by Mitchell Bard
When many people think about
Israel and philanthropy the immediate reaction
is that it is a reference to American Jews
giving charity to Israel. This is understandable
given the large amount of money — several
hundred million dollars — transferred
annually to Israel. Jews have a long history
of giving, tzedakah is a fundamental tenet of Judaism, but Israelis
have been slow to create philanthropic institutions.
This is in part due to the fact that Israel
receives so much money from abroad and the
focus of Israelis themselves often tends to
security issues rather than basic needs. In
this handy directory, Prof. Jaffe, a longtime
observer and participant in Israeli social
causes, provides information on the growing
number of foundations working in Israel.
The directory entries provide
baxic information regarding the foundation's
aims, types of giving and total assets. Unfortunately,
there is no information on past grants provided
by the foundations and little or no information
on the application process, such as restictions,
deadlines and restrictions. Some entries offer
more information than others and reflect the
willingness of foundations to provide data
and guidelines and the unavailability of much
of the material from other sources. To be
fair, even directories with much greater resources,
such as the U.S.-based Foundation Center's
directories often have little more information.
The book is primarily of
use to Israeli organizations seeking funding
for projects. It is less useful for Americans
and others outside Israel because virtually
all of the grants appear to be made in Israel
to Israeli organizations. Still, it is useful
to finally have such a compendium of charitable
institutions and it will undoubtedly grow
and improve as it is revised.
Sources: Mitchel Bard is the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise |