This month, we bid a fond farewell to our 2024-2025 Naomi Chazan Fellows Syvanne Avitzur, Carli Fink, Jacob Kates Rose, and Michael Morgenthau.
The Fellows began their year last July with a trip to Israel and the Occupied Territories, where they were among the two dozen changemakers in their 20s and 30s from Canada, the UK, and Australia. During their eight-day trip, the Fellows witnessed the situation in Umm al-Khair, a Palestinian village in the West Bank that was subjected to devastating demolitions just before their visit; joined the weekly demonstrations calling for elections, a new government, and an end to the war; and learned about the main issues facing Palestinian citizens of Israel, among many other things. Read more about the Fellows’ trip in July 2024 here.
Upon their return to Canada, the Fellows worked on projects that shared what they had learned with their communities back at home. Syvanne Avitzur organized numerous events in collaboration with the NIFC New Generations Council, including moderating a recent webinar on settler violence. Carli Fink created a card deck called Courageous Conversations to help people facilitate conversations around Israel-Palestine, then ran a pilot program with the card deck for 12 New Generations participants. Michael Morgenthau produced a Haggadah supplement, “Common Ground at Divided Seder Tables,” to guide principled discussion at Passover seders.
Thank you to our Naomi Chazan Fellows for your leadership and service over the last year — and stay tuned for our announcement of our 2025-2026 Fellowship cohort!
Hear from the fellows in their own words in the videos below about what the Naomi Chazan Fellowship meant to them:
Syvanne Avitzur
Carli Fink
Jacob Kates Rose
Michael Morgenthau