Dr. Ayman Agbaria is a lecturer in the department of leadership and policy in education at the University of Haifa. He specialises in education among ethnic and religious minorities, issues of policy for civics education, and Islamic education. He previously served as a senior consultant to the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education, and as a member of the Ministry of Education’s civics studies committee.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.