“How long are we going to stay?” asked Sari.  “Till we win,” replied her father.

by Pamela Deutsch

Sari was born and raised in Brooklyn, attending an all girls yeshiva through 8^th grade, followed by attending the first Solomon Schecter High School ever established.  Her father was a lithograph operator, who was very active in the union and her mother taught in NYC public schools.  Sari’s father was an activist; active in the protest movement and in the civil rights movement.  Once of Sari’s earliest memories is attending regular Friday protests at a local ballpark where they would not allow Afro- American ball players to participate in the game.  Sari would always ask, “How long are we going to stay?”  To which her father would reply, “Till we win.”

It is this kind of devotion to a cause that has driven Sari for the rest of her life.  After 10^th grade, Sari attended camp Ramah in the Berkshires and while there volunteered at a hospital for the mentally ill – it was after that experience she decided to study social work.   The elementary school Sari had attended was very Zionist; it felt that it was the role of the school to instill the Zionist dream in each of its students. As a young child, Sari often dreamed that there was bridge leading right from Brooklyn to Jerusalem.  As a graduation present from 8^th grade in 1968, her parents’ gift was a trip to Israel. This was a very big deal for her family and Sari and her parents (her two older brothers did not accompany them) saw Israel in its most glorified moments. All Sari wanted to do was comeback to Israel.  After 11^th grade, she spent summer on kibbutz and did not want to come home.  Her parents promised her that if she came home and finished high school, they would send her back to Israel for college.  However, Sari’s college experience in Israel did not turn out as expected.  At the time, there was a rule that you had to be 22 in order to study social work, so after a year studying English, Sari returned to the states.  In 1976, she came back to volunteer on a kibbutz , and ended up  practicing her novice skills in psychology  with a kibbutz member suffering  from PTS from the Yom Kippur war.  The intensity of that visit made her believe she had had enough of Israel.

Sari chose to study social work and psychology at UMBC Baltimore County.  Her field placement was in a community mental health clinic in south Baltimore where she worked as a clinical social worker, providing psychotherapy for anxiety and depression.  Through her work, it became clear to her that underlying these conditions was the urban removal/renewal that was going on in south Baltimore in order to build the new Orioles stadium.  These were not personal issues, but rather community issues, and their impact had Sari turning her career towards community organizing and attaining a masters from the University of Maryland at Baltimore.  This time her field placement was at the Baltimore Welfare Rights Organization, where she was mentored by Bob Cheeks, a seasoned civil rights leader in the Baltimore/DC area, and whose picture Sari still has on her office wall.  Sari continued to work at this organization for a number of years after graduation, organizing the first rent strike in public housing and training welfare mothers to represent themselves in appeals  processes

It was during graduate school that Sari met her ex-husband, who, from the beginning was very clear that after graduate school he really wanted to move to Israel.   When they decided to marry, they made a deal; they would spend – 2-5 years in the US, followed by 2-5 years in Israel, and then would decide where to live.

They moved to Israel in 1983; first to kibbutz, and a year later to Jerusalem.  At that point, having only been in the country for a year, but with tremendous experience in grass roots organization, Sari was hired by the New Israel Fund to begin Shatil – Capacity Building for Social Change organizations.  Sari was the CEO of Shatil for fourteen years.  During that time, the organization was able to seed a strong nonprofit sector, ensuring that activists understood that there are professional needs in running nonprofit organizations, and that skills need to be acquired in order to run these organizations. Shatil offered opportunities for those who needed to acquire these skills working both by skill and by sector.

By 1997, Sari was ready to take her experience and skills to a new level.  Most of the Jewish Israeli organizations Shatil was working with were from major cities, and Sari felt that those living in the periphery were lacked the ability to take their life into their own hands.  Yedid was founded in order to empower people living in the periphery and to help low income people understand what is in their  interest and have the ability to apply that interest when they vote or when they put their support  by behind a particular group or particular people – to get people civically involved.

