Organization
AIM began as a chavurah (friendship group) called Pro-Israel-Persons Chavurah composed of the members of Congregation Shalom in January 2004 founded and led Robert Breslauer.
The first project of PIP was to educate its own members about the history of Israel from the first modern serious intent to form a country in the 1880’s until the present. PIP decided to break up this history into seven time periods and got UWM and Concordia College professors to donate their time once per month for this educational program.
The next major project was to formulate the Mission statement of PIP and to form the governance structure. Our Mission statement is added as an addendum at the end of this proposal.
After these initial efforts PIP decided that it needed to develop of list of references that it would use for its own knowledge and to educate others about Israel. These sources included books by Alan Dershowitz and Mitchell Bard as well as others.
In 2005 at the encouragement of new members PIP was transformed from a chavurah whose goal was to educate itself into a group whose goal was to educate the general public. To reflect this major change in goals the name was changed in early 2006 to AIM, Advocates for Israel of Milwaukee.
AIM elected its first full slate of officers in 2006 with Gerald S. Glazer as our first president. Mr. Glazer’s first major task was to begin the process of establishing AIM as a tax exempt (501C3) organization. To this end Mr. Glazer established AIM with the Department of Financial Institutions as an Unincorporated Association (U.A.), obtained AIM’s Federal tax payer number, formulated AIM’s By-Laws, and filed for tax exempt status with the IRS as an educational organization (501C3) in September 2006.
AIM has had two major outreach projects. A billboard with a positive message about Israel up for over 1.5 months on N. Wilson Dr. in Shorewood, and W. Silver Spring Dr. in north Milwaukee. This project was funded by private donations as well as two $1000 grants from the Soref Foundation. The second Project was bringing Nonie Darwish to Milwaukee to speak at Cardinal Stritch University and UWM on October 29, 2006. Over 230 attended both lectures. This project was funded totally by individual private donations as well as proceeds from the sale of Ms Darwish’s new book entitled: "Now They Call Me Infidel".
Currently our officers include: Gerald S. Glazer, President; Nancy Weiss-McQuide, Secretary; Ivan M. Lang, VP-Educational Outreach; Yale Tolwin, VP-Membership; and Moshe Klapperman, VP-Program. In addition we have 31 members, 21 associate members, and one honorary member: Rabbi Shapiro.
Experience
AIM engages in two types of activities to fulfill its mission: a) bringing national or international experts on Israel to speak to the general public, and b) providing educational programming to Jewish and non-Jewish groups.
a. National or international speakers
Nonie Darwish: On October 29, 2006 AIM brought Nonie Darwish to speak to about 200 members of the general public at Cardinal Stritch University. Nonie Darwish is the daughter of an Egyption army officer who was sent to Gaza to teach the Palestinian Arabs how to attack Israelis in 1955. Ms. Darwish’s book describing her experiences in the Palestinian Arab territories was recently published. Ms. Darwish gave a 1 hour talk followed by a 30 minute question and answer period. Ms. Darwish’s main message was that Palestinian Arabs were engaged in incitement to violence against Jews and Israel and engaged in attacks on Israelis before occupation and before there was a single settler. We also partnered with the Conservative Union at UW-M to have Ms. Darwish speak to about 50 students on the afternoon of October 29. Prior to Ms Darwish’s talks she was interviewed on two radio shows: Joy Cardin on WHAT and Mark Belling on XXXX.
We rented a video camera, taped Ms. Darwish’s presentation, and borrowed editing equipment to produce a DVD of the event to use in our educational programs. Ms. Darwish’s presentation was shown 10 times on the local cable TV station. To fund this event the members of AIM solicited friends and acquaintances and fellow synagogue members. We raised the funds for this event one person at a time. We also obtained co-sponsorship from MJCCR who supplied about 1/5 of the total.
Cookie Lommel: We are currently in the planning stages of bringing Cookie Lommel to Milwaukee. Ms Lommel is the director of Operation Unity, an organization that sends troubled inner city minority students to live and work on a kibbutz in Israel. This program has been very effective in helping inner city African-Americans and Hispanics; and has helped in bridging the gap between the Jewish and African-American communities of Los Angeles. This project is being co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) of Milwaukee and the Campus Organization for Israel (COFI) of University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. In addition, we plan to ask the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations (MJCCR) for co-sponsorship as well. On March 18, Ms Lommel will speak at UW-M in the morning, participate in a Black-Jewish seder in the afternoon, and in the evening speak within the African-American community. We will fund this project similar to our prior project with Ms Darwish.
