This past Yom Ha’atzmaut, instead of our traditional reception for the political and community leadership, the Israeli Consulate initiated Israel On The Table (IOTT), a project designed to generate conversations about Israel across the community.
Over three thousand people took part in IOTT, attending hundreds of meals. Afterwards, we sent each host a questionnaire. We are pleased to now share some of the key findings.
IOTT succeeded in generating real discussions about Israel, not only on the headline issues of security and politics, but also about Israeli society – the role of women and religion, culture, and so on.
Some conversations focused on the positive and uplifting – many respondents found comfort and inspiration from Israel’s independence, the IDF, Israel’s pluralism, its cultural life, innovation and the Hebrew language. Others delved into participants’ concerns, regarding security, settlements, religious pluralism, growing extremism, the peace process, terror, Israel’s image abroad, and Israel’s perceived failure to insist on its rights to the land.
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Many families used IOTT to engage their children in a structured discussion about Israel and its place in their lives. This in our view is one of the greatest achievements of the project.
IOTT generated ideas as to how Israel can better promote understanding and support. Many respondents felt that more opportunities for encounters with Israel’s diverse population, and more people-to-people and cultural exchanges, would be meaningful and effective avenues to pursue.
We found no fundamental difference in knowledge or attitudes between respondents who have visited Israel and those who haven’t. Interestingly, where opinions between those who have and haven’t visited Israel did diverge, it seems that media coverage may play a key role, with visitors to Israel suggesting the media overplay issues, while non-visitors tend to be more critical of the IDF.
We asked participants what Israel could learn from Canada and what Canada could learn from Israel. Canadian qualities that appeared overwhelmingly were civility, tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism. On the reverse side, respondents felt that Israel’s qualities of risk-taking, confidence, innovation and insistence on its own principles were ones which Canada would do well to adopt.
Of course the impressions and responses gleaned from our survey of IOTT participants are based on voluntary participation, from within what is already no doubt a self-selecting group. Nevertheless, there are some insights and conclusions that we can reach.
We note, for example, that IOTT participants belong to a broad array of Jewish organizations. This may not be surprising, but it is telling nevertheless, suggesting that Israel is something which unites people across other community divides. This unifying quality is a huge asset to the community and to Israel, and should be nurtured at every turn.
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Also, it appears that the “Shinshinim” program initiated by Federation is having a real impact on the community: families and institutions are connecting through the Shinshinim in personal and un-intermediated ways that were not possible before.
Finally, a Canadian Jewish quality that some respondents felt that Israelis could learn from is the conscious effort to nurture Jewish identity. Identifying ways in which the Canadian Jewish experience can be harnessed and shared in ways that would strengthen Israel, and Jewish peoplehood more generally, could be fertile ground for building even closer ties in the future.
We are very pleased with this inaugural attempt to generate such a broad and diverse conversation surrounding Israel, and we thank all those who participated.
The feedback we have received suggests that there is deep interest across the community in engaging with Israel’s story, and that this engagement can inform and impact positively on people’s lives, their family, the community and society as a whole.
The more we can do to facilitate such conversations, the more we can do to help people experience Israel for themselves and the more we engage in building real interaction surrounding Israel within the community and beyond, the stronger both Israel and the community will be.
DJ Schneeweiss is Israel’s Consul General to Toronto and Western Canada.
