After October 7 and a year of war, is it time to bring new voices into the Jewish community?
According to Shirel Dagan-Levy, CEO of Voice of the People (Kol Ha’am), an initiative by President Isaac Herzog, “our strength is to have diverse voices.”
Dagan-Levy attended all three days of the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, where she met with both established and emerging Jewish communal leaders. An Israeli with a background in high-tech, Dagan-Levy has been tasked with launching the president’s Kol Ha’am initiative, which aims to create a global Jewish advisory council to address pressing issues impacting Jewish communities worldwide.
She told ILTV News that the GA was both inspiring and emphasized the necessity of the Kol Ha’am project.
“On the one hand, I see the strength. I mean, this is unbelievable. I mean, people, for years, are doing for the Jewish community. I'm overwhelmed. I'm humbled,” she told ILTV. “I think people in Israel don't realize how much people here care. They just don't realize.”
On the other hand, she said, “we need to bring new voices and new ideas and tackle [the challenges in the Jewish world] differently.”
Her goal: To manage this tension and turn it into discussion and action.
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the president realized the concept needed to be reimagined. His office sent a survey to the global Jewish community, which more than 10,000 people answered. It asked questions about the most important issues in the Jewish community and how they could be addressed.
Then, the project opened an application process to create a cohort of 150 people—50 from Israel, 50 from the United States, and another 50 from around the world. Around 1,000 people applied.
The application process was powered by artificial intelligence to ensure the cohort would be as diverse and representative as possible. Applicants filled out AI-driven forms, which the algorithm narrowed down to a list of about 400 of the most suitable candidates. Now, the human team must sift through these resumes.
“We got unbelievable names of people,” Dagan-Levy said. “We’re looking for the non-usual suspects. I mean, we want the usual suspects, but I think we have an opportunity post-October 7 to bring new voices, young voices, voices that have never stood up before.”
The goal is for 75% of participants to be under the age of 50. They are aiming for a balanced representation of men and women, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, business professionals, and individuals already deeply engaged in the Jewish world.
Dagan-Levy noted that many young Jews who had never previously engaged with Jewish life or discussed Judaism are now starting to get involved since October 7.
“They want to step up and do something,” she said.
The Kol Ha’am team is also interviewing moderators and facilitators, aiming to launch 10 working groups on different topics by early winter. The first cohort is expected to be announced in mid-December and will serve for two years.
“This is not a think tank,” Dagan-Levy emphasized. “I want them to come up with actionable solutions… How can we actually change reality? We want those proactive leaders to come as thinkers and doers.”
Dagan-Levy is herself one of these proactive individuals. She spent most of her career in high-tech, but after October 7, while serving as CEO of a startup, she felt that “everything seemed irrelevant,” and she sought greater meaning. Kol Ha’am was a perfect fit.
“I think the magic of President Herzog is that in these very difficult, hard days, he is able to look to the future and say, you know, we have to look at the future and take care of it, because no one else is going to do it for us,” she told ILTV. “Unless we are going to do something about it, no one else is going to do something about it. So, I think the initiative, now more than ever, is needed.”