Upstart grassroots org calls for mending societal rifts as Israel begins its ‘4th quarter’

Several hundred strangers sat in a carpeted hall in Jerusalem’s International Convention Center on October 31, wondering what would happen next.

“Look for someone near you who looks different and introduce yourselves,” said Ella Ringel, co-founder and CEO of HaRivon HaRevi’i (the Fourth Quarter).

My eyes settled on a slightly built young woman dressed in stereotypical West Bank settler garb — a headscarf as big as a turban, flowing skirt, and Blundstone boots.

Shachar, 26, told me she grew up in the southwest Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Menachem and now lived on a hilltop farm near Duma, in the northern West Bank, where her husband of four years reared goats.

“Talk about what things make you feel good,” instructed Ringel. Said Shachar, “My children, and the fact we’re defeating our enemies.”

Back in our seats, Ringel asked the audience what bothered them the most.

“People don’t listen to each other,” Yaakov volunteered. “The media, which encourages division,” said Noam, 31. Ron, from Tel Aviv, said he feared people who shared his values were disappearing and that living together would become “insufferable.” One woman said the government was disconnected from the people and that she was in an “ideological desert where values have gone bust.”

We were taking part in one of many Rivon4 conferences being organized throughout the country to convince Israelis of all backgrounds that, at a time of deep political and social rifts, there can be a future built around consensus.

Established two years ago, the organization says it already has 150,000 people on its mailing lists, 25,000 of them regularly active in geographical location-based groups nationwide.

It says its goal is neither to bring the government down — as far-right lawmaker for Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party Orit Strock has claimed (in Hebrew) — nor to boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as the left-wing Haaretz newspaper suggested.

Instead, the grassroots collective says it aims to establish a government of unity and generate policy proposals based on broad public consensus; replace the dominant “us or them” ethos with one of shared hopes and values; and pry people out of their social-media-fired echo chambers to truly listen to fellow citizens with different views.

Rivon4’s conciliatory approach underlined its response to Netanyahu’s dramatic and controversial firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier this month, which generated shrill condemnations by the latter’s supporters (mainly on the political center and left) and loud expressions of support on the right.

Rather than express a view, Rivon4 posed questions.

Its post on Facebook read: “Is it permissible to fire a defense minister in war? Yes. But such a dramatic step, while the eyes of all our enemies are waiting to see if we are weakening from within, must be conducted in a way that creates trust and keeps the home front strong and cohesive.”

“That is why the citizens of Israel must receive a transparent, convincing, and true explanation for the move: How will the dismissal of the defense minister during the war advance the victory in Gaza and Lebanon? How does the layoff promote our preparation for the Iranian attack, for the new president in the USA, for dealing with international pressure? And above all, how does it promote the return of the abductees to Israel?

“And no less significant, a move whose background is the issuing of a conscription order for thousands of ultra-Orthodox [which Gallant was opposing at the time of his dismissal] hurts the spirit of the fighters at the front. How will we restore the trust that’s been broken in the soldiers and families of the reservists?”

David Ben-Gurion as prophet

Rivon4 was established during the brief tenure of Naftali Bennett as prime minister in 2021-2022. Its co-founders are Yoav Heller,  a strategic consultant and historian who specializes in the Holocaust and Israeli society; Ella Ringel, an organizational psychologist who spent years working with the IDF’s senior command; Eitan Zeliger, who owns a PR and advertising company; and Ori Herman, whose background is in tech, civil society, and government.

Its name refers to the fourth quarter-century of the State of Israel’s existence and echoes the test for Zionism that David Ben-Gurion predicted for when the state turned 75 (last year). “By then, the children born will no longer meet Holocaust survivors, nor will they know the founding generation,” the country’s first prime minister said. “Our belief in the righteousness of our cause will require a renewed definition, not based on what was but rather on what will be.”

Rivon4 holds mass gatherings to introduce civil society to its ideas — seminars, some 100 monthly salon meetings in private homes, and encounters, some of them online, where participants can meet “the other,” hone their listening and civilized discussion skills and make suggestions.

The October 31 introductory event in Jerusalem was slick and tightly choreographed, a mix of group therapy, corporate motivation, and evangelical zeal.

It began with an inspirational talk from Ringel, who said the meeting aimed to present Rivon4 and get participants to meet people who thought differently from themselves.

“The first step that helped countries to get out of a crisis was general agreement on the problem,” Ringel said, quoting Jared Diamond, the US academic and social commentator who authored “Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change.”

She cited the late UK Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who distinguished between optimism — “a feeling” that comes and goes — and hope. “Hope demands the ability to dream, to have clear targets, and to act,” she said.

US president John F. Kennedy demonstrated a vision for the future in 1961 when he set the goal of landing a man on the moon within a decade, Ringel went on. Where was today’s Kennedy?

