In the periphery you live four years less than in the center. The Equality March (Photo: The Equality March)
We are champions at being cynical and suspicious. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 20-year-old girl, who rides on an important issue but in a populist way, if it’s politicians who stated this and acted differently, or out of general cynicism towards “the system”.
This is a healthy suspicion in a democratic country, yet it is appropriate to mix the cynicism with spoonfuls of hope.
Going to the Equality March enables hope in action. When Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Hashel walked alongside Martin Luther King in the fight for equal rights for blacks, he said: “I felt my feet were praying.” This is how we feel: our feet generate hope and promote change.
I know that there are friends and partners of mine who think that the differences between the center and the periphery in Israel is, in one word, an “important” issue. In two words, it can be said that he thinks that this issue is actually “not important”. It is “important” like clean sky and clean air are important. A kind of lip service.
We claim that these gaps are critical. that the trampling of the geographical and social peripheries is destructive. We claim that the shocking inequality in opportunities for the children of Rahat and Ofakim compared to the children of Ra’anana and Ramat Hasharon is a deep problem in democracy, and that the fact that we, in the periphery, live four years less than the people of the center is a fatal violation of human rights.
Poverty has no lobby in the Knesset. Most members of the Knesset will say that this is an “important” issue, but will act in the interest of a thousand other interests. As Midrash Tanhuma says, he who is in the light does not see what is in the dark.
Faced with this situation, determination and perseverance are necessary. Persistent action is needed. And also a unique and diverse coalition. In the last months we forged this surprising coalition. Tikkun and the periphery movement on the one hand, and Bnei Akiva and the kibbutz movement on the other. Standing together Vajik with the scouts and the student union. The union of social workers with Torah and Avoda loyalists. Why? Because influence requires power. And the equality march has no admission committees.
what do we have A document of goals that we formulated together, and a march, which we started in Kiryat Shmona, Kfar Giladi and Beer Sheva, and continued to Rahat and Araba, Tiberias and Beit Shemesh. Tomorrow we will arrive in Jerusalem. There we invited the heads of the parties that are quarreling these days. We heard that there is a party that calls itself “the only social party in Israel”. on the contrary. Let the parties adopt the goals and fight for them honestly and responsibly. We intend to continue to be here until the “important” becomes urgent and realistic. We’ll meet tomorrow!
You might be interested
And one more little thing…
We are really glad you read this post, and hope you found it interesting. The team of Local Conversation invests significant efforts to bring our readers news, investigations, interpretations and diverse opinion columns, all out of a commitment to resisting the occupation and promoting peace, equality and social justice.
It is hard to find things like this post in other media outlets in Israel, and the reason it is here is that our local press is independent and free. We do not depend on any capitalists, nor advertisers nor paywalls.
And yet, the great amount of work that goes into each such post – from paying the writers, through the work of the editors and photographers, to the payment for legal advice or the servers on which the site sits – costs money. The best way to ensure our stability and independence is the support of the community of readers through membership in a local conversation. And in this you have an important place.
It’s time to be a member of a local conversation
For support – click here