Jo-Ann Mort lives in Brooklyn New York. She is a member of the editorial board of Dissent magazine and active in the Jewish community in the US, and advises trade unions, Jewish organisations, NGOs and philanthropists in the US, UK, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. She has also reported in Israel for newspapers and journals, including Prospect, The American Prospect, The Chicago Tribune and more.
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.