Gender & Democracy

After Daphne Leef, a twenty-five-year-old video editor, got word from her landlord that her lease wouldn't be renewed, she discovered she'd been priced out of Tel Aviv. Housing prices in the city have increased by 65% in the past five years, with rents rising in tow. A thousand-foot apartment in the city rents these days for two to three thousand dollars a month, which is more than most Israelis make altogether. Financial planners advise to keep rent costs to 30% of income, but to stay in Tel Aviv, young professionals need to sign over their salary checks in full, taking second jobs, loading up on roommates or counting on monthly supplements from parents. For Leef, who since finishing film school has made clips for some of Israel's biggest pop stars, none of these options made sense. When she considered her situation, something snapped. So she posted on Facebook that when her lease was up, she would pitch a tent in the city center, inviting to join her all those fed up at finding their salaries fall short of their rent.

With Israel asking itself some deep questions about the directions it should go in embodied in the recent protest movement, the Green Movement just released the first draft of a new economic plan for Israel. Based on the Green New Deals that emerged from green think tanks and political parties from around the world, the Economics of Tomorrow suggests a new model for government intervention that promotes economic development while preserving ecological resources and social democratic values. Alon Tal And Racheli Tedhar Kener, chairpersons of the Green Movement, offer a unique perspective, linking the economic plan with the currrent surge of protests for social justice in Israel.

Is the Arab community in Israel identifying with the messages and goals of the protest movement sweeping the country? Mohammad Darawshe, Co-Executive Director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives provides an analysis and talks about the new opportunities for Israeli society.

The 2010–2011 Middle East and North Africa protests seemed unexpected, but were they really that unexpected? This publication addresses many questions, among them: First, what has happened? And second, what has invested these regimes with such long-lasting resilience?

In the past months, the number of attacks by the nationalist camp against Israeli human rights organizations and other non-governmental organizations has risen significantly. A report by the director of the Israel office of the Heinrich Boell Foundation

Politics can only succeed when it is inclusive of all genders. Gender justice is an ambitious goal, one that the Heinrich Böll Foundation is pursuing together with many different allies worldwide. This publication gives an overview of their work.

On Saturday night, August 1st, a masked gunman walked into the “youthbar” - a social youth program run by the Tel Aviv LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) association - lifted an automatic machine-gun and began shooting aimlessly and killing two people, and wounding ten others before fleeing into the night.