Smol Emuni, Israel’s “Faithful Left” is unique in the way it brings together religious Israeli Jews of all stripes to call for a pro-democracy, proudly left-wing agenda deeply rooted in Torah. Come learn some of that Torah with two leaders of the movement and hear about how religious values inspire their activism.
Limor Yaakov Safrai is Education Department Director for the Southern Galillee Regional Council. She is on the board of Beit Lochamei HaGeta’ot, The Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, and the agricultural cooperative society in Maale Gilboa. Limor also serves on the steering committee of the Dov Lautman Forum, which works on education for democratic values, and is an assembly member of the Emek HaMa’ayot Economic Division. She grew up in Gush Qatif, in the Gaza Strip, and today lives on Kibbutz Maale Gilboa. In the past, she ran the youth division of the Religious Kibbutz movement. She also cofounded and ran the Torah and Avodah seminary.
Mikhael Manekin is the director of the Alliance Fellowship program, an Arab-Jewish political network in Israel. Before running the Alliance, Mikhael served as the director of Molad, a non-partisan progressive think tank in Jerusalem focused on democratic change in Israel. Prior to that, Mikhael was the executive director of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli military veterans’ group focused on educating the public as to the results of military control of the West Bank and Gaza. In 2021, Mikhael published the book Athalta: Ethics and Tradition in a Time of Power (Hebrew).. The book is set to come out in English later this year. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.