February 7, 2013

(JTA) — The Hadassah Foundation awarded grants totaling more than $200,000 to benefit girls and women in the United States and Israel.

The grants for 2013 reinforce the foundation’s mission of refocusing the priorities of the Jewish community through funding innovative and creative projects that serve women and girls from diverse cultural groups within Israel and the American Jewish community.

Since 2000, the Hadassah Foundation, which augments the work of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, has awarded approximately $6.5 million in grants to nearly 70 nonprofit organizations.

Among the 16 grant recipients in Israel are: Bar Ilan University’s Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center, which provides legal counsel to women seeking a divorce and works proactively to improve policy and practice by educating future family lawyers on safeguarding women’s rights and advocating for changes in Israeli family law; Rabbis for Human Rights’ Empowering Single Mothers to Advocate for Change program, which works with marginalized Jewish and Arab women from Hadera and the surrounding Arab villages in Wadi Ara to advocate for expanding the potential pool of families eligible for government stipends given to single parents; Tmura – The Israeli Antidiscrimination Center’s Reclaiming Feminine Justice: Understanding and Combating Economic Violence program to make known and reduce the instances of economic violence that occur in Israel by using law reform and legal action against the perpetrators of this abuse.

Among the five recipients in the United States are: Keshet’s Jewish Anti-Bullying Initiative, which provides LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) inclusion and anti-bullying training for youth workers in the Jewish community, and helps youth-serving organizations in the Jewish community to write and implement anti-harassment/bullying policies; and Shalom Bayit’s youth-led dating violence prevention curriculum Love Shouldn’t Hurt: Campus and Beyond which focuses on college students. 

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