One Tent & Facebook Group Bring Israeli’s Together

When your landlord tells you that they are raising the price of rent, most people move or complain and pay up. Daphne Leef, a 25-year-old Israeli film editor who has been living in Tel Aviv took a different approach. She pitched a tent in the Habima Square in Tel Aviv, and created a Facebook page inviting others to join her in a protest against the sky rocketing prices of rent in Israel.

Tel Aviv protest were assisted by Facebook

Leef, like many other Israeli’s had had enough with unaffordable prices of rent in Israel, and had something to say about it. She started a campaign for the working middle class, for social justice, rent and better education.

When she first moved into her tent on Rotschild Street in the center of Tel Aviv, less then 20 others followed her. Today, there are thousands of tents all across Israel, and there have been three major protests and rallies across tiny

but mighty country. On Saturday, August 6^th over 250,000 people in the streets of Tel Aviv, closing some of the streets in the city, to bring awareness and show their support for bringing out social change in Israel. It is also important to keep in mind that Israel has a population of about 6 million, and “according to Comscore, Israel is ranked 37th in terms of the number of Facebook users, with 3.4 million Israelis – a whopping 46 percent of the population – on Facebook,” according to Viva Sarah Press, published June 13^th, 2011.

The simple act of moving into a tent, and using Facebook to rally the people not only has people in Israel doing something, but all across America as well.

“Israelis in the United States pitched tents in New York’s Time Square, across the street from the White House and at a park in Los Angeles. About 200 ex-Israelis and supporters of Israel’s housing protesters demonstrated in Los Angeles’ Woodley Park Sunday, in a protest organized on Facebook, according to Ynet,” according to The Jewish Daily Forward, published on August 8^th, 2011.

This is not the first time that Facebook has been utilized successfully to bring a nation or group of people together as a call to action. As we saw earlier this year with the Egyptian Revolution, which also began with a Facebook group. “The page, titled “ We Are All Khaled Said” in remembrance of an Alexandria man murdered by police last summer, was founded in June and snowballed into one of Egypt’s most influential activist sites,” a quote from the World News published February 24^th, 2011.

Sources:

Cid Carver

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