A year ago today the Israeli social justice movement started, seeing hundreds of thousands of Israelis repeatedly marching throughout last summer in demand of socioeconomic reform and constituting the biggest wave of public demonstrations in Israel’s short history.
It began with campaigns over poor doctor and social worker wages and inflated prices of staple household products from diapers to cottage cheese. Then “J14” (14 July) erupted when ordinary Tel Avivian Daphni Leef – struggling to find affordable housing despite working a six-day week, and flipping out from friends calling to say they’re leaving Israel because they “can’t make it there” – wound up pitching her tent on the affluent Rothschild Boulevard. Hundreds more followed to protest against skyrocketing rent and house prices, with ‘tent cities’ springing up across the country.
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