An Israeli activist who supports her country’s pro-democracy movement, Arab-Jewish solidarity and Palestinian rights will receive the New Israel Fund’s top honor at its national gala this month in San Francisco.
Shir Nosatzki is known for leading pro-democracy efforts in Israel, including this year’s weekly protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, and promoting political partnerships between Palestinians and Jews. The Gallanter Prize for Emerging Israeli Social Justice Leaders comes with a $25,000 award.
The New Israel Fund, founded in 1979, advocates for pluralism in Israel and supports hundreds of progressive groups there.
“The Arab community will be the first victims of this judicial overhaul. Both Palestinians who are citizens and those who are not,” she said in an NIF press release. “But if the protest movement builds a new agenda while Arab society is not sitting at the table, we won’t be able to call whatever it is we are building ‘democracy.’”
Nosatzki is founder of “Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?” The non-governmental organization promotes Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel and has previously received money from the New Israel Fund.
Known for her social media savvy, Nosatzki was behind a viral video in 2020 that used striking images of the Covid-19 pandemic’s first responders with and without face masks.
“Now they’re called heroes,” begins the video, showing masked doctors and nurses before revealing that the medical staff in question are Israeli Arabs.
“They are also an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” the video states.
“We wanted to say that if you trust an Arab person with your life in the hospital, you should be prepared to trust them to be part of your government,” Nosatzki told the Times of Israel in 2020.
The Gallanter Prize is sponsored by the S.F.-based Sanford and Linda Gallanter Foundation and is awarded annually to an Israeli activist who has made significant contributions to social justice.
The prize will be awarded at New Israel Fund’s Guardian of Democracy gala on Oct. 15. Tickets start at $360. The event will also be streamed online.
Two Bay Area residents, Leslie Kane and Norman Postone, will be honored with Guardian of Democracy awards. Kane is a retired lawyer, former executive director of the Holocaust Center of Northern California and currently treasurer of Mission Minyan in San Francisco. Postone is a psychiatrist and Berkeley resident. Both have been involved in New Israel Fund for many years, serving as co-chairs of its San Francisco Regional Council.
The keynote speaker will be Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.