and justice; Safeguarding the legal rights of disadvantaged populations; Advocating for democratic values from the soccer stadium to the grade school classroom.  Our Fellowship programs have created the human rights bar in Israel and continue to provide well-trained attorneys and social change activists – the next generation of Israeli leadership.  As Ha'aretz described it in 2006, "In effect, there is hardly any significant socially oriented organization today in Israel that does not owe its existence to the New Israel Fund."