The New Israel Fund (NIF) announced today that it will grant the “Guardian of Democracy” Gallanter Prize to Raghad Jaraisy, the co-director of Sikkuy-Aufoq, an organization dedicated to advancing equality between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Raghad will be speaking at NIF’s gala in San Francisco on May 4, 2025.

Raghad is receiving this cash prize in recognition of her outstanding work advocating for equal opportunity and access for Israel’s Palestinian citizens at every level of Israeli society. “The more we succeed in promoting equality inside Israel,” she said, “and the more we make the voice of the Palestinian citizens heard, the closer we come to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and a future that is truly shared and equal in this place.”

Raghad is truly a lifetime civil society activist. Born and raised in Nazareth, a Palestinian city in Israel, she passed the Israeli bar exam when she was only 20 years old, making her Israel’s youngest-ever lawyer. Raghad joined the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, where she spent the next ten years working on international humanitarian law in the occupied West Bank and discrimination against Israel’s Palestinian citizens. She moved to Sikkuy-Aufoq in 2019 to lead their equality department, and two years later became its co-executive director.

• Read Raghad’s op-ed with her Jewish-Israeli co-director of Sikkuy-Aufoq, Ofer Dagan in the New York Times: “The Particular Anguish of Being Palestinian in Israel” from February, 2024.
• Listen to Groundwork, NIF’s podcast where our hosts interview Raghad about her life and work in an episode titled “No Shelter, No Silence,” from March of 2025.

Past winners of the Gallanter Prize include activist and co-founder and co-director of Have You Seen the Horizon Lately, Shir Nosatski, Rula Daood & Alon-Lee Green of Standing Together, Lod Councilwoman Fida Shehada, women’s rights and labor activist Maisam Jaljuli, NIF’s own Executive Director Mickey Gitzin, founder of BeFree Israel (Israel Hofsheet) and the former chairwoman of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel Dr. Mushira Aboo Dia.

The New Israel Fund is the leading organization advancing and defending democracy and equality for all Israelis. Widely credited with building progressive Israeli civil society, NIF supports a wide range of Israeli nonprofits and has provided over $300 million to progressive civil society organizations since its inception in 1979.

The Gallanter Prize is awarded annually to an outstanding Israeli activist who has made significant contributions to the field of social justice in Israel. Each years’ winner receives a cash award in support of their work and are invited to address NIF’s Guardian of Democracy Dinner.