AFI Activities
Advocacy for Israel can happen in many ways, as simple as in casual conversations or recommending an essay or book, or in writing letters to newspapers, drawing audiences for film presentations, and organizing speaking events.
AFI has experience in a variety of effective activities, and our goal to repeat them often. We can also assist you in maximizing your efforts in the following ways:
- Inventory your assets, including personnel
- Goal setting
- Matching appropriate initiatives with above analysis
- Developing new initiatives with your team members
It is valuable to learn from and share experiences with other activists in order to increase the yield from all our efforts. Together we can find the most effective ways to utilize volunteers, donor capital, and partner resources.
Our initiatives are typically designed and developed in the field and not at a “headquarters.” We find that initiatives will improve each time they are repeated. We welcome your creative input.
Below are descriptions of some of our initiatives. We have supplemental materials such as brochures, scripts, PowerPoint presentations, etc. Drop us a line for more information: info@afi.org.
- Community-Based Speakers Bureau – Local volunteers who have studied the history and current events of Israel and are dedicated to sharing the facts concerning the situation in the Middle East.
- Media Watch Team - Monitoring and responding to media bias directly, fully, and with confidence.
- Notable Guest Speakers –Sponsoring public speaking engagements for the general and Jewish audience. Though sometimes expensive, if done properly they can attract major media attention, making the cost worthwhile.
- Film Nights - Numerous effective and fairly inexpensive documentaries are available and can draw a sizeable audience, especially when paired with a good local speaker.
- Public Access TV – Submitting and promoting showings of effective films.
- Israel Rally – Community-based rallies featuring pro-Israel speakers from a variety of walks of life.
- Response to Opposition - Countering pro-Palestinian exhibits, demonstrations, etc. by seeking opportunities to provide the inevitable missing context or correct false information.
- Four Rabbis – Inviting other rabbis to join the host rabbi of a synagogue for prepared speeches and Q & A from the audience.
- Israel Corner - Obtaining space in local synagogue bulletins to regularly publish articles on Israel.
- Synagogue Proclamation - Using our proclamation as a sample, convincing local synagogue boards to commit the synagogue’s allegiance to Israel and support her in a variety of programs throughout the year
- Israel Trips –Encouraging and supporting Jews and others to visit Israel on tours, trips, Birthright trips for youth, fact-finding missions, and leadership/diplomatic conferences, etc.
- Combat Israel Boycott & Divestment Initiatives - Lobbying organizations to not pass such initiatives and/or to reverse earlier decisions.
- Promote Positive Israel – Distributing information about the phenomenal accomplishments of Israelis rather than merely reacting to the negative propaganda.
- Book Donation – Giving local libraries copies of helpful books.