About Shaharit

Shaharit is a synergistic mix of thinktank, leadership incubator, and community organizing hub that is nurturing a new social partnership among all of Israel’s communities, building a future rooted in the common good.

We’re a thinktank.

We seek to forge a politics that unites, and breaks out of the tired dichotomies that for too long have defined the Israeli politic: “a Jewish state” versus “a state of all its citizens,” “religion” and “tradition” as opposed to “liberalism,” the “security camp” opposite the “peace camp,” and “market economics” versus the “welfare state.” Our task is to articulate a new political language, to create new social networks, and to encourage new initiatives, for the benefit of all of Israel’s communities, and for the benefit of Israeli society as a whole. We call this “a politics of the common good”.

We’re a leadership incubator. 

Our flagship “120” program recruits and trains the political leaders of tomorrow in the theory and practice of the politics of the common good. How can they become a different kind of politician – one who, no matter which party they find themselves in, sees their role not as winning a zero-sum game, but as creating win-win situations. We also run leadership groups in many of Israel’s communities, including Religious Zionists, Russian speakers, Mizrahi Jews, Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox), and Arab citizens of Israel, among others. 

We’re a community organizing hub.

We think national and act local. On the ground, in the towns and cities that make up the fabric of Israeli society, we find people who are willing to transcend their boundaries, to work across communities, to seek the face of the other, and create a brand of local activism of the common good. We’re making great investments in community organizing as a discipline that can unleash the positive energy of the common good where it really counts: in people’s neighborhoods, communities, and homes. Want to know more? Come meet some of the people who make Shaharit what it is: