Spring 2026 Conference: Shaping the Israel We Want
The annual JSpaceCanada Spring Conference, in partnership with the New Israel Fund of Canada, Canadian Friends of Peace Now, and Meretz Canada will take place in Toronto on April 12, 2026, with evening events in Ottawa on April 14 and Montreal on April 15.
Join us for a half-day event with Israeli and diaspora Jewish leaders as we delve into the role Canadian Jews have in shaping the future we want to see in Israel. A future centered on peace and democratic renewal, grounded in courage, compassion, and the Jewish values that define us.
The conference will include a panel discussion, breakout sessions, and opportunities to meet conference organizers.
Toronto – April 12, 2026 – 1pm – 5pm – GET TICKETS – Location: The Quay, 100 Queens Quay East
Ottawa – April 14, 2026 – 7pm – 9pm – RSVP NOW – Location: Soloway Jewish Community Centre, 21 Nadolny Sachs Private
Montreal – April 15, 2026 – 7pm – 9pm – RSVP NOW – Location: Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, 4100 Sherbrooke St W
Speaker Line Up:
(Toronto only) Hadar Susskind is widely acknowledged as one of the Jewish community’s leading progressive advocacy voices on both foreign and domestic policy. He has built strong relationships with members of the U.S. Congress, administration officials, and progressive partners and allies from across the spectrum of American political life. Hadar has served as a senior professional leader at the Council on Foundations, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, the Tides Foundation, J Street, and the Jewish Council of Public Affairs.
Hadar currently serves on the board of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center. He has also served on the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Initiatives Task Force on the Environment, as well as the Board of Directors of the Coalition on Human Needs, the Public Policy Committee of Independent Sector, the Leadership Council of Nonprofit VOTE, and the board of Ameinu. In both 2024 and 2025, Washingtonian Magazine named him as one of Washington’s 500 Most Influential People. Hadar is a graduate of the University of Maryland and holds the rank of Sergeant First Class in the Israel Defense Forces.
(Toronto only) Mickey Gitzin is the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the New Israel Fund. Mickey served as the Executive Director of the New Israel Fund in Israel from 2017-2025. Leading Israeli publications such as the Marker and Yedioth Ahronoth describe Mickey as a leading figure in the field of defending Israeli democracy and social change.
Prior to joining NIF, he was the founding director of Israel Hofsheet (Be Free Israel), a leading grassroots organization fighting for religious freedom in Israel. Previously, Mickey served as a city council member in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, a spokesperson for MK Ilan Gilon (Meretz), and the Associate Director of Festival BeShekel, an organization advancing arts and culture in Israel’s geographic and socioeconomic periphery. He also served as a shaliach (emissary) in South Bend, Indiana for the Jewish Agency for Israel. Mickey holds a master’s in public policy from the University College-London, where he was a Research Fellow in the Israeli–Palestinian Atkin Fellowship, and a BA in International Relations and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Hannah Weisfeld is the Executive Director and a founder of Yachad. At the helm of the organization she is responsible for its strategic direction and key stakeholder engagement. She regularly briefs senior politicians, MPs and decision makers on issues related to the Israel-Palestine conflict. She appears in the media both on Radio and TV and has written for a number of broadsheet international newspapers. She speaks regularly in public on issues related to the conflict including in the British parliament, UK universities and Jewish community settings in the UK. She has spent significant time in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Hannah has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and an undergraduate degree from the University of Sussex. She is a trustee of a number of charities including Masambiro UK, which works to provide educational opportunities for young people in an area of Malawi where Hannah has spent time living and working, and co-chair of trustees for Habonim Dror UK, the Jewish youth organisation she was heavily involved in during her teens and early twenties. She lives in London with her husband and three children.
Lior Amihai is the Executive Director of Peace Now, Israel’s leading civil society group working through public pressure to end the occupation and advance peace and a negotiated two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. He has over a decade of experience challenging Israeli settlements through public advocacy, research, and legal action. Before leading Peace Now, Lior served as Executive Director of Yesh Din, a human rights organization promoting accountability for settler violence and land appropriation in the occupied Palestinian Territory. Earlier, he co-led Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project, documenting settlement expansion and its impact on the viability of a two-state solution. Lior holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights from University College London (UCL) and lives in Tel Aviv with his family.
(Montreal and Ottawa only) Idit Klein (she/her) is Vice President for Public Engagement at the New Israel Fund, and a national leader for social change with more than 30 years of experience in the non-profit justice sector. From 2001 to 2025, she served as the founding CEO of Keshet. Idit built Keshet from a small, local Boston organization into a national force with offices in six states. Under her leadership, Keshet supported tens of thousands of rabbis, educators, and other Jewish leaders to make LGBTQ+ equality a communal value and priority for action. Idit also spearheaded leadership development programs for queer Jewish teens and mobilized Jewish communities nationwide to fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Additionally, she served as the executive producer of the documentary film, Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School.
Prior to leading Keshet, Idit worked in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement and social justice sector in Israel, including at Shatil. She was a leader in the Israeli LGBTQ+ community and helped envision the Jerusalem Open House. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale University, Idit earned her Master’s in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a focus on social justice education. Idit publishes frequently in the Jewish and LGBTQ+ press and has been honored by multiple organizations including the Jewish Women’s Archive, Brandeis University’s Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership, the Safety Respect Equity Network/JFNA, and The Forward as one of its ‘Forward 50,’ a list of American Jews who have made enduring contributions to public life. The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Idit understands their resilience and steadfast hope as the foundation for her justice work and faith in a better world. She lives in Boston with her family.
Nitzan Horowitz is an author and international affairs commentator, and a former Israeli Minister and Member of the Knesset. Since October 7, 2023, he has published three books on the ongoing war.
Horowitz served as Israel’s Minister of Health and as a member of the Security Cabinet until 2023. He led the Meretz Party and was a Member of the Knesset for over a decade, serving on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and chairing the parliamentary lobby for religious pluralism and LGBT rights. Before entering politics, Horowitz was a prominent journalist and documentary filmmaker in television, radio, and print media. He served as Chief Correspondent in Washington, D.C., and Paris for leading Israeli news organizations. He is widely recognized for his longstanding commitment to social justice, civil rights, and democratic values.