BUILD BACK BETTER
Tzedek Centers conference: Collaboration between local gov’t and civil society, rehabilitation of political system key to Israel’s recovery

Former Prime Minister MK Yair Lapid (left) and Tzedek Centers founder and executive director. Inbar Hayat
After nearly a year of war, Israel is still a traumatized country with tens of thousands of Israelis unable to return to their homes, said Izhar Carmon, founder and executive director of the shared society nonprofit Tzedek Centers, at the opening of its third annual conference last Thursday. Collaborative efforts between local governments and civil society groups have proven to be the most effective in addressing the disastrous consequences of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, according to Carmon.
The conference, which drew some 400 activists to the Achva Academic College in the Western Negev area, near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, explored ways to rehabilitate Israeli society in the face of the current reality. It also saw the launch of the Tzedek Centers’ book presenting its theory of change.
“We have no choice but to face these challenges head-on without giving up,” Carmon said. “The ongoing political crisis in Israel, and the war have proven to us daily that local government is where we need to build the future and hope… where new opportunities and collaborations between groups can arise that are not possible at the national level today.”
Echoing Carmon’s remarks, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who addressed the closing session of the conference, said that politics has become the country’s biggest problem, dividing rather than uniting the country and creating problems rather than solving them.
Changing this reality is where recovery can begin, he said. Hope should not be lost, he added, because if the problems are identified they can be fixed — even in politics.
“We cannot rehabilitate Israeli society if we don’t first rehabilitate its political system… We need to reach a point where politics is not a place where [Likud MK] David Amsalem curses us from the podium, but where people gather to find ways to improve the lives of the middle class, personal security and our international standing,” he said.
Lapid also called for a hostage deal before Israel can truly begin to heal. “Our heart is broken. It broke on Oct. 7, and since then, it has broken again and again. The rehabilitation of our heart must begin with a hostage deal. Without that, we won’t be able to heal,” he said.
The Tzedek Centers is a national grassroots movement of local activist communities that promote democracy, equality and solidarity in Israel. The nonprofit receives funding from the Israeli government and the municipalities it works with, along with membership dues, revenues from their activities and private donations. It also receives funding from organizations such as Jewish National Fund, World Zionist Organization and the Zionist Council, as well as UJA-Federation of New York, New Israel Fund, Social Venture Fund, Metrowest Federation; foundations including Russell Berrie, Gandyr, Havazelet, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Heinrich Boll, Rayne Trust, Jewish Future; and private donations. New centers are expected to reach a point, within three years, where 80% of their budget will be derived from local, self-generated or municipal and government funding rather than from philanthropy. According to the Tzedek Centers, its early established centers have already reached this threshold, which allows them to invest resources into the establishment of new centers.
The conference included tours to different communities in the region hit hard on Oct. 7, including Netivot, Sdot Negev, Ofakim, Ashkelon and Netiv Ha’Asara. It also featured discussions with panels of experts addressing economic, civil society and local authority issues during an emergency situation. Panels also dealt with societal fractures that could affect the process of restoring southern communities, including rebuilding trust between citizens and the state and mending relationships between different groups in Israeli society.
In Netivot, Meir Bunfad explained how he had adjusted the way he ran his sushi restaurant so it could remain open and keep his workers employed, even as he and his family had been evacuated to Jerusalem from their home in nearby Ofakim following Oct.7.
Sara Belete, director of youth services in Netivot, recounted how the local government stepped in to help Oct. 7 survivors from Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza as they were initially brought to Netivot after they were rescued. Unlike the nearby city of Sderot, Netivot was able to ward off the terrorist attack thanks to the underground situation center it had set up years earlier to fight off petty crimes, according to the town’s head of security, Yogev Chazan. The center, which brings together security services and the special civil defense department, includes a surveillance room with access to cameras offering views of nearly the entire city.
“About 100 or 200 families [from the kibbutzim that were attacked] were brought to the sport center, and the residents of Netivot all came out; they brought with them all their pots of holiday food, going among the evacuees asking what they needed,” said Belete. Netivot’s youth were immediately put to work assisting with food packages as well, she added.
“The city understood that they had to act now, they cooperated with the youth center, which knows where all the [most vulnerable] people are, and realized that the government will come in later. The youth come to where they feel [their presence] can have a significant impact. They took responsibility.”