NCJW Israel Program Report, July 2007

In this edition:

  • Message from Shari Eshet, Director of NCJW's Israel Office
  • Teleconference with Noted Author Naomi Ragen
  • Events in Review
  • NCJW 2007 Israel Benefit Luncheon
  • Evaluating NCJW's Women and Gender Studies Program

Message from Shari Eshet 

Dear Friends,

NCJW, through its Israel Program, has been quite active this spring. This Israel Program Report highlights some of the more prominent activities of the past few months, including a review of our Tel Aviv University scholarship recipients' outlook on the NCJW Women and Gender Studies program. Our thanks to Yaara Levine, a third-year student in the NCJW Women and Gender Studies Program, who did an outstanding job of completing this evaluative survey work for NCJW. NCJW is pleased to find that the Women and Gender Studies Program has been of such value to these students. We look forward to assisting with attempts to address the needs identified in the report, particularly the need to provide ways to build on the program to create a network of feminist activists in Israel. I am particularly proud to have been the staff person who monitored and mentored these women along the way.
 
As summer sets in, I am sure you all join me in hoping that this summer will be an easier one for Israel than last year's.
 
 Shari Eshet
Shari Eshet
Director of NCJW's Israel Office

Teleconference with Noted Author Naomi Ragen

On June 18th, NCJW held a teleconference to discuss the issue of gender-segregated public buses in Israel, featuring Naomi Ragen, an American-born novelist and playwright living in Israel, who was herself the victim of harassment while riding on a public bus in Israel. Her case has been taken up to the Israeli High Court of Justice and is currently awaiting a decision from the Court.

The teleconference highlighted the issue of gender-segregated public buses in Israel as a human rights issue and not a religious issue.

For more information, please see NCJW President Phyllis Snyder's op-ed article on this topic. You can also read an abridged transcript of the teleconference on NCJW's website.

Events in Review
 
On June 4th, the Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arabs held a seminar in New York City. NCJW, an original member of this coalition, joined 50 other participants to hear from Israeli experts who are deeply involved with the Israeli Arab population and the issues of co-existence, equality, and democracy. All agreed that the situation of the Israeli Arab sector is the most sensitive and important domestic issue facing Israel today.
 
On June 14th, NCJW President Phyllis Snyder represented NCJW at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Washington, DC, where they met privately with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other top officials in the administration. The president spoke to the group about Israel and the very pressing issues in the Middle East -- sharing his concerns and his hopes for the future.
 
Later that week, NCJW representatives attended another special meeting of the Conference of Presidents in New York City with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert. The prime minister updated the participants on the recent events in Gaza and emphasized his optimism about working with the moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.

NCJW 2007 Israel Benefit Luncheon
 
On June 19th, over 150 guests gathered at the New York Hilton for NCJW's 2007 Israel Benefit Luncheon event. Co-chaired by NCJW board member Joan Butwin and Israel Granting Committee member Naomi Houminer, the luncheon honored philanthropist and activist Milton Okin and celebrated the power of the continued partnership between NCJW and the past supporters of US/Israel Women to Women. Over $100,000 was raised to support NCJW’s work in Israel.
 
The luncheon's program featured keynote remarks by Florida State Senator and NCJW Honorary President Nan Rich, who spoke about the power of NCJW's efforts to create progressive social change in both Israel and the US, and her own journey from NCJW leader to public service. The luncheon also included a touching tribute to honoree Milton Okin by Rachel Bialer, director of the Woman to Woman Jerusalem Shelter for Battered Women, a grantee organization of the NCJW Israel Granting Program, who traveled to the United States to honor Okin.

Evaluating NCJW's Women and Gender Studies Program

The NCJW Women and Gender Studies Program, begun in 2001 at Tel Aviv University, granted its first bachelor's degrees in the summer of 2004. With an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research using over one hundred courses from the faculties of law, humanities, art, and the social sciences, it is the first such program in the Middle East to grant a bachelor's degree. As of August 1st, Dr. Tovi Fenster, a geographer specializing in urban planning will take over as chair of the NCJW Women and Gender Studies Program. Dr. Fenster's fields of expertise are gender and space, gender and planning, and gender and human rights. She has been involved with the NCJW Women Studies Forum since 1996 and chairs the Commission of Gender and Geography of the International Geographical Union. With the fulfillment of its million-dollar pledge to Tel Aviv University to endow the program, NCJW has asked one of our scholarship recipients and a third-year student in the program, Yaara Levine, to conduct a study to ascertain the views of her fellow scholarship recipients on the program's strengths and weaknesses, with an eye toward making future improvements.

A survey questionnaire gathered demographic data on participants and elicited feedback on the program. Students were asked for their likes and dislikes regarding the program's operation and content, what could be improved, how their studies influenced them personally and in their career choices, and whether the program provided benefits in the form of friendships or a network of like-minded women.

Sixteen of the 19 scholarship recipients responded, an impressive rate of 84 percent. They ranked their satisfaction with the program as extremely high, noting with appreciation the warm attitude and personal approach displayed by the academic staff. They lauded the feminist pioneering spirit they felt a part of. Many reported that their studies impacted their lives "profoundly and significantly." They called their experience "the most important time of my life," "life-changing," and "a founding educational process." One said "my entire view of the world of has changed"; another said "I've changed the way I think."

In terms of career choices, the study found that only two graduates had jobs dealing with gender issues, although more reported that they would like to work in the field. Nevertheless, all felt that because of their studies, they incorporated feminist principles into their everyday lives. One said the knowledge gained "helps me participate in debates and affect the opinions of other people and women around me." Another said the experience "provided me the legitimacy to think what I could not express in words," and yet another said, "I experience myself and my history differently" after being in the program. The students expressed frustration that there is no organized system for keeping in contact once the women dispersed after graduation.

Researcher Yaara Levine included a letter of thanks to NCJW in her report. In addition to the financial aid, which enabled her to succeed in "paying my tuition on time and even cover my bank overdraft (finally!)," she thanked NCJW for "a sign of personal support in me" that "strengthened me and gave me the power and energy to continue." She concluded her letter by stating that "You can see that the feminist studies have affected not only me, but many women, many scholarship recipients, [and] that your support is highly appreciated by them. Gender studies are not just another class at the university, but are life-changing and eye-opening studies."

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