Israeli president’s grand experiment: 150 Jews, one Voice of the People
Isaac Herzog holds convention in Haifa, where 150 participants begin two-year project focused on the future of Jewish life around the globe
What’s the future of Jewish life anywhere around the globe? How do we develop and enhance it? How do we deal with the explosion of antisemitism? Questions of this size and complexity are often handled by think tanks or advisers but this week more than 150 individuals from around the globe arrived in Haifa to begin the task of answering them.
Handpicked by algorithm, the self-identified Jews – a requirement for participation – came from 75 cities, in North and South America, South Africa, Australia and across Europe as well as from all parts of Israel to attend, and to become, the Voice of the People, an initiative of Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president.
The project is close to Herzog’s heart and twice this week he visited the group of 150 chosen for the council, mixing with them at a cocktail reception on Sunday at the start of the four-day convention and addressing them at a final gala.
Herzog, a historian as well as a lawyer, reminded them that the initiative rested on the Jewish people’s most significant asset, “the ability to engage in deep, collective dialogue and, through it, drive joint action”. As a time when our nation is ever more challenged, he said, it was important to remember that the Jewish story is not only about bloodshed and tears. It is something unique. “We read it in parashat hashavua and then we read the interpretations and then we read Jonathan Sacks.”
The algorithm chose, from among the thousands who applied to take part, a group that represents different ages, nationalities and religious backgrounds, from secular to orthodox, who were meeting in person for the first time following an initial online session last month. They were told to be creative, to take risks and to think together to tackle the immediate and long-term challenges facing Jews.
Plenary session styles were varied. Jewish matchmaking guru Aleeza Ben Shalom was part of an event where videos were shown of problem scenarios, and delegates worked in a series of different pairings to identify the challenges and suggest solutions.
The series of short, first-person videos included a young man who found himself being challenged over Israel by his LGBT+ community after 7 October, an IDF soldier troubled by the fact that the Charedi do not serve in the military, and an Australian who spoke of antisemitic threats to his family.
A couple of hours later the results of the suggested solutions, submitted through online forms, were presented in charts, word clouds and bullet points, inevitably with the help of AI analysis – technology was another theme of the conference – by the Israeli startup Raizit, which specialises in public participation and consultation.
In a briefing with journalists, Herzog called the Haifa convention a “dream come true”.
He was asked how the project, partnered by the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation and announced in April 2023 during the height of Israel’s anti-government protests over judicial reform, had shifted following 7 October and the ensuing war. “It’s pretty amazing because in hindsight it was a foresight,” he said. People had been ostriches before the Hamas invasion of 7 October, since when there had been a “sea change”, he said: antisemitism was now, inevitably, taking a predominant place in the Voice of the People discussions.
The president was also asked whether future cohorts – the plan is for a series of two-year-cohorts – could include Israel’s non-Jewish citizens. “We are right now dealing with a Jewish story,” Herzog said. “We have our own story to tell and discuss openly.” It wasn’t necessary right not to open the group to others, he said, but he did not dismiss the idea. “Let’s succeed with the first council and see how it goes.”
Over the next two years of the project, the councillors will work in teams of 15, each team focusing on one of five areas: antisemitism, polarisation, Israel-global Jewry, Jews and non-Jews, and identity and heritage. “They like to do small topics,” joked one council member, Dan Sacker, a communications consultant from London, who spoke to Jewish News about the importance of creating unity without expecting uniformity, something the late Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, his former boss, had understood so well.
Looking around the room at the 150 dynamic, enthusiastic participants, Sacker said it was “like a big melting pot and you’re not sure what’s going to bubble to the surface but it could be very interesting. Every which way you look there’s people you know you’re not going to agree with. But that’s in itself quite exciting.”
Agreement, and its opposite, were a big theme: the singular “voice” for a people who are known for being opinionated and disagreeing with one another is, as a metaphor, optimistic. But acceptance of difference gives impetus for that optimism.
Ashager Araro said being on the council had given her a hope and excitement that had been missing since 7 October. An Israeli advocate on behalf of Ethiopian Jewish identity, she wanted the council to “break the paradigm of how we talk about Jewish peoplehood, Israel, Zionism, by bringing diverse voices into the ring. Diverse in the way they think.”
The councillors range in age from 19-year-old French-American student Ava Fitoussy to 82-year-old Prof Lenore Walker, a psychologist from Florida who specialises in trauma treatment. Among those from Europe were Jews from Sweden, Austria and France. Ora Yochanan, who comes from Nigeria and has lived in Jerusalem for three years, is on a team working on Jewish–non-Jewish relations. For her, it was important to work out “how to get non-Jewish folks to join in this conversation, to find progressive solutions”.
Coming out of a team session, one participant said to another: “Everybody in the community thinks they’re right, and they are – because we’re 12 tribes, not one.” That understanding and love of peoplehood, along with acceptance of difference, will be key to the Voice of the People’s success.
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