Fighting for a better Israel 

By the time Orly Erez-Likhovski visits Australia next month, the election will be over. She hopes Israel will have taken its first steps towards a dramatic change.  

As Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), Erez-Likhovski is deeply aware of the many ways in which Israeli society could improve.  

She has watched the dramatic decline of social cohesion and accountability under Netanyahu with deep concern. 

“The tragedy of this government – the most terrible thing they did – was to promote hatred and division within Israeli society, incitement against different sectors, and the legitimisation and normalisation of hate, especially against Palestinians, but really against anybody who disagrees with the government,” she tells The Jewish Independent. 

Erez-Likhovski will be in Australia next month – her second trip Down Under – as the keynote speaker at the Union for Progressive Judaism (UPJ) biennial conference in Melbourne (November 19-22), where she will provide insights into IRAC and dissect the results of the Israeli election for delegates from the UPJ’s region in Australia and New Zealand. 

Her list of grievances against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is long. “The Gaza war, which started as a justified war after October 7, has been going on forever with unbelievable loss of life on all sides. So many Israeli soldiers have been killed and wounded, and so many innocent Palestinians have lost their lives. We’ve had a ceasefire for a year now, but unfortunately the situation is not much better. 

“People are saying a multi-front war is now the new normal. But driving on the highway and suddenly having to find a place to hide is not normal,” she says. “We need a government that has some kind of longer plan to end this.”