Live UpdateFrom the Liveblog of Thursday, March 9, 2023

Teen anti-government protester says she’s worried one day ‘I won’t have a job in Israel’

By Carrie Keller-Lynn 9 March 2023, 2:19 pm 2 Edit

Carrie Keller-Lynn is a political and legal correspondent for The Times of Israel

Goni, 13, and her father, Eran, at an anti-judicial overhaul protest in Tel Aviv on March 9, 2023. (Carrie Keller Lynn/Times of Israel)

Thirteen-year-old Goni asked her father to come to today’s demonstration, one of several she’s attended in the past 10 weeks to protest the government’s intended judicial overhaul.

“It’s my future,” the middle-school student says.

Goni says that the government’s telegraphed policies and weakened judicial recourse worry her, and her father Eran, 51, let the Tel Aviv-based teenager skip school to demonstrate.

“This reform touches me really closely. With education, matriculation exams, what I need to learn, and if I need to take an exam on the Bible to graduate,” she says.

Longer term, Goni is concerned about women’s rights and, watching the economy falter, she wonders if when she’s older, “I won’t have a job in Israel.”