Prof. Eliezer Jaffe has lived in Israel since 1960 and teaches at The Hebrew University's Paul Baerwald School of Social Work. 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. Between 1970 and 1972, he headed the Jerusalem Municipal Department of Family and Community Services, introducing major reforms, all of which have since been adopted nationwide.

Prof. Jaffe's research has focused primarily on social services to children and families 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 has helped promote and prepare the new Israeli law on intercountry adoption. He publishes frequently in professional journals and in the Israeli and American Jewish press and is the author of fourteen books.

Prof. Jaffe received the President of Israel's Citation for Outstanding Volunteer Activity in 1996, and the Mayor of Jerusalem Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Association Chairman. 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 Prof. Jaffe who suggested the twinning concept in Project Renewal, whereby Jewish Federations and private philanthropists abroad link-up directly in partnerships with specific disadvantaged neighborhoods in Israel.

He was a co-founder of Zahavi - The Israel Association of Large Families, a member of the Central Committee of the Israel Association of Social Workers, an advisor to social action groups of new immigrant 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; serves on the editorial board of the international journal Public Management; and is 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 $16 million dollars in revolving interest free loans to over 13,000 individuals in Israel. It received the Mayor of Jerusalem Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Organization and the Ministry of Immigration Absoption Citation.

Prof. Jaffe is married and has four children and 13 grandchildren, all born and living in Israel. He is the 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 Master's degree program in Nonprofit Management, the first program of its kind in Israel.

In 2000, Prof. Jaffe published his book Giving Wisely: The Israel Guide to Nonprofit and Volunteer Organizations. In cooperation with the School of Social Work at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he conceptualized and created a website that contains most of the book, in English and Hebrew, and 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 in Israel and abroad, the Israeli public, and nonprofit organizations and foundations presented on the site. It is a significant contribution to the development of the Israeli nonprofit sector.

Professor Jaffe can be contacted at givingwisely@mscc.huji.ac.il.

©
2009
Copyright
Eliezer D. Jaffe