As I write this, I’m flying home from Israel after a week in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem meeting with our Israeli partners and friends. Their determination is powerfully infectious. And yet I’m also feeling dread, because rising expectations of war with Iran have sent me home earlier than planned.
Haven’t the people of this region suffered enough?
As always, the past days here reaffirmed my belief in a different future: I sat in rooms and traveled the country with partners and coworkers from every walk of life here: Jewish and Palestinian, straight and gay, orthodox and secular. Sometimes grimly and other times jovially, we reviewed the best and newest initiatives to empower the forces of democracy, equality, and peace in this broken place.
Among these incredible initiatives are some that are Canadian-powered, thanks to donors like you.
- I met with attorneys Rabbi Noa Sattath and Hassan Jabareen, the respective directors of civil liberties groups ACRI and Adalah, about protecting the integrity of this year’s high stakes elections.
- I met with Hovav Yannai, the NIF staff member who oversees the Civil Society Protection Hub, as its six member organizations prepare to respond immediately to threats of violence or intimidation.
- I sat with Baraa Sharif, a Palestinian citizen and energetic NIF field organizer, to learn about the incredible Jewish-Arab partnership exhibited in the large recent demonstration in Tel Aviv against the deadly crime wave taking the life of at least one Israeli Arab nearly every day.
- I went to the Knesset to witness the debates over the so-called “death penalty bill” with Rabbi Orly Erez-Likhovsky of IRAC, whose presence countered attempts to monopolize Jewish text being perverted by Jewish supremacy and revenge.
- I met Limor Yacov-Shafrai, an orthodox mother of four and a leader of Smol Emuni (“the Faithful Left”), which was founded with NIFC emergency funding in early 2023. They have expanded activities beyond expectations – even to providing protective presence to Palestinians in Hebron in the West Bank.
I also met with political leaders, opinion experts, and journalists working in impressive coordination. Every single one of them said that there’s a chance after the coming elections to turn a new direction. The New Israel Fund cannot and will not get engaged in electoral politics, but civil society has important roles to play before and afterwards.
There was one point when we all stopped to discuss how best to answer the feelings of despair back at home. What do we say to people who lack hope? One of our Israeli colleagues offered us their perspective: “I don’t have hope – what I have is action.” She went on to say that if her action gives others hope, well then, yes, she has lots of hope.
In truth, this is what the New Israel Fund of Canada offers the thousands of Canadian Jews that they can’t find elsewhere. The actions of Noa, Hasan, Hovav, Baraa, Orly, and tens of thousands of other Jews and Palestinians working together offers us exactly that: hope in a better future.