Can We Still Build a Country Together?

Today is the day,

I woke up this morning with deeply mixed emotions. A kaleidoscope of scenarios running through my head. Anxiety about what comes or does not come next. A profound fear that the fragmentation of Israeli society has become too deep to repair.

And, alongside all of this, pride. Still.

I am involved with one of the opposition parties, so yesterday I joined its pre-election briefing. Listening to the candidates and volunteers preparing for election day, I felt moved by the collective commitment. The hope. The optimism. People giving their time and energy because they believe a different reality is possible.

Alongside that hope, a question persists: How do we govern a country whose people have become so estranged from one another?

I feel this antagonism  in everyday life. Among friends, family, colleagues. Conversations become heated quickly. Fear, exhaustion, anger, and years of accumulated trauma take over the conversation before we even have a chance to really hear one another.

“I don’t understand how you can vote for…”

And often, we enter these conversations ready for battle. We have already decided what the other person’s vote says about their intelligence, morality, and love for this country. 

Taxi drivers tell passengers they judge “too leftist” that they are a menace to Israel and should leave. Friends cannot understand how people they consider educated and internationally minded can vote so differently from them. In family conversations, a political opinion becomes a reason to question someone’s loyalty to the country. 

Disbelief turns into contempt. 

I understand the emotion. I have strong convictions myself. Some political choices frighten me deeply, and I struggle to navigate them.

But I also wonder where we go from here if everyone who thinks differently becomes someone we can no longer speak to.

Across our political divides, most of us are deeply afraid for Israel’s survival. We worry about our security, our children, our place in the world. Yet even that fear separates us, because we define danger differently,  and increasingly see one another as part of this threat.

And yet, I have also seen what we are capable of doing for one another.

After October 7, religious and secular Israelis, people from the ‘left’ and the ‘right’, younger and older generations, and diaspora mobilized to support affected communities. People organized help, supported displaced families, raised funds, and gave their time, homes, skills, and professional expertise.

There was a sense that each of us had a role in responding and rebuilding – despite our differences.

What can help us carry this shared responsibility beyond emergencies?

We need to sustain that commitment to one another when we are arguing about budgets, education, military service, religion, and the future of this country.

Today’s election will shape our ability to do that, but the work will continue long after the votes have been counted.

Each of us has a part to play in rebuilding the trust that makes a shared future possible. Here are three ways we can begin:

1. First, we can change the way we approach difficult conversations. Before asking someone how they could possibly vote that way, we can ask what they are afraid of. What they believe their choice will protect. We may leave the conversation just as opposed to their choice, but with a better understanding of the person making it. Understanding what drives each other’s choices is a first step toward negotiating the shared responsibilities necessary to rebuild this country.  
2. Then, we can work with people outside our usual circles on problems we need to solve together. We can support a local recovery initiative or volunteer in a community project. In doing so, we learn to share responsibilities and see what we can collectively achieve. 
3. And finally, we can refine our expectations of our own political camp. We have a responsibility to challenge humiliation and dehumanization when they come from people we support. We should expect candidates to explain how they intend to govern those who did not vote for them, and put forward concrete proposals for sharing responsibilities across society, for example, through military and civilian service, agreements on the democratic institutions and rules that govern us all, and national reconstruction priorities for different communities. 

The next government will have to bring a fractured society together around difficult compromises and shared responsibilities so we can begin to rebuild.

Listening to candidates and volunteers preparing to give everything they could, I could imagine us beginning that work. Forming a government that takes responsibility. Giving those who have spent years volunteering, serving, and building reasons to believe their efforts can lead somewhere.

I know how much people are still prepared to contribute. I see it every day. I want us to choose a leadership capable of turning that shared commitment into a national effort we can sustain.

Today, I hope we give ourselves the chance to begin, with a government that can turn the solidarity that carried us through emergencies into the shared responsibility we need to rebuild this country together.