FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jodi Bodner
JNF Director of Communications
212-879-9305 ext. 221
jbodner@jnf.org

JNF Increases Breadth and Scope of Zionist Education

Responds to Growing Needs in the High School and College Arenas

July 12, 2006-- New York, NY -- Understanding the need to connect students to Israel in their formative teenage years and the need to empower them with the tools necessary to advocate for Israel on college campuses, Jewish National Fund is readying for the upcoming school year with exciting new initiatives and partnerships in these targeted areas:

For High School Students:

1. To bring American teenagers closer to life in Israel, Jewish National Fund and The Jerusalem Post are creating an exciting, new publication for high school students. Written in English, and called iM: Israel Messenger, its content will stress modern Israel , its diverse population and unique Israeli and Jewish culture.

Following two sample editions, beginning in October 2006 iM will provide subscribers with 24 pages of relevant stories on topics ranging from pop culture to politics written with teens in mind. Nine monthly editions will be published yearly. Many teens want to support Israel but don’t necessarily have the background to understand all of the issues and the history. A newspaper like this will help educate them culturally and historically.

To best advocate for Israel, first you have to know Israel. iM will reach American teens and give them the understanding they need to relay the message as they go out into the world. iM will be used by youth leaders, rabbis, teachers, and principals as a way to generate high quality discussions and activities about Israel and by parents and grandparents to connect their families to their Jewish identities that is not offered elsewhere. It will also be read by individual teens.

2. The Alexander Muss Institute for Israel Education (AMIIE) was founded in 1972 to help teens learn about Israel’s living history by experiencing the country as their classroom. Since then, AMIIE has connected more than 18,000 students with their Jewish heritage by giving them an opportunity to live and learn in Israel. American public high schoolers who partake in its core program spend eight weeks exploring Israel ’s history and culture and reinforcing their Jewish identities. In its vendor service program, Jewish day schools send entire classes over for differing periods of time to learn first hand about life in Israel.

Philanthropist and real estate developer Stephen Muss, who endowed the school in memory of his father, is partnering with JNF to ensure the school’s continued growth. With one campus in Hod Hasharon, the goal is to open the next one in the Negev as part of JNF’s Blueprint Negev campaign and for the school to be part of JNF’s educational mission which seeks to engage, educate and energize Diaspora youth.

For College Students:

1. Four years ago, Jewish National Fund, together with Media Watch International, launched Caravan for Democracy (CFD). CFD brings speakers representing a wide spectrum of political and philosophical thought from Israel to college campuses throughout the United States in order to drive campus dialogue on the Middle East and discuss the shared values of freedom and democracy that connect Israel and the United States, as well as the challenges Israel faces as the only democracy in the Middle East.

Since its inception, CFD has sponsored 176 events, visited over 70 campuses and communities, engaged more than 20,000 participants at its events and lectures, and reaches 10,000 students through its newsletter. Entering its fifth year, CFD has plans to add six new campuses to its programming.

2. Taking the quest to strengthen its pro-Israel activities on college campuses one step further, JNF has entered a new cooperative venture agreement with Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).

SPME is an independent, faculty-driven, not-for-profit, "big-tent” grassroots community of scholars with well over 6500 academics and members receiving its SPME Faculty newsletter on over 300 campuses worldwide. Over 20 of these campuses now have their own chapters and more are forming in a number of countries as well.

As a complement to its already successful Caravan for Democracy program on college campuses nationwide, JNF’s association with SPME will strengthen its impact on college campuses in two ways:

• It will provide mentors for the Caravan student leaders who face tremendous and unfair challenges from faculty and sometimes the administration of their universities as they advocate the pro-Israel message.
• It will support faculty who play a critical role in addressing anti-Israel claims. Through conferences, teach-ins, and scholarship in academic literature and presentations, SPME counters anti-Israel propaganda passing as scholarship with academic integrity, honest debate and new standards for academic analysis and discussion. When professors challenge and critique another's work, the discussions in the particular discipline will improve and those advocating propaganda rather than scholarship will be quickly isolated and exposed at their institutions and amongst their peers.

SPME's mission is to engage, inform, motivate, encourage and empower faculty to use their academic skills and disciplines on campus, in classrooms, and in academic publications to develop effective responses to the ideological distortions, including anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist slanders that poison debate and work against peace. SPME welcomes scholars from all disciplines, faith groups, and nationalities who share its desire for peace and commitment to academic integrity and honest debate.

“In the complicated world in which we live,” said Bob Levine, chair of JNF’s Israel Advocacy and Education Department, “it is not enough to teach children in Jewish elementary schools about the history of Zionism, the pre-state and post-state periods. Today with the ongoing attacks against Israel in the press, on college campuses, through boycotts of Israeli professionals and products, etc. the Jewish community must be informed and develop the skills of activist response.

“These are all activities of JNF’s Israel Advocacy and Education Department, which has created the mechanism to fulfill its mandated task as set forth by the World Zionist Organization ‘to provide Zionist education in the Diaspora.’ Our work that begins on the elementary school level and continues all the way up to the university level brings greater understanding and pride to every Jew for the miraculous achievements of the people and State of Israel and its supporters around the world.”

For additional information on any of the programs listed above, please contact JNF’s Israel Advocacy and Education Department: Rabbi Eric M. Lankin, D.Min., Chief, Institutional Advancement and Education, 212-879-9305 ext. 264 or ELankin@jnf.org; Mara Suskauer, Executive Director, Israel Advocacy and Education, 212-879-9305 ext. 330 or Msuskauer@jnf.org ; Rebecca Kahn, JNF Campus Programs Manager, 212- 879-9305 ext. 248 or rkahn@jnf.org

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Jewish National Fund is a non-profit organization founded in 1901 to serve as caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners-Jewish people everywhere. Over the past century, JNF has planted over 240 million trees, built over 180 reservoirs and dams, developed over 250,000 acres of land, created more than 1,000 parks, provided the infrastructure for 1,000 communities and educated students around the world about Israel and the environment. Today, JNF is putting its century of experience to work with the Blueprint Negev initiative, supporting Israel’s newest generation of pioneers in developing the Negev Desert - Israel’s last frontier. For more information on JNF or to plant trees in Israel, call 1-800-542-TREE (8733) or visit www.jnf.org. To contact your local office, please call 888-JNF-0099 or visit www.jnf.org.