Today, fourteen year later, Yedid’s mandate is threefold:

One, to this day people do not understand how to access their rights vis a vis, the government, municipality and as consumers.   Often, people give up because of the difficulties in pursuing their rights and this is where Yedid is there to assist them.  Two, there is a growing phenomena of increasing individual /family debt in Israel; debt that begins at a young age.  Cell phone bills that run up while young people serve in the army, easy access to lines of credit through credit cards , increasing number of young people taking upon themselves their parents debt – co-signing on loans, parents putting liabilities in their children name, etc.  Many of these people lack economic literacy, have few budget management skills, and are either unemployed or underemployed.  Yedid often sees young people who because of economic distress lose their ability and motivation to cope.  Along these same lines are women who drop out of the workforce when they raise children, and then not only have to deal with the loss of income, but find it difficult to re-enter the work force.  For these populations, Yedid provides assistance in terms of both empowerment and skills for re-entering the job force, in budget management and much more.  The third area were Yedid is active is in Housing.  Yedid focuses on  economic empowerment for those in public housing and those who want public housing.  For those who are unable to pay their mortgages due to sickness or other catastrophe, Yedid provides budgeting skills and negotiates with the bank and for those with no other choice, assists them to come to the realization that if they need to sell they should do it rather than let the bank repossess their property.  Furthermore, on a policy level, Yedid addresses the lack of available affordable housing and works towards instituting reforms that address issues such as what the banks and financial institutions can demand from those whose homes they repossess.

Yedid, which began with one branch in Haifa, today has 16 branches spread throughout the country from Safed/Hatzor in the north to Rahat in the south.  Two of these branches are located in Arab communities – Rahat and Nazareth.  Each center is staffed by volunteers and a paid director who supervises and trains the volunteers.  Volunteers are a mix of ex-clients, professionals – lawyers, accountants, hi tech professionals, social workers, social work and law students, and students on scholarship that require community service. The centers work on three levels – individual assistance,   policy change, a unique response to issues raised by the client base, which includes developing legislation, lobbying and empowering activists, and community based projects – economic empowerment, financial literacy for high school students and adults, helping women rejoin the work force and more.

Yedid’s Legal department is directly involved in cases that determine people’s fate.  For example, the employment practices of temporary employment agencies and their  affects on workers’ pension and severance pay, and a class action for home health care workers, mostly women who are afraid to come forth because they fear losing their jobs.  In the latter, Yedid is the plaintiff being represented by a private lawyer against the nonprofits and for profits which employ the health care workers.  These workers are not compensated for their travel time between clients, yet are expected to travel between multiple clients each day.  Ultimately,  Bituach Leumi (the National Insurance Institute) is responsible for this lack of pay.

Needless to say, Sari’s life is kept very busy, supervising the operation of this organization and ensuring continued funding.  Sari lives in Jerusalem and has two sons.  The oldest, 24 is finishing a degree in Business Management, and the younger is in 12^th grade at the Jerusalem Democratic School.

The resulting discussions involve complex Jewish and democratic values.  In order to aide these discussions Yesodot has developed materials aimed at high school students to help them understand:

What is the discussion about?

What are the Rabbis talking about?

Is this racism?

Is there a conflict here between Judaism and democracy?

The materials developed to be used in the classroom are designed to help students understand the issues at stake and assist them in forming their own opinions.

From our internet statistics we know that over 200 educators opened all of the materials in a fashion that indicates their intention to use them.  This hit level (over 200 out of 750 subscribers) is considered very high in terms of internet usage.

Please follow the links to the Yesodot website to see examples taken from the educational kit.

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.

The conference began with discussion groups studying passages from the Mishnah and Talmud related to the topic of disabilities. One of the group leaders, Omer Nachum, a young adult with disabilities fulfilling his national service duty through Gvanim’s Hed program in Yokneam, concluded the opening discussion circle, “There is a desire to change the perception – to foster a society that accepts disabilities. It is okay to have disabilities; there is no need to hide them only to accept them.”

