Advocate Alona Vinograd is director for the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions at IDI. She served as the Director General of the Movement for Freedom of Information between the years 2011-2015, in which she raised the issue of freedom of information to the top of the public agenda. Vinograd led legal battles to increase public transparency and battled against corruption in various issues including education, health, transportation and more. She has more than a decade of experience in the social sector, and in 2015 she was awarded the Rappaport Prize for Women Generating Change in Israeli Society.
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.