When I was little, bubbles were the “it thing.” My friends and I would have competitions to see how large they could become, and we would then laugh when they popped or “scratched each other”, and then would soar toward the sky. Bubbles, just like the harmless childhood toy that I loved to play with, are how Eilon Schwartz categorized the different “sects” of Israeli society; and how recently, these bubbles have begun to pop. Eilon Schwartz is the head of the Shacharit ThinkTank, which is an organization that travels the country and attempts to challenge individuals as well as communities to step out of these sects, or “bubbles.” He started the lecture talking about last summer’s social protests which 500,000 Israelis, or one out of 15 Israelis, took part in. He told our group that these protests, rather than being solely about economic gaps in society(which are still very prevalent), started because of the discomfort of the middle class. They started because this younger class of citizens and college students couldn’t afford to pay rent on the most minimal apartments. They weren’t comfortable with the cost of living and what society had become. In Eilon’s opinion, one solution to this discomfort was to break the bubbles that overwhelm every person in this country. He said that if the ??????, or the secular teens, were able to hang out and play sports with Arabs who live close by; or if the ?????, the ultra-orthodox, were able to try and understand the problems that the recent immigrants from northern Africa face, this country would be able to solve many of the problems about hostility that it faces on a daily basis.
These problems, of hostility between sects, or races, or creeds, are not unique to Israel. This story made the think of the civil rights movement in America, or of the low socio-economic status of Hispanics in today’s American society, or all types of social gaps that exist in American society and most other societies around the world. I think that Elion’s idea is great, but it is definitely not revolutionary. I think it is important, and that his Think Tank will help improve, or disintegrate the bubbles that plague Israeli society, but that this is a problem that has been a part of all human history since people started interacting with one another.
So how will such seemingly simple differences between races help me and the rest of my 23 peers advocate for ??? ?????, and do our jobs as students of WOFI Cohort 4? I think the important thing that my friends and I took away from this lecture that we will be able to use in order to advocate is that on top of having to deflect daily rockets from Gaza and many negative media stereotypes, Israel is trying to cope with the same problems as America, but while also staying a true democracy and keeping its Jewish identity. I think that if people in America are able to relate and understand how difficult and multi-layered these domestic problems in Israel are, then they would maybe take a few more minutes to listen to the truth in other situations which Israel is portrayed in a bad light, and then we would be doing our jobs as successful advocates.