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Stories from the street

Welcome to "Stories from the Street," Let's Talk Democracy's blog. The stories that appear here were originally published in a dedicated WhatsApp group called "Let's Talk Democracy's Circle of Friends."

Since February '23, our volunteers have been taking to the streets every Friday, handing out flowers and initiating conversations with people - about their lives and ours, about our past, and about our concerns and hopes for our shared future here in Israel.

Why do we do this? How does it work? What does it achieve?

We answer these questions here, through the stories and experiences of the volunteers.

Why is it important make spaces in the street where people can say anything?

Here's two examples of something volunteers in any of our booths would recognize: 🌷 “I spoke with a woman who told me about her anxieties over the situation, her disappointment with Netanyahu (whom she voted for), his lack of any clear decision-making, and the fact that there don’t seem to be any clear objectives [to the war]. At the end of the conversation, she said she was glad she had someone to share her concerns with, because she is in an environment where she finds it

If facts alone don’t do the job, what does make people change their minds?

🌷 “I wanted to show him the article on my phone, but he said it was definitely a lie.” (Rachel, Modi'in booth) One of the first assumptions that go out the window when you start volunteering at a booth is the idea that “if they only knew what I know, they’d see that I’m right and agree with me.” In that sense, our experiences on the street confirm what researchers of the brain and society have already discovered: presenting countervailing facts, on its own, is not enough to

Why is it important for booths to come back to the same place again and again?

One of the questions we’re often asked is, “What does success look like to you?” “How do you know that you’ve made an impact?” That's a question with multiple answers, but one important answer is: “If that person comes back to talk with us again and again, that’s success.” Why is that a success? The stories in this post illustrate the answer, addressing the question: Why is it important to keep coming back to the same place and talking with the same people? - - - This we

Let's try!

Hope awaits you on the street.