Sarah Weil
Innovation R&D, Twin Tree Farms
Sarah is passionate about transforming conflict through radical empathy, dialogue, and community organizing. She is development director of the Yerushalmit Movement and heads the Meeting Place project, which, impelled by the murder of Shira Banki, works to create a “brave space” for encounters and difficult conversations on issues affecting Israeli society. She led the movement to rededicate Zion Square to the memory of Shira Banki and the values of pluralism and tolerance. She writes and speaks in Israel and abroad on conflict transformation and LGBT issues, particularly at the intersection of LGBT and religion. Sarah represents the Yerushalmit Movement in Living Together, an elite national task-force charged with spreading the consciousness of "shared society" and win-win politics. Sarah was recently chosen by Yediot Acharonot as one of the top 50 social change-agents in Israel for 2016 and was selected by A Wider Bridge as one of the top ten Israeli LGBT activists to watch in 2017. In her free time she runs the Woman's Gathering, a volunteer-based organization she founded in 2011, building Jerusalem-based LGBTQ women's community through multiple initiatives. Previously, she was director of international outreach for Bat Kol, social media manager for the Elijah Interfaith Institute and reference assistant at the library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She holds a B.A. in philosophy from Hebrew University, is working on an M.A. in philosophy as ethics, and often defines herself as an aspiring religious Jew. She lives in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood with her partner, two children, and two incorrigible cats.