New Israel Fund

herzigma — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:54:15 +0000

After our recent trip to Israel, I’ve decided to add the New Israel Fund to my sidebar as an organization I want to publicly support. Why?

The Fund is Zionist, and believes in the establishment and continuation of the Jewish state in its present, historic location.
The Fund works for political and economic equality for Israel’s traditionally less empowered populations: women, immigrants, Arabs, Bedouin, and Druze. Much of Israel’s international, political, and diplomatic strength comes from its position as the Middle East’s only free and democratic society. The New Israel Fund’s work helps to ensure that continues.
The Fund supports organizations I know, believe in, and have worked with in a brief stint doing fundraising during college.

The war and recent battles between Israel and Hezbollah further demonstrate that modern wars cannot be won against weaker states or non-state actors. Military victory becomes political defeat, and anything less than total military victory becomes an implicit victory for the defeated. Israel could have learned that from American experience in Iraq. The only way Israel will win is to continue to be the only country in the Middle East where Arab citizens can vote freely, pursue economic interests freely, and criticize the government freely and without fear of persecution or violence. I hope that my support of the Fund will help to strengthen Israel for these continuing victories.

In their words: “NEW ISRAEL FUND works to strengthen Israel’s democracy and to promote justice and equality for all Israel’s citizens. The leading funder of social change in Israel, NIF supports grassroots organizations working to safeguard civil and human rights, bridge social and economic gaps, and foster tolerance and religious pluralism.”

Kiva – a higher form of charitable giving?

herzigma — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 17:14:45 +0000

This is a post about Kiva, a web-based, peer-to-peer microlending service. Maimonides, the famous 13th century Jewish scholar posited 8 degrees of tzedakah or righteous charity in the Talmud. Interestingly, the highest level is not charity in the traditional sense of an outright gift. Rather, a loan or business partnership that provides the indigent with the means to escape poverty was considered the greater form. In this regard, I consider the Kiva program of connecting microlenders in the United States with micro-borrowers in the developing world to be the highest form of Jewish charitable giving. The service has received attention from the World Bank and Public Radio International’s The World.

Kiva works by partnering with private development NGOs to identify and screen individuals who could utilize small amounts of money ($25 – $500 dollars) to start or substantially expand their own small businesses. Kiva then provides a framework to allow anyone with a PayPal account to select one of these entrepreneurs and give some or all of the funds requested. The entire donated amount is given to the requester (Kiva supports itself through separate donations) and each entrepreneur agrees to pay back the full loan amount, interest free, in six to twelve months. Though it hasn’t happened yet, a defaulted loan becomes a tax-deductible contribution.

Do you have an extra $25 you could lend to someone in need? Can you afford to right off your $1000 tax refund? Consider socking your hard earned money away in Kiva and letting it do some good.

(via Treehugger and The Kiva Chronicles)

Joshua Herzig-Marx » donations

New Israel Fund

Kiva – a higher form of charitable giving?