By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent
Because of the Israeli international development group TAG, honeybees in Myanmar are busily producing their beloved sweet syrup for more than 5,000 people in 25 villages to sell.
Thanks to TAG’s Israeli agricultural experts and a grant from Google, more than 200 people in Sri Lanka now construct and export brushes made from coconut fibre and 1,500 farmers there are training to use Israeli drip-irrigation technologies and organic farming methods that will feed thousands in their communities.
This fledgling group, which is an acronym describing its core values — Torah knowledge, avodah or work, and gemilut chasadim, acts of kindness — is now, as of September, headquartered in Seattle, a city its leaders chose because of its global outreach.
“Our vision is that we should be one of the top 10 organizations that use Israeli expertise and shares Israeli experts and technology-building,” Marina Pevzner Hennessy, head of global partnerships and the director of TAG USA, told the Jewish Sound.
“Relief work, yes,” she said, “Israel will be the first to send the planes in, but not the day-to-day capacity building. Our model is to create long-term solutions internationally and, ultimately, to improve the understanding and perception of Israel.”
TAG is the brainchild of Rabbi Yossi Ives, who started the organization from his home in the south of London, and whose passion is tikkun olam, repairing the world.
Ives believes Israel could greatly improve its international image and even beat back the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout Europe by exporting Israeli food-growing technologies, teaching poor villagers new health and family planning strategies, especially in religiously diverse communities, and establishing entrepreneurial programs to help underdeveloped populations.
“There are Israelis with unique Israeli expertise in many countries and any such expertise is relevant,” Ives told the Jewish Sound
in an email from his home in London.
Concerning anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe, Ives is optimistic.
“Of all European countries, I think that the UK is most likely to get to grips with the situation and start to stand up for its values,” he said. “The consequences of these changes are far greater a concern for many beyond the Jewish community and a new openness to discuss these dangers is emerging.”
Still, Hennessey and her family are happy to be in Seattle. The Israel-born-and-raised Brandeis University graduate once worked with Save the Children in Europe, but ultimately quit because she had to hide her Israeli citizenship.
“The whole environment in international organizations is ‘big bad Israel,’” she said.
Nevertheless, TAG is steadily growing. It works with many other partners engaged in humanitarian work around the world and fosters long-lasting relationships with agencies on the ground in the communities it serves.
In Israel, TAG works with Magen David Adom and all the emergency health organizations; AJEEK, which operates within the Bedouin community; Mashav, Israel’s agency for international development; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where Hennessy said they work with experts in gender-based violence; and many others.
“We partner with several experts from Hadassah Hospital,” she said, “and Bishvilaych, which was set up to access the ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem. There were a huge amount of difficulties operating on reproductive women’s health issues among that community. It is very closed.”
The expertise from organizations like Bishvilaych is vital to TAG when working with religious communities internationally, such as Indonesia’s Muslim population.
In Azerbaijan, TAG worked with youth living on the Armenian border, where the legacy of the cross-border war there left behind hundreds of buried landmines, leaving villages virtually deserted and disengaged youth with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
“One of the things we identified,” said Hennessey, “is that they don’t have safe play areas because of the mines, so we brought in Hevrat Matnasim, [the Israel association of community centers]. They do leadership and sports and engage young people.
“We also worked with Magen David Adom to look at first-aid empowerment, volunteering skills, creating safe play areas, and identifying young people who can run it long-term along with the Red Crescent in Azerbaijan.”
The group also operates the TAG Institute for Jewish Social Values in Israel as a research think tank. It is focused on the Jewish community.
TAG also relies on an international network of experts and leaders from universities across the U.S. and internationally for research and project development.
“It’s really about how can we position the Israeli nation as a force for good to combat the isolation that Israel feels, in terms of all the criticism,” said Hennessey, “and take out what is unique and good and impressive to create solutions around the world to make a difference.”
Learn more about the organization at www.tagdevelopment.org.