Neighbors; We Are Lod — A group of Lod residents are working to cement last May’s violence in the mixed city’s collective memory to prevent it from recurring and to create a framework for Jewish-Arab community activity. At 50 sites around the city, including where some of the worst violence occurred, activists are installing ceramic placards with the phrase “Neighbors / جيران; We Are Lod / ﻧﺤﻦ اﻟﻠﺪ.” The initiative’s organizers are also hosting community events, bringing the city’s diverse residents together through art.

System Ali Creative Workshops — Beit System Ali — the NGO side of the dynamic, multilingual, binational, Jaffa-based hip-hop collective System Ali — convenes rap and poetry workshops to forge a shared creative space for Palestinian and Jewish residents of the mixed city. These workshops help Jaffa residents express themselves, confront their emotions, and articulate the change they wish to effect in their communities.

Breaking Down Borders — The Bat Yam Educational Authority is creating a groundbreaking program that brings together Jewish and Arab informal educators from the neighboring cities of Bat Yam and Jaffa. As pillars of their communities, these educators have a unique role in humanizing the “other” and preventing future violence.

Omdim Beyachad (Standing Together), a grassroots movement comprised of Jewish and Palestinian Israeli activists across the Israel, mobilized Israelis who opposed the violence. With rapid response funding from NIF, Omdim Beyachad organized dozens of joint Jewish-Arab vigils and protests attended by thousands across the country calling for peace and an end to the occupation. Thousands followed Omdim Beyachad’s social media because of their savvy digital content advocating for a shared future.

NIF provided an emergency grant to I’lam – Media Center for Arab Palestinians, Citizens’ HQ, and Sikkuy–Aufoq to hire a public relations professional and a Palestinian-Israeli journalist to promote responsible media coverage of the violence and to increase the number of Palestinian-Israeli interviewees speaking out about the need to build a shared society.

An emergency grant to the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education (FUCAE) helped support educators in the Arab sector, particularly in mixed cities, as they confronted the crisis in Arab-Jewish relations. Thanks to the grant, FUCAE was able to provide teachers, parents, and schools in mixed cities with tools to address the crisis and to rebuild a sense of security for students.

For years, Palestinian citizens of Israel have faced chronic underinvestment by the state, resulting in worse health outcomes, lower income, and higher rates of violence compared to predominantly Jewish cities. The new Israeli government, which includes an Arab party for the first time, significantly increased funding for Palestinian communities in Israel, providing hope for positive change — but not without challenges along the way.

Thanks in part to the advocacy of NIF grantees the National Committee for Heads of Arab Local Authorities (NCHALA), Sikkuy-Aufoq, the Abraham Initiatives, and the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education (FCUAE), the most recent state budget allocated an unprecedented NIS 30 billion ($9.6 billion) for socioeconomic development for Palestinian communities in Israel.

Following years of tireless advocacy by the Shatil-led Citizens’ Forum for the Promotion of Health in the Galilee and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Ministries of Health and Social Equality dedicated NIS 650 million ($200 million) to closing the gaps in health-care services between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.

Several NIF grantees, led by Abraham Initiatives and NCHALA, have also been working to combat the violence overwhelming Arab towns and have advocated for a government plan to tackle the problem. This work helped prompt the government to allocate NIS 2.4 billion (more than $745 million) for law enforcement and civilian programs aimed at curbing the violence.

Negev Bedouin, numbering 287,000 people, are among the poorest and most marginalized communities in Israeli society. Since the state’s founding, successive Israeli governments have maintained a policy of dispossession toward Bedouin in the Negev. Today, over 100,000 Negev Bedouin live in “unrecognized” villages, which the state uses as license to deny access to basic services, demolish homes, and expel residents. NIF, Shatil, and our grantees work tirelessly to secure fundamental rights and services for residents of these communities.

After years of advocacy led by NIF grantees the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages and the Negev Coexistence Forum and supported by Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights and Shatil, the Israeli government agreed to recognize three previously unrecognized villages: Rahme, Hashem Zaneh, and Abde, home to over 4,000 residents.

Adalah succeeded in forcing the Israeli government’s Bedouin Authority to withdraw plans for “refugee displacement camps” that would provide a pretext to forcibly relocate thousands of Bedouin residents of unrecognized villages.

NIF grantee Zazim – Community Action continued its fight against disenfranchisement of Bedouin citizens in 2021. The Central Elections Commission prohibited Zazim’s plan to transport Bedouin voters from unrecognized villages (which do not have adequate roads or public transportation) to polling stations. But the plan inspired many private citizens to travel to unrecognized villages on Election Day and drive Bedouin citizens to polling stations to make sure they could cast their ballots and make their voices heard.

As we entered year two of the Covid-19 pandemic, NIF donors found new and old ways to connect. Whether it was on Zoom or in-person, we gained strength by joining together to support our vision of a better Israel.

After vaccines were rolled out and public health guidelines allowed, we held our first in-person events in over a year. When Israelis were able to visit the U.S. once again, grantees including Mehazkim and FakeReporter traveled the country, meeting with supporters like you. NIF CEO Daniel Sokatch visited synagogues and lecture halls from coast to coast to share insights from his new book, Can We Talk About Israel?

Building on the success of our 2020 virtual programs, we found innovative ways to engage with our supporters — from our second virtual Guardian of Democracy gala, to webinars to learn about pressing issues from grantees on the ground, to an Arabic class hosted on Zoom in collaboration with grantee Abraham Initiatives.