The United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF) is reponsible for the administration of Israel's participation in the American Fulbright Academic Program. Established in 1956 through an agreement between the governments of the United States and Israel, the program has seen more than 1,200 U.S. citizens and more than 1,500 Israeli citizens take part in their prestigious exchange programs.

The US Government’s Fulbright Program is one of the most prestigious and widely-known academic exchange programs worldwide. The main goal of the Fulbright Program, initiated in 1946 by Senator J. William Fulbright, is to strengthen the basis for peace by strengthening mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the peoples of partner countries around the world, in this case Israel. Student and faculty exchanges at the highest possible level of academic excellence are the principal means employed by the Fulbright Program to achieve this goal.

For more information on various grants available to Israeli's, CLICK HERE; for grants available to Americans, CLICK HERE.

In addition to its main mission, administration of the Fulbright Israel exchanges, USIEF carries out two other complementary activities:

educationUSA Educational Counseling Center: Provides accurate, comprehensive, current, and unbiased information on post-secondary educational opportunities in the United States. The Center’s services cover the entire range of options, from one-year technical courses, English language programs and distance learning, through associate and bachelor’s degree programs, and up to post-graduate programs leading to professional degrees in law and medicine and MA and PhD degrees in all disciplines.
Fulbright-Israel conference program: Provides a platform for appearances by US Fulbright Fellows and other US guests and by Israeli Fulbright alumni. The program includes special lectures and symposia on a wide variety of topics. A major theme within the program is higher education policy and the development of higher education systems.

Many prominent Israeli citizens, including government ministers, university presidents and nobel laurates, have taken part in Fulbright exchanges through the USIEF. The following is a list of just a select few:

Aharon Barak (former Israeli Supreme Court President);
Aaron Ciechanover (2004 Nobel laureate in Chemistry);
Itamar Rabinovich (former Israeli Ambassador to the US);
Yuli Tamir (former Knesset Minister of Education);
Uzi Landau (former Knesset Minister);
A.B. Yehoshua (novelist and playwright)

Sources: USIEF

U.S.-Israel Binational Foundations: United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF)