Photo courtesy of NIF staff
Many of the Shatil News articles in this newsletter were written by Cary Jacoby, of NIF Israel’s resource development team, who is retiring this month, March 2025. A longtime practitioner of mindfulness, Cary also leads NIF’s weekly meditation group. Our Director of Writing in Israel, Melanie Takefman, sat down with Cary to look back on a decade of writing about NIF and Shatil.
Cary Jacoby: My first beat at Shatil was distributive justice and women in public housing. I remember talking with Shatil organizer Asaf Raz about distributive justice. I asked him, “Do you have a young child?” He said, “I have a 10-year-old.” “So,” I said, “Pretend you’re explaining distributive justice to him.” It was then that I understood how the work we do closes the gaps in access to funds that exist among communities. Everyone should have a slice of the pie from the revenues generated from our tax money.
Melanie Takefman: What are some of the most interesting things you’ve written about?
CJ: My first Shatil news piece was about Women in Public Housing. I attended a conference about it and drove the women who were involved in the project in my car. It was so interesting and inspiring to talk to these women and hear about their lives. One of them, Rikki Ben Lulu, became a leader in the field, after being homeless. Shatil consultants guided her, helping her access information from government offices on her cell phone. She once told me that all you need to be an activist is a cell phone.
MK: What is the most bizarre thing that ever happened to you at NIF?
CJ: I wrote about a Shatil project called Studio Po, a group of graphic designers using their professional capacities to promote social change. Shatil organized an exchange between Po participants and young graphic designers from Germany in which they learned about social change and design from each other. As part of this program, the designers were to attend a workshop on the history of racism. Two days before, Orly Peled, director of Shatil Campus, called me and said, “Weren’t you a teacher? Didn’t you study anthropology?” I said that yes, I did, and she said, “How would you like to run a workshop on the history of racism?” The lecturer had canceled, and they had no one to lead it. So I did.
Also, once, we had to return one euro to a German funder.
MK: What are the most memorable NIF and Shatil projects that you’ve worked on?
CJ: Shatil’s Northern Health Forum because it’s an example of an effective Jewish-Arab partnership project that succeeded because the participants had a real shared concern.
Another one is Local Power, a Shatil project that empowers municipal workers from recognized Bedouin towns in the Negev. Shatil brought together Bedouin municipal treasurers who were operating as lone wolves, working on their own, and helped them create a forum. Once they had a forum, they moved forward together. They initiated a relationship with the Ministry of Interior that led to participating in important government committees and, as a result, contributing to the design of policies affecting the Bedouin community.
NIF Grantee National Committee for Heads of Arab Local Authorities changed the government’s perception of Palestinian-Israeli society and leadership. They created a space for Palestinian-Israelis to have a voice in government decision-making.
It has been gratifying to see real impact come from all of these projects.
MK: What are your plans for after you leave?
CJ: I’m trying to restrain myself from making too many plans. I want to bring mindfulness to different communities. I want to open a group in a prison, or maybe mindfulness for children and families.
MK: What will you remember most about your time at NIF?
CJ: I loved my work. I learned so much every day. I love the people at NIF. They’re just the smartest and so down-to-earth and funny. They invest so much of themselves in what they do.
MK: What gives you hope during this difficult period?
CJ: What NIF and our organizations do gives me hope. Their nose is to the grindstone. They’re still doing what they’re doing. Also, seeing hundreds of thousands of people still going out to demonstrations, after all we’ve been through, gives me hope. There are a lot of good people and good work being done here. They are refusing to let the good be trampled.