Regina Waldman: Regina Waldman is a Jewish refugee from an Arab country after the establishment of Israel in 1948. She founded an organization, JIMENA, of other such Jewish refugees, and she travels around the world educating the public to these Jewish refugees that numbered close to 1 million. This project is being co-sponsored by MJCCR. We plan to have Ms Waldman speak to the general public as well as to students at Marquette University in May of 2007.
b. Educational programs
AIM has held a series of 10 educational lectures on the history of Israel given by various academic and news professionals including Robert Bartfeld, Mel Askot, Leon Cohen, etc.
A billboard with a positive message about Israel was displayed for over 1.5 months on N. Wilson Dr. in Shorewood, and W. Silver Spring Dr. in north Milwaukee. This billboard was made by BlueStar Productions.
At present AIM is preparing a series of 5 standard lectures that we plan to use to offer to various civic and non-Jewish religious groups. The topics include Refugees, Occupation, Temple Mount, Palestine, and Peace for Land.
AIM showed the movie “Obsession” on January 21, 2007 at Cardinal Stritch University and arranged for Gary Kenzer of Honest Reporting to lead a discussion of the movie afterwards.
AIM has an interview show on the local cable TV station and in October of 2006, Dr. Lang was interviewed for 1 hour concerning the Arab/Israeli conflict. In addition, AIM showed the taped presentation of Nonie Darwish on cable TV 10 times during 1 week in January 2007.
AIM is scheduled to lead a 1.5 hour session at Day of Discovery on February 18, 2007 entitled “Workshop on Advocacy for Israel”. AIM will provide instruction to the entire Jewish community on how to advocate for Israel
Leadership
The projects of AIM are led by its officers and all of AIM’s officers have significantly participated in all of AIM’s projects. Gerald S. Glaser is the president of AIM and he has directed all of the activities of AIM. Mr Glaser is also the producer of our cable TV projects.
The VP of Education and Outreach is Dr. Ivan M. Lang. Dr. Lang organized and ran the Nonie Darwish event. Dr. Lang arranged the scheduling, transportation, radio talk show appearances, co-sponsorship by MJCCR, partnership with Conservative Union at UW-M, and about 2/5 of the funding for this event. Dr. Lang will be one of the major contributors to AIM’s program on Discovery Day and the organizer of the visit to Milwaukee of Cookie Lommel. Dr. Lang is also Associate Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and has over 30 years of experience in composing and giving lectures and oral presentations and he also has extensive writing experience.
The Secretary is Nancy Weiss-McQuide and she was responsible for scheduling the Nonie Darwish event at Cardinal Stritch University, arranging the housing for Ms. Darwish in Milwaukee, all of the publicity, and about 2/5 of the fund raising. Ms. Weiss-McQuide will be one of the major contributors to AIM’s presentation on Discovery Day. Ms Weiss-McQuide also organized the showing of “Obsession”. Ms Weiss-McQuide is a dance instructor at UW-M and she has taught dance as part of many educational institutions in the southeastern area of Wisconsin.
The VP of Membership is Yale Tolwin. Mr Tolwin arranged and organized all of the security for the Nonie Darwish event. Mr. Tolwin is a retired Milwaukee Public School high school teacher who has over 40 years experience in the educational field. Mr Tolwin is also one of the primary teachers in our educational programming.
Our founder is Robert Breslauer and he was the organizer of our entire educational lecture series and the fund raiser and organizer of billboard project. Mr Breslauer is a retired engineer who has over 40 years of experience in running professional organizations.
The other AIM member who is actively involved in the creation and presentation of our educational activities is Dr. Mel Askot. Dr. Askot is a retired physician who now lectures at UW-M and has decades of teaching experience.
AIM has already successfully managed all of the types of projects and programs that we propose to manage as part of this proposal and all of the members and officers of AIM listed above were instrumental in AIM’s success in the past and will ensure success in the future. There is nothing that we have proposed that we have not already done and that the present members and officers of AIM have not already successfully completed. |
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