Eliezer Jaffe
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Eliezer David Jaffe (Hebrew: אליעזר דוד יפה) has lived permanently in Israel since 1960 and is Professor Emeritus at The Hebrew University's Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare. He initially came to Israel in 1957 as a volunteer in the Talpiot immigrant transient camp (ma'abara) in Jerusalem. He returned to the U.S.A. to complete his education and then immigrated to Israel in 1960 to be one of the founders of Israel's first university School of Social Work, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was trained in the United States, obtaining degrees in sociology, psychology, and criminology, and a doctorate in social work. He has been a consultant to the Israel Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and has served on several ministerial committees, including the Prime Minister's Committee on Children and Disadvantaged Youth (under Golda Meir), the Prime Minister's Council on Social Welfare Policy (under Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir), the President's Committee on Outstanding Volunteers (under Chaim Herzog), and the Committee to Determine Israel's Poverty Line(under Menachem Begin). Between 1970 and 1972, at the request of Mayor Teddy Kollek, he headed the Jerusalem Municipal Department of Family and Community Services, introducing major administrative, conceptual and program reforms, all of which have since been adopted nationwide.
Professor Jaffe's research has focused primarily on social services to children and families, ethnic stereotypes, and on the nonprofit sector and philanthropy in Israel. He studies and teaches about intercountry adoptions, nonprofit organization management, fundraising, and private philanthropy in Israel, and has conducted pioneering research on culturally sensitive practice, ethnic stereotypes among Israelis and public access to information regarding nonprofit organizations in Israel. He helped promote and write the new Israeli law on intercountry adoptions. He publishes frequently in professional journals and in the Israeli and American Jewish press and is the author of fourteen books.
Jaffe received the President of Israel's Citation for Outstanding Volunteer Activity in 1996, and the Mayor of Jerusalem Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Association Leadership. He also received the Bernard Revel Memorial Award, presented annually to the most outstanding scholar and community leader among the alumni of Yeshiva University. He is an independent, frank interpreter and analyst of social problems in Israel and an ardent advocate of direct giving and involvement by Jews abroad in Israeli social affairs. It was Jaffe who suggested the twinning concept in Project Renewal, whereby Jewish Federations and private philanthropists abroad link-up and twin directly in partnerships with specific disadvantaged neighborhoods in Israel. He has also written about how not to do urban renewal at the expense of residents in slum neighborhoods,using Yemin Moshe as a case in point.
He is a co-founder of Zahavi - The Israel Association of Large Families, was a member of the Central Committee of the Israel Association of Social Workers, an advisor to social action groups of new immigrants and other disadvantaged Israelis, the first Chairman of the Israel Committee of the New Israel Fund, and Chairman of the Academic Council of the International Sephardi Education Fund (ISEF). He was a member of the editorial board of Israel's social work journal, Society and Welfare; served on the editorial board of the international journal Public Management; and was a member of the National Council on Social Work. He is a consultant to the Rothschild Foundation and other foundations and private philanthropists in Israel and abroad. In 1990, he founded The Israel Free Loan Association (IFLA) to provide interest free loans for new immigrants and other needy Israelis, which he chairs as a volunteer. The Association has thus far provided over $87 million dollars in revolving interest free loans to over 34,000 individuals and small businesses in Israel. It received the Mayor of Jerusalem Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Organization, the Ministry of Immigration Absoption Citation and the Sderot Conference Award for contribution to Israeli society. The IFLA website, [www.freeloan.org.il], is used widely in Israel by applicants for loans as well as donors worldwide seeking to establish named interest free loan funds at the IFLA. There are currently over 250 named loan Funds. In addition to Jaffe as Honorary Chairman of the IFLA, there are 20 other volunteers and a staff of 10 employees.
Professor Jaffe is married and has four children and 17 grandchildren, all born and living in Israel. He was the first Centraid-L. Jacques Menard Professor for the Study of Nonprofit Organizations, Volunteering and Philanthropy at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This is the only Chair on this subject at any university in Israel and is an important element of the Hebrew University's Master's degree program in Nonprofit Management, the first program of its kind in Israel. Prof. Jaffe is co-Chairman (with Ralph Goldman) of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 2000, Professor Jaffe published a second edition of his book "Giving Wisely: The Israel Guide to Nonprofit and Volunteer Organizations". This was followed shortly after with his book "Sources of Funding: The Israel Foundation Directory". In cooperation with the School of Social Work at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he conceptualized and created a website that contains the content of both books and much additional material, in English and Hebrew. It contains nearly 30,000 full and partial profiles of Israeli nonprofit organizations and foundations. The site, Giving Wisely: The Internet Directory of Israeli Nonprofit and Philanthropic Organizations ([www.givingwisely.org.il]), was acclaimed by the Israeli and foreign press, donors and researchers in Israel and abroad, Israelis seeking services, and nonprofit organizations and foundations presented on the site. It is a significant contribution to the development and transparency of the Israeli nonprofit sector.
