Yohanan Plesner served as the first director-general of Kadima and as one of its Knesset members from 2007 to 2013. During that time, he served on the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee; the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee; as the co-chairman of the Knesset Lobby for Students and Higher Education; chair of the Knesset’s permanent delegation to the Council of Europe; and the chair of the Committee for Equality in National Service. On completing its work, the Equality in National Service committee submitted a thorough, detailed, and gradated plan for solving one of the most important and complex socioeconomic challenges in Israeli society: the discrepancy in national service among Israel’s various sectors.
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.