AMERICAN FRIENDS OF YAD ELIEZER INC

American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri was founded on the premise that every Jew in Israel is entitled to a life of dignity, self-reliance and self-respect. Established in1981 with the single objective of delivering monthly food baskets to hungry families, American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri has grown to encompass over fifteen economic and social service programs that impact on the lives of over 20,000 families each year.
Our mandate is to give the international Jewish community the opportunity to reach out to their fellow Jews in Israel, to serve as the conduit for the global American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri family – our staff, volunteers and contributors around the world – to support those in Israel who need their help most.
The entire American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri team works together to combat poverty on the individual, family, communal, and national levels. We aim to provide critical short-term relief while simultaneously confronting the underlying causes of indigence, forging broad-based solutions that empower long-term financial and psychological stability. Each component of American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri's comprehensive welfare system − which includes nationwide distribution of essential food, clothing, and household items, job training and child mentoring programs − contributes towards the fulfillment of its mandate to engender economic recovery and social development in Israel.
While our host of programs has expanded and our budget exceeded $47 million this year, our cadre of dedicated American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri supporters enables the organization to honor its commitment to limited overhead and minimal expenses while providing personalized and professional assistance to hundreds of thousands of our nation's neediest.
le providing personalized and professional assistance to hundreds of thousands of our nation's neediest.

American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri was founded in 1980 and is the largest poverty relief agency in Israel. American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri's mandate is to help families cope with financial difficulties and to empower them to break through the cycle of poverty and achieve self-sufficiency. Our objective is to combat poverty at its root, through an array of programs that provide critical short-term relief, while facilitating long-term recovery. Each component of American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri's comprehensive welfare system - nationwide distribution of essential food, clothing and household items, job training, and adolescent mentoring programs - contributes toward economic recovery and social development.

American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri began as a single act of kindness. In 1981 Hadassa Weisel of Jerusalem was approached by a neighbor asking to borrow a cup of milk. The next day, that same neighbor requested a loan of some slices of bread. Mrs. Weisel quickly realized that the mother next door had completely exhausted all her own resources and so had been reduced to “borrowing" food to keep her children from starving. With a mixture of enterprise and generosity, Mrs. Weisel put together a basket of all the food staples a family would generally use – sugar, flour, eggs, dairy products, bread, kids' snacks – and left it on her neighbor's doorstep. The first American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri food basket had just been delivered. In the 35 years since, American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri has expanded 20,000-fold. American Friends of yad Eliezer/B’ezri began in 1981 and has grown from a single food provision program into a multi-dimensional poverty-fighting organization that encompasses well over a dozen social service programs. These facets of growth reflect our concomitant development into one of Israel's most highly regarded non-profit entities, renowned and respected for the efficiency of our fiscal and project management and for our effectiveness in achieving purposeful success. Today we manage a $47-million-dollar annual budget, yet we maintain the nimbleness of our original, much smaller, selves, an agility that enables American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri to follow “where needs take us," to initiate new programs and re-work longstanding ones as dictated by the needs of our target populations.
The scope of our resources, financial, technical, and most importantly: our team, both staff and volunteers, allow us to retain the flexibility to hone in on unique needs that come up – a military operation down south, a blizzard in Jerusalem – and respond immediately. We have our finger on the pulse of society in real-time, and the people of Israel are the beneficiaries of this combination of established long-term programs with short-term emergency campaigns. Our goals were established the day that first food basket was left on a doorstep: To impact the life of every individual in need with immediate assistance, while simultaneously affecting a gradual but broad-based long-term transformation of Israeli society as a whole. Have things changed since then? Indeed. Although our financial records were always transparent, today Deloitte international accounting firm maintains constant impartial supervision; www.bezri.org raises millions of dollars each year; a wall calendar has been replaced by an interactive wedding calendar accessible to would-be sponsors worldwide.

Over 100,000 People Receiving Help From American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri
Over 20,000 Families Receiving American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri Aid
$47 Million American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri's Annual Budget
96.3% Given Directly to Those in Need
3.7% Overhead Costs
73 Cities in Israel Assisted By American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri Programs
830 widows with children at home are receiving a monthly stipend to assure that they are able to cover their expenses
15,000 American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri Weddings Made To Date
Over 2,000 Soldiers received holiday assistance from American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri
$1,403,133 in Chicken and Market Vouchers Distributed By American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri During The Holiday Periods
Over 20 American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri Programs


Nearly 100% American Friends of Yad Eliezer/B’ezri Job Training Retention Rate