“I’ve learned how to inspire volunteers and how to delegate authority. I’ve learned that an effective campaign is based on three major components: spokesmanship, lobbying and activism. Sometimes it only takes five people, who make a satirical presentation at an entrance to some convention, to make a potent headline in the newspaper the following day. Having said all of this, I must add that, in my opinion, Green Course’s most significant achievement is bringing together young, caring and talented people with good ideas.”

Public Transportation is the main campaign Ram and his volunteers are focusing on at the Tel-Aviv chapter nowadays. Three years ago, one of Green Course’s lobbyists found out about a well thought out plan for improving TA’s public transportation system. This Reorganization Plan(link to Article in Jerusalem Post) was written by Ayalon Highways and forgotten about until Green Course pulled it off of the dusty shelves of the Tel-Aviv municipality and demanded it be implemented without delay. The plan consists of five stages. The first stage was carried out last August, and recently the Minister of Transportation announced that the second stage will be executed this summer.

“Having been born and raised in Tel-Aviv”, Ram explains, “I’m highly aware of the local public transportation shortcomings. There is great satisfaction in hearing on the radio that the Minister of Transportation is committing to deadlines and knowing that it has a direct connection to recent activities and press releases your organization was responsible for. It’s amazing to see how the work of a rather small group of dedicated people from our chapter is able to influence decision-makers and national policies.”

Highlights of their activities include:

For the First Time in Israel: Adapted Community Service Instead of Imprisonment for People with Disabilities

Bizchut has been working for years to promote alternatives to imprisonment appropriate for offenders with disabilities. We are happy to announce a recent breakthrough in this area.

During the past six months, Bizchut together with the Commission for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities held two training seminars for all the staff of the Unit for Community Service, part of the Israel Prison Service.

The seminars aimed to make participants aware that people with disabilities can be successfully employed. Together with Elwyn (an organization that runs employment programs for people with special needs) we showed how employers can be recruited to employ offenders with disabilities as part of community service. We presented the concept of supported activity in the mainstream community for a person with a disability, and the adaptations required for different kinds of disability.

The final seminar concluded with a joint declaration by the Director of Community Service, Bizchut and the Equal Rights Commission to implement a pilot project involving 12 people with disabilities who have been sentenced to community service.  Their placement and employment as part of this program will be accompanied by professionals who will advise on how to provide adaptations to meet their special needs.

The Struggle to Save the Accessibility Law Regulation

In July, the drafting of the statutory regulations governing access to existing public buildings was finally completed and they were brought before the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee for approval.

The Interior Minister Eli Yishai, made his approval of the regulations conditional on over a 100 weaker local authorities being excluded from the regulations, in effect giving them an exemption from dealing with this accessibility, even though it had been agreed in the Knesset Committee that the local authorities would only be obliged to implement the regulations in 2021, 11 years from now.

While some stakeholders yielded to the request concerning exemption of the weaker authorities in order to ensure the regulations would be approved before the recess and subsequently come into force, Bizchut thought otherwise. Together with other organizations and under the uncompromising and strong leadership of MK Ilan Ghilon, chairperson of the sub-committee for the accessibility regulations, we worked to prevent the suggested discrimination. The amendment was rejected and the regulations approved by the Committee. They are now waiting for the Minister’s signature before they can come into force.

Class action against Egged and Dan Accepted

In June the Jerusalem District Court accepted a class action brought by Advs. Kadari, Aharonsohn and Levi on behalf of Reuven Baron, Michelle Lustigman and Bizchut against Egged and Dan companies, in light of violation of their obligation to ensure that local public transportation is accessible to sight impaired and blind people. In its decision, the court ruled that the defendants only partly meet their obligations to install warning lines at the entrance to buses and at the top of stairs and operate internal and external public announcement systems, and do not at all meet their obligations to have accessible signs that show the bus number or indicate stop buttons or straps. In accepting the class action, the court made a precedent setting ruling that enables people with disabilities to bring a wide range of claims in relation to the implementation of the Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law and its statutory regulations.

More updates can be found in our Activity Report 2009-2010.

According to Shlomit Solomon, the initial idea for this project was based on the numerous phone calls received by the Itim hotline from families (mainly of olim but not only) and hospital staff members who were in a state of great confusion in the day following the death of their loved ones/ patients. Families were overwhelmed by the horrible combination of the desire to drop everything and surrender to their grief- and the need to make many decisions- some of them involving huge sums of money- instantly. Hospital staff members simply didn’t have the crucial information and therefore couldn’t help and give advice.

Again and again we received calls from people saying:

“We thought that burial is for free but are asked to pay 12,000 NIS! Is that ok?”

Or : “The chevra kadisha is telling us we have to make up our minds right now whether to purchase a burial plot for the spouse of the deceased. It’s very expensive! Do we have to make that decision right now?”

And: “Our father is not Jewish according to halacha. What are our choices? Where will he be buried?”

We’ve helped people on a one-by-one basis until we realized that in order to really help, we should help train the staff at the hospitals- mainly social workers who are the ones that are in charge of helping the family when a death occurs- but also nurses and other staff members. When it comes to burial costs and expenses, on many occasions money was spent unnecessarily and can’t be reimbursed, so prevention is crucial. It may seem like a horrible thing to think about at these moments, but for many families these are sums that they don’t have and unfortunately there are many people out there who take advantage of families at these very moments.