Later in the evening, lectures discussed issues such as people with disabilities in public service, volunteering as a tool for empowering youth, halakhic challenges and more. Among the lecturers were Yoav Kareem, spokesmen for the disabled, Yichiel Sharshevsky, head of mental health rehabilitation at the Ministry of Health, and Rabbi Yuval Cherlow from the Tzohar organization.  Hanoch Daum and Ariel Hartman, co-authors of the book, Mind the Road, lead a discussion titled, “Who are you calling disabled?” The discussion brought up important dilemmas, like the tension between accepting a person’s disabilities and encouraging achievement. Where do you draw the line? When should you support a person with disabilities and when should you challenge him or her to action?  In the words of Ariel Hartman, a psychologist, “The most dramatic element of treating a person with disabilities is recognizing our own disabilities. If we define our limits and our imperfections, we are also able to accept the limitations of others.” Ariel Hartman noted the importance for people with psychological damage to leave the house and be part of society. Hartman spoke about the amazing example Daum is setting as a successful man with Tourette’s syndrome.

During the remainder of the evening, everyone gathered together to hear stories of the young volunteers. Achia Kamara, a representative for equal rights for people with disabilities in the Justice Department, spoke about his experience with what he calls the “public transportation social hierarchy”, referencing people’s fear of sitting on the bus next to a person with disabilities. Nadav, age 25, who works today as an assistant guide at the Knesset, spoke excitedly about his national service, serving at the National Library archives on the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University, “I chose to do national service, to volunteer, and to contribute to the state…My service made me feel like everyone else. Despite my disability,       I am not alone; I have found a community outside of my family.”

The conference was attended by a forum of organizations working to advance national service for marginalized populations. The forum included Ma’ase, Appleseeds Academy, Centers for Young Adults – JDC Israel and the Gandyr Foundation, and the social studies program at Beit Morasha.

Activism 3.0: Without leaving the comfort of an air-conditioned room or even missing a day of work, hundreds of Israeli activists succeeded in connecting a Palestinian village to running water

JERUSALEM - July 20, 2010 - The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights launched the blog “Action-a-Day” in order to connect the Palestinian village of Twaneh, located in the South Hebron Hills under full Israeli control, to running water. For two-and-half months, we encouraged activists volunteering for the projects to participate in one action a day via our blog and Facebook, each action taking only a few minutes. For each action, a new objective was chosen. The activists worked in complete coordination despite the fact that most of them had never met one another or the residents of Twaneh.

Last week, ACRI received a letter  from the Civil Administration, announcing the decision to connect Twaneh to running water.

Among the campaign actions, activists “bombarded” Knesset Members Haim Oron and Dov Khenin with letters, who accordingly sent a query to Defense Ministry; to Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i, who investigated the matter; to and Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon, who also promised to check into the situation. The activists advised Deputy Foreign Minister Dani Ayalon to connect the village to running water for the sake of Israel’s international image.

In addition to the letters, activists were invited to take part in a number of innovative projects: they took pictures of their faucets at home as a sign of solidarity with the residents of the village, produced a short, satirical film in which Israeli youth “thanked”  the residents of the village for “giving up” water for them, created a Wikipedia entry on Twaneh as well as a computer game, both attempting to convey the tangible ramifications of the lack of building and planning infrastructure in the village.

The major turnaround came following our appeal to the Civil Administration. After Brigadier Yoav Mordechai, head of the Civil Administration, received a barrage of appeals from Action-a-Day activists, he personally contacted two of them, thanked them for their letters, and informed them of his intention to convene a special meeting to discuss the village’s access to water. Subsequently, ACRI received the welcome news.

“We are excited and happy about the Civil Administration’s decision to connect the village to running water after thirty years,” stated the activists. “However, it is important to remember that this is only part of a larger problem. In normal circumstances, running water and shelter constitute a basic matter, not a reason to launch an entire campaign. The important lesson here is that complaining about the situation does not suffice. We can change things through concrete action. We must engage through civic activism – and someone is listening.”

