Laying new foundations

Many of the city’s community initiatives are gearing up to face the withdrawal of funding from the Avi Chai Foundation.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Beit Avi Chai 521 (photo credit: Courtesy Beit Avi Chai)
Beit Avi Chai 521
(photo credit: Courtesy Beit Avi Chai)
Last week, a group of Jerusalemites gathered for the closing evening of this year’s “Kehilot Sharot” (Singing Communities) program, where they met hundreds of aficionados of piyut, or liturgical song, from all over the country.
Heftzi Cohen-Montagu, a facilitator at the pluralistic Torah study center Elul and a member of the Kehilot program, had been ready since early morning to enjoy an evening of learning and singing these old songs taken from both Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions, as she has done for the past few years. Wearing an elegant black outfit for the festive evening, Cohen-Montagu explained that despite a busy day, she wouldn’t have missed the evening for any reason, nor would her husband, Simon.
The Montagus are not alone in appreciating activities like Kehilot Sharot, and hundreds of residents in Jerusalem and elsewhere have witnessed the success of the organization that supports it, the Avi Chai Foundation. Avi Chai’s late founder Simha Bernstein had a vision – introducing a Jewish cultural revival into Israeli life – and today, about two decades since the foundation’s establishment, there is no question that it is fulfilling that vision.
Although its annual end-of-year gathering took place in the East & West House in Jaffa, the Kehilot Sharot program, like dozens of other programs in the framework of Jewish renewal, was born in Jerusalem. With the creation of the Beit Avi Chai cultural center on King George Street five years ago, the foundation has achieved a cultural revolution and deeply changed the Israeli public discourse on Jewish culture and social issues.
However, there is a serious concern among the many cultural institutions and non-profit organizations that until now have been largely (sometimes exclusively) funded by the Avi Chai Foundation, that as the funding is withdrawn in the lead-up to the foundation’s planned closure, many of these associations won’t survive. The foundation is aware of this precarious sitiation, but won’t change its policy of slowly divesting from these organizations. One of the foundation’s leaders’ expectation is to see the state step up to replace the philanthropy.
THE AVI Chai Foundation was established through a generous grant from the American-born Bernstein, who dedicated almost his entire fortune to the cause. Bernstein, who was religious himself, believed that Judaism should not be confined to religious duties but enlarged to establish a shared culture and heritage. He was also deeply concerned over the growing – and sometimes violent – gap between the religious and non-religious in Israeli society. One of the first projects of his foundation was the “Tzav Pius” program, which enabled encounters between opposing segments of society, in order to narrow the gap by lowering suspicion, fear and ignorance of each other’s culture and customs. Most of the programs Avi Chai has sponsored promote an approach that involves the joint study of Jewish sacred texts for men and women, religious and non-religious, young and less young.
Besides Kehilot Sharot and Tzav Pius, organizations such as Bema’aglei Tzedek and Jewish liturgy website Invitation to Piyut, as well as the Keshet school (for religious and secular children) and various pluralist Torah study centers, have all deeply contributed to changing the public’s view of Jewish sacred texts and their relevance to the present.
YET THE Avi Chai Foundation was not intended to last forever. For Bernstein, it was clear from the beginning that his initiative would launch a procedure that would ultimately be handed over to others. In fact, the foundation is set to close within eight years, in 2020. And it is not clear how many of the organizations Avi Chai has created will continue to exist without the foundation’s grants.
For some organizations, like Kehilot Sharot, the end of the funding from the Avi Chai Foundation has been a terrible blow, and though the program continues to exist, it is clear that it is a fragile existence. On the evening marking the end of the season, the participants raised money to enable the project to continue until they could manage – or not – to find a new sponsor.
“Most of the work – and it requires a tremendous amount of work – is done [on a volunteer basis],” says Cohen-Montagu, including the group’s leader, Yossi Ohana, who doesn’t receive a salary.
Despite the popularity of many of the Avi Chai projects, most will likely be forced to shut down.
However, two of the most successful projects the foundation has led will not be harmed by its closure in 2020. Tzav Pius and the Beit Avi Chai center have a separate status and a separate budget, and this will enable them to go on without any link to the foundation itself.
While Tzav Pius operates all over the country, Beit Avi Chai (where Tzav Pius has its headquarters) has focused on changing the face of culture in Jerusalem. Music, conferences, Jewish humor, art (there is a gallery inside the building on King George Avenue), study workshops for Jewish youth from abroad, the Piyut Festival, nighttime study sessions on Shavuot and Succot, and a much longer list of events have turned the center into a crucial cultural venue. Thanks to its financial capacities, it can offer low-cost tickets (compared to other venues in the city) and has fulfilled Bernstein’s vision of Jewish culture accessible and affordable for all.
