Volunteers with the Fourth Quarter prepare flower bouquets sent by soldiers to their loved ones.
Ella Ringel, CEO of The Fourth Quarter, shared with us the many ways in which the organization and its citizen-powered movement have pivoted to address top priorities emerging from the October 7 terrorist attacks and the ensuing war. Prior to October 7, The Fourth Quarter was leading Israelis to forge a new political and democratic social movement to bridge the country’s deep divisions and overcome distrust exacerbated by the government’s proposed judicial reforms and other polarizing trends. Now, the movement is taking extraordinary steps to foster and sustain citizens’ resilience and unity through the war and toward a stronger future for Israel.
We’ve understood that much is being asked of citizens in this war. We call it the Israeli spirit. We came into the war from a place where Israeli society was in bad shape. We had really low levels of trust, and we were not united. Then this great shock of October 7 happened and all of Israeli society came together, united in one mission to beat Hamas and win this war. The Fourth Quarter brings a unique value proposition to addressing demands from the field, including the need to keep the morale and unity of Israel strong.
We’ve understood that much is being asked of citizens in this war. We call it the Israeli spirit.
I’ll give you a range of examples of what we’ve been doing. At first, we triaged and met immediate demands arising from the October 7 attacks. Once we were able to use our networks of activists to support evacuees and those who remain in the areas most targeted by rockets, we turned toward launching multiple efforts to promote resilience and unity among Israelis.
A man and boy standing with a sign saying the Israeli spirit will win.
One example is the flower project. Usually, citizens send flowers and care packages to the soldiers in the front. We thought it would be nice if soldiers in the front could send things back home – to their mothers, sisters, wives, husbands, and so on – and tell them “Thank you, stay strong for us, and stay united…we need you united.” So, we bought flowers from border farms in the North and the South. We offered soldiers the opportunity to give us their family’s address along with a personal message, and our volunteers would handwrite a card with that message and send the flowers, free of charge. We have already sent more than 6,000 bouquets of flowers. We wanted to stop this project, but they’re not letting us...the demand keeps coming! There are now more than 4,000 soldiers who want to send flowers.
Another example is the flags project. We made flags that say the Israeli spirit will win. We share them with our activists across the country, and they’ve been giving out the flags to citizens all over Israel. It’s amazing to see how people are reacting by displaying them.
We’ve seen that it’s important for the Fourth Quarter to explain what’s happening with the war. We started creating short videos on different subjects that discuss what we’re fighting for, how we can keep the Israeli spirit intact, and why this war is justified. It’s not just about defending the Jewish state, it’s also about liberal values. Many of the videos are in Hebrew and English. By now, we have more than 250,000 unique viewers who have watched the videos, and that’s just what we can count. We can’t track the many additional viewers using WhatsApp.
We’re hosting Zoom meetings every night at 10 p.m. with different guest experts…most are well-known leaders from education, psychology, and other fields. We have more than 30,000 citizens in Israel who watch those Zooms. Every night they cover something important and give people time and space to understand what’s happening here.
For communities in the periphery, we have created a “resilience box.” We collaborated with the Resilience Center – experts in how people keep their resilience strong – and developed a box that you can take home or put in a shelter that provides a model to help people deal with the fear and the tension. We’ve given out 500 resilience boxes and now there’s demand for 20,000 more.
Volunteers sort donated resources for Israelis displaced by the October 7 attacks and Israel-Hamas war.
Finally, we started a unique project to serve some of our movement activists who were called up to serve in the IDF reserves but they have not yet been deployed in Gaza. They’re waiting both in the North and the South...they’ve done all the training they can, they’re not going home, their families are going crazy, and it’s hard to keep focus while they are there. So, we’ve built a model in which they have three hours to be together in small group conversations about two things. The first is to talk about how they’re doing, and what the Israeli spirit means to them. But the second thing is to discuss how they imagine Israel after the war. Something that makes Israel very different is that we are not stuck on revenge and sorrow and the past; instead, every time we have a crisis, we start to imagine the future.
We are now extending that project to encourage all citizens to imagine Israel in its fourth quarter. We’re starting with the activists in our network and, after that, with people who know the movement through their WhatsApp groups or Facebook. Then we will start to involve all citizens in this effort.
Something that makes Israel very different is that we are not stuck on revenge and sorrow and the past; instead, every time we have a crisis, we start to imagine the future.
These examples show how we pivoted the movement’s activities, but we’ve been guided by two core tenets of our work that were important before the war and remain key as the war plays out.
The first is, it’s all about the community – the citizens that are operating the system. They are all volunteers, all diverse activists.
The second is, we are now in the war, but we are thinking about the future. We have to plan. Because we fight for life.
It’s been incredible, seeing how the Fourth Quarter movement has responded. We started the war with about 70% of our activists taking part in the initiatives I’ve just described. But now we have 25,000 more people that have joined in order to be part of this response and resilience effort. They want to be part of the movement to help Israel survive and create that strong and vibrant future.