ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 490

The Ichud Hatzala organization helps rescue survivors following a huge earthquake in Turkey, February 10, 2023. (Yehiel Gorfein)
Main image: The Ichud Hatzala organization helps rescue survivors following a huge earthquake in Turkey, February 10, 2023. (Yehiel Gorfein)

Israeli overseas development, humanitarian aid NGOs hit hard as philanthropy dries up

Softer face of Israel abroad impacted as Jewish donors focus on Israel, antisemitism. Post-Oct. 7, some international funders distance themselves from Jewish, Israeli orgs

Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

Main image: The Ichud Hatzala organization helps rescue survivors following a huge earthquake in Turkey, February 10, 2023. (Yehiel Gorfein)

IsraAid, one of Israel’s biggest and best-known humanitarian aid organizations, issued a call earlier this month for funds to support an emergency response to Cyclone Chido in Mozambique.

At least 94 people were reported killed and over 300 injured in a region where over a million people are already displaced due to ongoing conflict, the organization said.

As it has in many global locations in crisis, IsraAID wants to provide urgent relief and rehabilitate damaged community centers in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, where it has built relationships with communities, local authorities and humanitarian partners over five years.

With half of its funding coming from non-Jewish sources, the award-winning organization has managed to continue working overseas during the 14 months since Israel experienced its own disaster on October 7, 2023.

On that date, thousands of Hamas gunmen invaded Israel from Gaza, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 to the Strip. A day later, the Iran-backed Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah started to pummel Israel with rockets from the north. A ceasefire with that organization was only reached last month.

After the October 7 massacre, IsraAid brought its wealth of overseas experience to bear on Israel for the first time, raising nearly $20 million for domestic Israeli projects.

An IsraAid employee helps install a bomb shelter in a Bedouin community in southern Israel, November 9, 2023. (Ori Taub)

Unlike many other international aid organizations, “we haven’t seen a dramatic decrease in funds for our work outside of Israel,” IsraAid’s CEO Yotam Polizer told The Times of Israel. “We were able to make the case this year for supporting these projects. But it was a struggle and it’s not consistent and I’m not sure it’s going to be easy going forward.”

He added, “Quite a few donors say they are only interested in supporting our work in Israel.”

Such domestically earmarked donations are all too familiar to the country’s network of overseas development and humanitarian aid organizations, many of which have only managed to stay afloat since October 7, 2023 by (willingly) serving needs in Israel for which funding has been plentiful.

But one organization active in non-Jewish communities abroad, TEN, is desperately seeking a new home, after the Jewish Agency cut its funding this month because of the huge needs in Israel and the Jewish world.

Other organizations say they are having to cut programs in the developing world.

In the meantime, the state’s investment in overseas development through its once-storied agency, MASHAV, is now the lowest among OECD countries.

Shifting philanthropic priorities

Ayelet Levin Karp, CEO of the Israeli branch of SID — the Society for International Development — has noted two new trends over the past year. “Jewish philanthropists have prioritized giving to Israel or supporting the fight against antisemitism in their communities, while some (non-Jewish) international organizations have distanced themselves from the Jewish state,” she said.

With over 150 members, SID Israel brings together NGOs, government, academia, business, investors and philanthropists interested or involved in overseas development and humanitarian aid. It aims at shifting Israeli policy and action and getting as many actors as possible involved.

On January 13, it will hold its annual conference in the central city of Bat Yam, where, among other things, the post-October 7 challenges will be discussed. The Times of Israel will be a partner.

Ophthalmic surgeon Prof. Morris Hartstein, founder of Operation Ethiopia, treats patients in Ethiopia, July 14, 2023. (Abel Gashaw)

SID-Israel’s index (currently being renewed) underlines just how much help and special expertise Israeli civil society brings to the Global South and countries at war such as Ukraine. This ranges from agricultural and other kinds of technology, through medical, engineering, emergency evacuation, disaster relief, and trauma support and training. It extends from conservation, community development, women’s empowerment, and ensuring fair trade, to sending medical clowns, and providing wheelchairs to give children mobility so they can get to school and be part of their communities.

Taken together, these organizations provide salaried work for teams overseas (and managers in Israel) and opportunities for thousands of Israelis to volunteer in their chosen fields.

“As well as contributing to the developing world in a meaningful way, our organizations provide soft diplomacy and portray the country in a positive light,” Levin Karp said.

One of a team of doctors from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center-Ichilov Hospital blows bubbles to help assess a child’s pulmonary function, Nepal, 2022. (Dr Ronit Almog)

“Israel’s image in the world is hardly positive, and the state’s investment in the developing world, which was once significant, is close to zero.”

She added that developing countries also opened up economic opportunities for Israel, at a time when many Israeli companies were facing a “silent boycott” in Western Europe.

Facts on funding cuts

What Levin Karp has picked up anecdotally from her Israel-based organizations is backed up by figures from Olam, another umbrella organization.

With 81 member organizations, 31 of which are headquartered overseas, Olam emphasizes the Jewish world’s contribution to overseas development and aid. But Olam and SID Israel cooperate closely, given that many NGOs belong to both bodies.

Dyonna Ginsburg, CEO of Olam, told the Times of Israel that 27 out of 70 organizations that responded to a questionnaire in January said they had seen a loss of support since October 7 last year.

In June, Olam and the Livelihood Impact Fund awarded $1 million in grants to 23 organizations able to prove those losses were connected to the war.

The 22 applicants (all received grants, plus an additional one deemed worthy who had not applied) reported a total of $2 million in lost income between October 7, 2023, and submission of their application in June 2024, as a direct result of shifting philanthropic priorities.

