On April 28, the IIJS hosted a webinar with Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur (Tel Aviv University) and Shany Granot-Lubaton (NYC Hostages Families Forum), titled “Fighting for Democracy: Reflections on the Israeli Democracy Protest Movement from the Post-October 7 World.”
The past year has been unprecedentedly dramatic and tumultuous for Israeli citizens. Ever since the newly elected far right-wing government declared its plan for a judicial overhaul in January 2023, there have been protests throughout the country—creating the largest protest movement in Israel’s history and one of the most persistent in recent global history—culminating after 9 months with the October 7th attack. With global democratic deterioration, and the upcoming contentious elections in the US, two leading Israeli organizers, Ronit Levine-Schnur and Shany Granot-Lubaton, recount the challenges, successes, and failures of the democratic protest movement, reflect on the impact of October 7th events on the movement, and offer insights on fighting for democracy.
Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur is a Senior Lecturer at the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law. She was the co-founder and the leader of “The Israeli Law Professors’ Forum for Democracy” until Oct. 7th. Currently she is a co-leader of “The Day After the War Forum”.
Shany Granot-Lubaton is the leader of the New York City protests for Israeli democracy (the largest protest community outside of Israel). Right after Oct. 7th she co-founded the Hostages Families Forum in NYC. She was previously the chief of staff and spokesperson of the former head of the labor party, MK Shelly Yechimovich and deputy director of the “Darkenu” movement.
The event was organized and moderated by Maya Gayer - Journalist, Fulbright fellow in Public Humanities and MA student in the Oral History Program at Columbia University, who is building an oral history archive of the Israeli democracy protest movement as her thesis project.
This webinar is available to view in full below.
This event was made possible by the generosity of the Radov and Appel families.
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