“Israel is responsible for about 150,000 Palestinian residents of Area C, many of them living in villages which are unrecognized by Israel and therefore lacking official plans, explained Alon Cohen-Lifshitz, architect at Bimkom. ”As a result, many residents are not allowed to build houses legally, making it difficult to provide entire villages with basic infrastructure connections to water and electricity”, he said.

“We decided that if we were not able to change things on a large scale, we would start small”, explained Ehud Uziel, a coordinator of ACRI’s public activities. “The challenge we set for ourselves was to provide the village of Twaneh with access to running water. Residents of the village use water which they buy in shipping containers and for which they pay seven times more than the average Israeli. Two hundred meters from the village a pipe from the Israeli water company “Mekorot” provides clean water to the settlements of Maon and Carmel and to the adjacent outpost of Chavat Maon.”

“We weren’t sure if we would succeed,” continued Uziel. “We told ourselves that even if it doesn’t happen, the project itself will raise awareness about the issues of water shortage and housing rights of the Palestinians who live under Israeli control in Area C. The ‘Action- a -Day’ Campaign offers a new kind of activism, for those who care and want to bring about change”.

Ramit was married in 1993, after she and her future husband became religiously observant. The couple lived in a Charedi neighborhood.   Her husband’s violent behavior began soon after their marriage. After 12 years of continuous suffering, Ramit and her daughter were compelled to leave their home , and Ramit filed for divorce. As often happens, despite the fact that Ramit and her husband jointly purchased their apartment , the title to the apartment was in his name. He took advantage of the situation and claimed full ownership of the apartment. To make matters worse, the Beit Din demanded that Ramit should give up the apartment in exchange for a get and pressured her to transfer jurisdiction over the apartment’s ownership from the civil courts to the bet din. Ramit refused.

In all hearings relating to the apartment Ramit was represented, in both the rabbinical and the family court, by Gittit Nachliel, Mavoi Satum’s lawyer. Without giving up on her share of the apartment, the rabbinical court recommended that the husband give Ramit a get, though they did not compel him to do so.

In addition, through The Center for Women’s Justice, Ramit submitted a damages claim for divorce refusal. This move caused the judges in the rabbinical court to decree that until Ramit retracted her damages claim they would not arrange for her to receive a get. Luckily, the civil court ratified that Ramit was entitled to half of the apartment and to compensation from her husband for refusing her divorce. When her husband saw that he was fighting a losing battle and was going to lose on all counts, he agreed to give her a get. With our help, the two sides were able to arrive at a fair divorce agreement. As of today Ramit is a free woman.

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.

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

We debated long and hard before filing this lawsuit. Mostly, because we know that the problem is not mutual. Women suffer much more. Let’s face it. The halakha is gender-biased. It gives men almost unfettered power to determine their wives’ destiny, recognizes little grounds for divorce, and exercises almost no force over recalcitrant men, and when it does, it is often too little, too late.

All that said, men still suffer from the current way that the halakha allows for the dissolution of failed marriages.Thanks to Rabbenu Gershom, they too can be held hostage to their wives. Religious men, and even men who are not religious, want closure. They want to get on with their lives, correct mistakes, find new love. Sometimes the rabbis in Israel, bending backwards to prove that the halakha is mutual, will refuse to issue any order whatsoever against recalcitrant women. The husbands of these women, like the wives we represent at CWJ, can spend their entire lives in the rabbinic courts.

So we debated for about 6 months whether or not to represent a man in his claim for damages against his wife. Finally we took the case and filed it 2 months ago. At the pretrial hearing, the wife agreed to accept the get and the parties were divorced last week.

At about the same time that out client got divorce, Judge HaCohen –who gave CWJ its first damage award against a get recalcitrant in the amount of 425,000 NIS — issued the attached decision (in Hebrew) that also awarded damages to an 83 year old man (not our client) whose wife refused to accept a get.

Bottom line: The halakhic divorce regime does not work. Certainly not for women, and not really for men. We need to be able to have a third party declare a failed marriage over if the parties, for whatever not very healthy reason, are not able to.

For the full article