“We deserve more,” she said. “It cannot be that we don’t dare to imagine.”

Democracies worldwide were “stuck,” she continued, “and we’re all part of the problem.”

Having specified our religious orientations when registering for the conference, we were all directed to large round tables where most people were either secular or national religious. Moderating one table was Nora Muller, a retired doctor from the central city of Kfar Saba, originally from the former Soviet Union.

What brought us all here, she asked? Hani, a young mother whose degree of religious observance was hard to gauge, said she feared for the future of her four children.

This reporter sat with an Algerian-born Haredi-educated rabbi (“I’m national religious now”) who had been leading interfaith meetings in Switzerland, a knitted kippa-wearing gentleman who immigrated from France 50 years ago, and a grandmother from the West Bank city of Ma’ale Adumim, near Jerusalem.

Muller divided us into groups of four and told us what to discuss and for how many minutes. What did we relate to at the event? What worried us? Had we heard a concept that had hit home? How was each one of us part of the problem? At the end, she handed out cards with tips on listening with empathy.

Our quartet was united in fear of the effect that the closed Haredi world was having on the country’s unity in light of the rabbinical leadership’s opposition to members of its community serving in the military at a time when reserve soldiers fighting in Gaza and Lebanon were becoming worn out.

United, in fear

During the sandwich break, people continued talking in small clusters. One of the few identifiable Haredi men, probably in his 30s, was practically mobbed by a group of national religious and secular women who wanted his views on a range of issues. The young man said he had served in the army, which made him less representative of the Haredi world.

The closing event was a lecture by Yoav Heller. He developed the theory of the Fourth Quarter, inspired by academics such as Princeton University’s Prof. John Haldon, Bar-Ilan University’s Prof. David Passig, and books such as “The Fourth Turning.” The latter, focusing on American history, showed how modern history went in cycles of 80 to 100 years, each consisting of four “turnings.”

According to the theory that Heller and his Rivon4 colleagues present to the public, Israel’s first quarter was spent returning to Zion and defending the borders.

The second quarter focused on creating the state’s infrastructure.

The third quarter saw increasing wealth and military power, but citizens began moving away from the founding story. Believing they were no longer threatened from the outside, they started fighting one another within. Many groups insisted that the country look precisely as they wanted, sparking internal rifts that its enemies could exploit on October 7 last year. On that day, Hamas terrorists crossed the Gaza border, murdered some 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 to the Palestinian enclave.

Heller faced tough questions from the audience. “Do you want a democratic or a Jewish state?” asked Dean from Jaffa near Tel Aviv. A woman from Kibbutz Ramat Rachel in Jerusalem asked whether any ideological positions were unacceptable.

Several people noted that the audience was mainly educated and primarily either secular or religious Zionist and, therefore, not truly reflective of Israeli society.

Charismatic and funny, Heller tried to turn the questions around. He said how wonderful it was that so many people had turned up, adding that the organization, with which 150,000 people have already shared their data, was “creating something very big.”

He said Rivon4 estimated that among its most active members, 40 percent were secular, 35% Zionist religious, 21% traditional, 4% Haredi, and just 1% Arab. He reckoned that 55% were on the right of the political spectrum, with 45% on the center and left.

So far, the movement has run a nationwide campaign for a unity government, produced a proposal for integrating ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF, and penned a “foundational document” called The Israeli Story.

The latter resulted from a year of discussions involving around 1,000 people and received almost 10,000 comments. Aimed at defining what Israel is, it comprises 10 principles.

Among these are: The State of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people and realizes the Zionist idea; Israel is a Jewish state, with Jewish characteristics in the public space, and is a natural home for the world of Torah and belief; Israel is a liberal democracy in its values and governing system; Israel’s Arab citizens are full partners and have equal rights; and peace is an ideal, and Israel strives for peace with its neighbors.

Hadas Lahav, head of policy at Rivon4, later told the Times of Israel that activists and experts were working on eight frameworks in subjects including religion and state, the education systems (Israel has four: state religious, secular, Haredi and Arab, with little overlap between them), security, economy, social networks, and how best to balance the different institutions of state to minimize friction and encourage more accountability.

Lahav said that activists with expertise in each subject were leading different teams. Draft frameworks were then shared for comment in ideas seminars, regional groups, or on a pilot digital platform in the case of religion and state. She said the proposals included “very concrete ideas” while reflecting compromise.

She continued, “We’re not lobbyists. We create flagships and hope the public will come and say this is the place from where we expect the politicians to take this country forward. The idea is to create public discourse because, at the end of the day, the politicians want to please the public, and the public has forgotten that it has a voice.”

Lahav added, “There are extremists on both sides. That’s their right. But there are enough people in the middle who don’t want to fall into the hole of being for or against. Most people are moderate Zionists, and they don’t have a home.”