A volunteer with TEN helps a wheelchair bound girl in Uganda, 2023. (TEN)

Ginsburg pointed out that some of the applicants relied heavily on small donation campaigns, often at year’s end, which were hard hit in 2023. (She has not yet received figures for 2024.)

“While reviewing the grant applications, we had three organizations reporting losses of funding from non-Jewish donors who wanted to distance themselves from organizations that were either Jewish or Israeli,” Ginsburg continued.

“One organization, with a presence in Israel, but headquarters in Latin America, wrote that donors and philanthropic organizations were shifting funding to Gaza and that the Israeli organization’s logo could negatively ‘interfere.'”

Impacting the activists

The events of the last 14 months have directly impacted overseas development and aid activists in many ways.

Shoshan Haran with members of the Fair Planet NGO corps of volunteers and staff in Ethiopia. (Aviv Havron)

Shoshan Haran founded Fair Planet, an internationally acclaimed agricultural seed project.

Haran’s husband, Avshalom “Avshal” Haran was murdered by terrorists at Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, along with Shoshan’s sister, Lilach Kipnis and her husband, Eviatar Kipnis.

Shoshan, and daughter Adi, son-in-law, Tal and grandkids Naveh, 8, and Yahel, as well as Avshalom’s sister, Sharon and her daughter, Noam, were all taken as hostages to Gaza. In late November 2023, everyone but Tal was released as part of a truce deal.

Another Be’eri stalwart, Vivian Silver, best known for her work to bring Israelis and Palestinians together, was also murdered that day. She had helped found AGEEC-NISPED, a Jewish-Bedouin organization that has worked in African countries such as Cameroon.

Among those evacuated from their homes in the north to escape Hezbollah’s bombing was Gili Navon, managing director of Amar Majuli, who lives close to the Lebanese border.

Many Israelis working overseas returned home in the immediate wake of October 7 to serve in the IDF, incurring flight costs and manpower shortages. Others, wanting to fly abroad, were hampered by the lack of carriers willing to land in Israel.

A Natan volunteer extends medical help to in Morocco in 2023. (Courtesy, Natan)

Natan, a worldwide relief organization with over 1,700 volunteers that opens clinics in disaster areas, has seen its income nosedive by 70 percent this year compared with last year and the year before, according to Alice Miller, the CEO and the organization’s only salaried individual.

That will likely mean cuts to programs such as training school psychologists in Ukraine, running a Natan resilience center in Kharkiv, and establishing a project in an Indian hospital to reduce neo-natal fatalities from the current one in 10, Miller said.

Established 20 years ago, Natan sends medical professionals to disaster sites worldwide for two week stints, remaining five to eight months in the area.

A patient is examined at a Natan clinic for Israeli evacuees in Eilat, 2024. (Courtesy, Natan)

Last year, for the first time, it operated in Israel, setting up clinics in the immediate aftermath of October 7 to help evacuees from the Gaza border communities before the government and health funds had organized themselves to respond.

Most of Natan’s donors are Jewish and, according to Miller, most of their funds are now Israel-directed.

Miller said that while she understood this, the message that Israel was not only about war, and that Israelis were serving people in need worldwide, regardless of background, was also important.

Instead, she is trying to find donors in the countries where the disasters happen. “I can’t get over how American Jews give. It’s phenomenal,” she reflected. “I’m trying to find Indian donors for India, Nepalis for Nepal. It’s different. The strong connection of Jews in the US and the world to Israel is unique.”

Unlike NGOs in many other fields, most not-for-profit organizations working in overseas development and humanitarian aid do not qualify for Israeli government grants (with the exception of some support for work in Ukraine), according to Levin Karp. However, at least two have been partially state-funded as tools for bringing Diaspora Jews closer to Israel and their Jewish roots.

One is the Shalom Corps, which plays on the Peace Corps name, but is not connected to the better known organization. It encourages overseas-development-minded Jews, aged 16 to 40, to volunteer within a Jewish framework. It receives half of its funds from the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, and then matches them with private donations.

Volunteers from TEN in a classroom in Ghana, 2023. (Courtesy, TEN).

Another is TEN.

Created in 2014, TEN has been running centers manned by around 150 volunteers every year who work in informal education and health. Five such centers have been operating since October 7, but are currently being closed down because the Jewish Agency is focusing more on Israel and Jewish communities overseas. The centers are in Mexico, Argentina, Uganda, Ghana, and Cambodia.

CEO Yuval Barda said the organization was trying to find an alternative home.

Israeli overseas development and humanitarian aid organizations have mushroomed over the past five to 10 years, and several universities now teach courses on the subjects.

Less state investment in overseas development

Meanwhile, the state has invested progressively less in its once storied overseas development arm, MASHAV.

Indo-Israel Joint Agricultural Program, India, 2008. (MASHAV)

In the early years of the state, MASHAV received one percent of Israel’s GDP for development work in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2022, just 0.16% of government expenditure went towards development, according to the most recent Central Bureau of Statistics figures (in Hebrew) — the lowest in the OECD.

During the 1960s, as 35 African countries moved from being colonies to independent nations, MASHAV helped to build hospitals, airports, universities and roads in almost every African state.

In the 1960s, there were more than 30 Israeli embassies in Africa. Today, there are just 10.

“We understand that donors want to focus on Israel and antisemitism,” said Levin Karp. “But you can’t build up trust with overseas communities and organizations and then just say, ‘Sorry, we have a war, we’re taking a break (from overseas work) for two years.’

“We need friends abroad more than ever, business deals more than ever, and the opportunity to discuss common interests that are not tied to the war.”

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