Voice of the People aims to become an incubator for innovative and practical solutions to the challenges facing the Jewish people.
By Amelie Botbol, JNS
“The goal is to establish a global council of the Jewish world, to bring 150 people from across the globe who will sit together and tackle the most urgent topics facing the Jewish people,” Shirel Dagan Levy, CEO of Voice of the People, told JNS recently.
“Each person comes as an individual wanting to make an impact in the Jewish world, wanting to lead and wanting to initiate change. We are aiming to bring a very diverse range of voices to represent the voice of the people,” she said.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog initiated Voice of the People, also known as “Kol Ha’am,” in April 2023 in a consultation process with global Jewry, prior to establishing a worldwide Jewish advisory council under the Office of the President. It aims to become an incubator for innovative and practical solutions to the pressing challenges facing the Jewish people worldwide, while also fostering international Jewish leadership.
The initiative includes the establishment of an international Jewish council composed of 150 leaders from communities around the world—50 representatives from Israel, 50 from the United States and Canada and 50 from other countries.
To help select council members, an algorithm has been developed to ensure a diverse and representative body for the global Jewish community, considering factors such as gender, religious affiliation, ethnicity and community ties, with particular emphasis on including members under the age of 50. Registration for the council began on Sept. 15, the day of Voice of the People’s launch event, and will conclude on Oct. 15.
“We had missile alarms in Israel on Sept. 15. We weren’t sure if we would be able to do it. Still, around 3,000 people from across the globe joined live,” said Dagan Levy.
“At the registration launch, it was very important for us to represent different voices. We had Daniel Lifshitz, whose grandfather Oded is held in Gaza, and American writer Aija Mayrock, who started speaking about her Jewish identity post-Oct. 7,” she continued.
“We wanted to bring all these voices into one room, and I think the discussion between Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who has done amazingly talking about her experience being an Israeli and a Jewish person when antisemitism is so present, and the president was unique and very down to earth,” she added.
Shirel Dagan Levy, CEO of Voice of the People. Photo by Daniel Edri.
The initiative started with a series of “strategic labs” facilitated by international consulting firm Deloitte, with the support of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, asking Jews across the world what the most urgent topics were for them.
“We have reports from the labs from Oct. 6 and it’s amazing to see the numbers. Antisemitism ranked quite low in the 10 most important topics for the Jewish world. And today of course it’s No. 1,” said Dagan Levy.
“For six months, nothing was done because of the war. We reinitiated the project in May. We launched the survey again to find out what topics to focus on a month ago and we already have 9,000 people replying,” she added.
The survey was sent in six languages and spread across the world through partnerships with global Jewish organizations and online platforms, and is still running.
“It’s amazing to see how antisemitism appears in every language; it’s by far the main topic. We also see Jewish education, diversity of Jewish culture, relationships between Jews and non-Jews, relationships between Israel and the Diaspora as recurrent topics,” she said.
“We asked people to share something about their Jewish identity post-Oct. 7. The answers are very moving. People say they never dealt with Jewish identity and today it is most important in their lives,” she continued.
“I think our strength is when we are together. We are one. Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people but the Diaspora is a very strong part of who we are. We are 0.2% of the population in the world and no one wants us here. We need to take care of ourselves,” she added.
Once the application for council membership closes on Oct. 15, a screening process will take place, with interviews. Members of the council will be announced around the end of the year. Onboarding is scheduled for February and March 2025. Selected council members will be in Israel for four days for a convention launching the Council of Voice of the People.
“This initiative is very dear to President Herzog’s heart; he is involved in the content and the processes. We have a steering committee he is part of. In March, he will meet with council members,” said Dagan Levy.
“We are looking for the unusual suspects, the new voices. Since Oct. 7, there are so many voices that we had never heard before and suddenly, they feel the need to speak up,” she added. “We need to bring those voices, the new voices, the young voices, the influencers who want to lead in a new way.”