Team building: New program gathers Jewish leaders to take on big Jewish problems
President Isaac Herzog conceived of the Voice of the People initiative as a ‘Jewish Davos’ to see what a diverse group of concerned Jews can accomplish
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
HAIFA — As participants at the first-ever Voice of the People (VoP) summit poured out of their team sessions, discussing solutions for the Jewish world’s biggest problems, the excitement in the hotel lobby was palpable.
For many members of the newly formed council, comprised of Jewish leaders from around the world brought together by a computer algorithm, the moment was full of potential, even if there were challenges and doubts about where their efforts would lead.
“The team I’ve been placed in has a diverse group of brilliant people in different stages of their lives, working together to think about ambitious ideas bridging Israeli and global Jewry,” said US author and researcher Malka Simkovich. “We’ve begun mapping out the challenges, but everyone has different styles and expectations about how quickly we should work. Our goal is to launch an ambitious project that will take at least a year and a half to come to fruition, and it will likely take several months before we develop an action plan. Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect.”
An initiative by President Isaac Herzog, VoP is an attempt to unite and empower Jewish communities worldwide through a collaborative effort to chart a course for the Jewish future.
Herzog told participants he conceived the summit as a sort of “Jewish Davos,” comparing it to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Switzerland of leading investors, politicians and entrepreneurs to discuss global issues.
Over five days, 150 council members – 50 from Israel, 50 from North America, and 50 from other regions worldwide – attended sessions with government officials academics and community leaders, and divided into working groups to define problems and formulate solutions over a two-year timeframe.
“We’re learning that the Jewish people are one nation with many different cultures and challenges,” said Noa Rakel Perugia, a 23-year-old student from Rome.
Organizers hope to make VoP a recurring program with new faces for each cohort. The expectation is that getting people from around the world into the same room to discuss the issues will yield positive results.
“Coming from Australia, where the community is overwhelmed by antisemitism, it is really nice being amongst like-minded fellow Jews who care about the future of the Jewish people,” said Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia. “The organizers made it clear that they didn’t want the usual faces of the organized Jewish world, but there are so many inspiring, amazing people here that have done things that have real impact.”
Herzog first announced the launch of the program in April 2023 as hundreds of thousands of Israelis were taking to the streets for weekly protests over the government’s plans to overhaul the judicial system. At the time, surveys showed that many saw Jewish unity as the key challenge facing the Jewish people.
After October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its deadly war against Israel, the project was frozen for six months before it took on a new life, said Shirel Dagan-Levy, VoP CEO.
“When we restarted in March and April the next summer, we had to re-ask the question,” Dagan-Levy said. “Before October 7, antisemitism ranked number six or seven among topics we needed to work on. But now, after we surveyed 10,000 people in six countries across the globe, it’s number one.”
VoP chose to focus efforts on five topics: antisemitism, Israel-Diaspora relations, polarization and dialogue, relationships between Jews and non-Jews, and Jewish heritage, education and identity. The council is supported by the Jewish Agency for Israel, with philanthropic partnership from the Wilf Family Foundations, the Azrieli Foundation, and the Patrick and Lina Drahi Foundation.
Using concepts from Israel’s tech ecosystem, Herzog stressed that all processes should be driven by data and leverage technological innovation. Setting the tone, VoP developed an algorithm to filter through some 1,500 applicants who showed interest in the program and select participants, using more than 100 data parameters.
“We’ve put together an incredible group with unbelievable diversity, ages 19 to 82, secular to ultra-Orthodox, with storytellers, entrepreneurs and thinkers from the worlds of startups, education, media and art,” Dagan-Levy said. “We need real diversity in the room to come up with creative and innovative solutions.”
The VoP program has features similar to those of a startup accelerator, with planned timeframes and milestones. Groups are given six months to map out their fields and conduct research before they enter the next phase, which includes developing an MVP (tech-speak for minimum viable product). After that, a project is expected to be rolled out and implemented. Strategic and financial partnerships will be available to help projects succeed, Dagan-Levy said, without providing more details.
While some have criticized the program for trying to take on age-old challenges with amorphous, undeveloped objectives, many participants are excited by the blank slate and lack of clear targets.
“That’s what’s so interesting about this. We were given a topic, and our job is to try [to] devise what to do with it,” said Rabbi Benji Levy, an educator who heads several platforms operating in different Jewish fields.
In any case, Herzog is already encouraged seeing Jews work together toward mutual goals.
“What has been driving me since my tenure as chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency is how to help Jews understand each other and recognize that they are part of the same nation,” Herzog told journalists. “Do you think Israeli Jews know anything about Diaspora Jews? Even immigrants to Israel find that their children don’t understand Diaspora Jewry. The great story here is bringing people together to talk about how we maintain our nation.”