During our seminar we cover topics such as: whose liable for burial in Israel, what are the costs of purchasing a plot in advance, what’s covered by the National Insurance Institute and what isn’t, what are the different types of burial used in Israel today, the options for burial available for non-Jews and those who wish to be buried in a civil ceremony, contact numbers in case the family/staff feel they have been given wrong information- and more.

To date, the seminar funded by anonymous donors, was presented to the social workers of the oncology ward at Rambam Medical Center and to the entire social work staff at the Sha’are Zedek Medical Center. On both occasions, the staff was very eager to learn and quite surprised to learn many facts they were unaware of. Itim is working on preparing additional seminars in hospitals and for organizations.

An Enchanted City

This pilot program was created with the support of the Jerusalem Foundation. With help from supporters of the Museum, we hope to expand the program to include children throughout the city.  The program is also being tailored for religious and secular kindergartens to foster tolerance among them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To date Israel has not had a general immigration law. The Law of Return relates only to people who are Jewish, or are of Jewish descent, and leaves the question of immigration of non-Jews as a lacuna, which is covered by a plethora of sometimes conflicting administrative and judicial decisions. This leads both to confusion, bureaucratic arbitrariness as well as infringements of human rights.  The current state of affairs is detrimental to Israel’s vital interests, a situation which is intolerable for Israel as a state and as a nation. Israel needs an immigration policy. In this Position Paper, the authors, for the first time in Israel, propose a strategy for thought and action ahead of the formulation of an immigration policy that promotes Israel’s interests as a Jewish and democratic state.

Metzilah’s publications – mostly position papers – serve to explore the legitimacy and implications of Jewish national self-determination in the State of Israel, as well as of Jewish self-fulfillment around the world. Moreover our publications seek to shed light onto the compatibility of Zionism and Judaism with Human Rights and Liberalism in the context of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel.  The goal is to create a platform for ideological clarification of the presuppositions and validity of Zionism as well for informed public discourse and decision-making.

The papers are meant to serve as a basis of support for decision makers by framing complex issues and providing policy recommendations that will ensure a Jewish and democratic State of Israel, as well as the welfare of the Jewish people. They also seek to deepen the public discourse and sharpen its understanding on issues that are on the State of Israel’s agenda.

The combination of these two rationales contributes to consolidating a consensus among the public and decision makers, which calls for action on these issues.

The expanded course on the Negev includes elements such as the relationship between the center and the periphery, employment and lack of employment opportunities, culture, sectarianism, Bedouins, education, development of the Negev, environment, the new army training city and more.

As the activists who initiated the course have a background in education and social change, the clearly stated goal of the course is to provide knowledge and to examine critically what is going on in the Negev, so that participants will be encouraged to get involve and to take the initiative.  Many of the lecturers, aside from being volunteers are also Negev residents and the organizers believe that interesting relationships and partnerships for change will be developed as the course progresses.

The second course deals with urban issues in Tel Aviv.  The course takes a critical look at issues facing Tel Aviv and the surrounding metropolitan area.  By examining decisions that Tel Aviv has faced in the past as well as possible solutions to current issues, the course hope to give participants an understanding of the complexity involved in urban issues such as transportation; is a subway or light rail feasible, will it solve parking problems, etc.  Other issues to be addressed include green space, involving the public in decision making, and what makes Tel Aviv so special and can other cities learn from the Tel Aviv experience.

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ICAR has initiated a Study Day throughout Israel on the subject of agunot and mesuravot get, on and there about International Agunah Day that is marked on the Fast of Esther every year. ICAR sees great importance in exposing the public to the halakhic sources that refer to the problem of the agunah and the mesurevet get and to the varied solutions that appear within these sources to this difficult problem.

In this booklet the halakhic sources are organized by topic. Within each topic the sources are cited chronologically reflecting their precedence according to the halakhic era of each source.

In addition, at the end of the booklet a is sample lesson plan, which is useful for study groups that covers a number of sources that relate to the problem of the agunah from the large variety of sources  included in the booklet, as well as the various solutions that appear in the halakhic sources.

The booklet can be downloaded directly from the following link

Take for example Efrat Revach, as a divorced mother of 4 she was overwhelmed and scared.  She felt alone, and unable to handle the responsibility of earning a living, paying the bills, being a mother a friend, and somehow building a career for herself.  One thing was clear to her – fear and feeling sorry for herself were not going to buy groceries.

“I was introduced to Ruach Nashit through my family social worker.  What is nice about Ruach Nashit is that they are concerned with the present and the future and are not hung up about the past.  The amuta helped me grow through empowerment and business skill workshops, and by providing me with a mentor.  Eventually, I joined a course on building my own business and received business mentoring and participated in a networking meeting for business women.

Efrat Revach – Food from the Heart is now off the ground and provides catering in private homes as well as offering prepared foods, cakes and other baked goods.  If I would have continued to pity myself I would never have gotten to where I am today – I often remind myself that adversity and even great adversity can be overcome, and that I can grow and even grown more”.