But for some other organizations, like the veteran Elul (created 22 years ago), the future is still unclear. And right now, about two years before they will have to get by without the foundation, there is a rush of activity to get ready for that day.
ONE OF the reasons behind the founder’s rule that the foundation must close was the desire to see other parts of society participating in this endeavor, but it was also about a vision that each generation should have its own philanthropic organizations. The aim is to encourage individuals, groups and grassroots organizations to join the Jewish renewal effort, in the hope that once they raise enough interest and commitment from society, they can provide the needed support for the cause.
Since the decision became official a few years ago, the foundation members have taken pains to talk to each of the organizations about the impending closure and prepare them for the foundation’s exit, and news of the process has been published in the foundation’s annual reports. Nonetheless, it was a difficult moment two years ago when the organizations found themselves looking at a future without Avi Chai grants..
“It is certainly a challenge,” says Danny Danieli, director of the Beit Avi Chai center and a member of the trustees’ assembly, “but I believe it is the best way to involve Israelis in this mission.”
FACING THIS deadline, the foundation members are focusing on attracting new sources of funding.
“We’ve been talking very openly with our [grant beneficiaries], and that fits the founder’s vision – namely that each generation has its responsibility...
to raise its own funds, for the civic concerns of that generation,” explains Eric Silver, the president of the foundation trustees.
He adds that now, the foundation’s concern is to establish an advocacy tool that will lead not only to more business philanthropy, but also to government funding for the projects Avi Chai has supported so far.
“It should lead to less stress in this field,” he says. “There are no guarantees, of course, but that’s what we’re at now.”
However, he continues, business and government financial aid is not the only answer. “Private Israeli philanthropy also has to be part of the answer – because as for Diaspora philanthropy, in the long run, the prospects don’t look like it’s going to grow. I guess it will maintain its level, but I think the future for what we’ve been doing until now lies here, in Israel, with Israeli citizens who will also say at some point – well, this is really important for me, for my children, for my family, and I’m going to give as well.”
According to Silver, one of the foundation’s primary goals is to establish a connection between Jewish renewal and Israeli philanthropy – which he describes as “relatively new” compared to American philanthropy.
For example, he says, while there were significant donations in the framework of the “Psaiphas” (mosaic) project, which involved the Avi Chai Foundation and Jewish federations matching donations from local private donors, these donations came on a specific basis – “donations for Elul, or for this or that project or organization included under the Psaiphas umbrella, but when we tried to bring the donors to see it as a larger issue, as the general topic of Jewish renewal, and we tried to invite them to hear about the whole concept – they didn’t join. We’re still not there.”
RONI YAVIN, director of Elul, is one of those concerned about the loss of Avi Chai funding. Yavin, who says she didn’t even wait for the official notice about the foundation’s withdrawal, launched a vast fundraising operation last month among current and former program participants.
She agrees with Silver that the major problem facing Jewish renewal projects is the lack of support from the government and local philanthropy.
“I think it is wrong that these remarkable projects, which are aimed to improve our Jewish and pluralistic life here, should be funded only through Jewish philanthropy from the Diaspora,” she says. “I think they are firstly an Israeli issue and concern, which should be answered by the government and Israeli philanthropy, but, to my deep regret, that is not the case.”
According to Yavin, local philanthropy “is focused on charity aspects and neglects different and no-less-important topics like Jewish and pluralistic renewal.”
While she affirms the importance of helping the needy and new immigrants, she stresses that ensuring a society of Israeli Jews who share knowledge of their cultural roots beyond their own private religious choices is “a basic and urgent need... in order to provide a serious answer to religious extremism.”
These days, facilitators at Elul, together with representatives of the Tikkun movement, are busy organizing an evening of study dedicated to the Jewish attitude toward strangers and refugees. Against the backdrop of recent violence in Tel Aviv against African refugees and illegal migrant workers, highlighting the more humane approach that Jewish sacred texts offer has particular relevance.
“That is what we are doing here, as well as other similar [projects], and in order to keep doing that, there is a need for financial support,” says Yavin. “If it doesn’t continue to come from Jewish American philanthropy, then it has to come from the government, as well as from Israeli business – after all, it is primarily a local Israeli concern.”