Inside In(ter)dependence: Building Global Jewish Identity Through Israel’s Founding Text

By: Avital Sojcher and Dror Shamsian 

As Hillel’s In(ter)dependence program comes to a close, 15 students from Hillel Israel and Hillel CASE (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Crimea, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) are entering the world with a deeper, more meaningful, and more creative understanding of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Participants from both Israel and abroad came together for four weekly sessions in which they studied the declaration and expressed their thoughts through creative means, culminating in a final artistic project to close the program. Talia Agam, program director of Hillel Jerusalem and one of the "In(ter)dependence?" program organizers, says the gloal of the program was not only to enhance the students' understanding of the declaration but also help them to develop their Jeiwsh identities, strengthen their connection to one another, and explore their place within a shared global Jewish identity.

The program, which took place via online sessions in September and October 2025, strived to help students reflect on how the declaration is relevant to their lives and the lives of Jews all over the world. In each session, the students explored an aspect of the declaration and expressed their takeaways through a different creative medium. This year, the students experimented with blackout poetry, values collages, designing a map of Israel, and more. 

Amir, a student from Hillel Jerusalem, who is the Israeli child of Olim from Argentina, says that participating in In(ter)dependence opened his eyes to the importance of the document. The program allowed him to be more neutral, so that he could understand the benefits of Israel from more than a political point of view. Seeing the passion of diaspora students for Israel was inspiring for Amir, because it showed him how the declaration is important not just to Israeli’s but to Jews all over the world. The program taught him how important the Right of Return is to world Jewry; it's like a “rebirth” for them. Learning their different perspectives helped him be less judgmental and more open to hearing out the opinions of diaspora Jews about Israel. 

Ekaterina, a Hillel CASE student who is from Ukraine, loved learning in a program that included participants from so many different Jewish communities. Each student brought their own experiences with them, allowing them to reflect on the program in their own way while exploring the diversity that shapes global Jewish identity. Ekaterina feels it is “important to study a document that helps us understand the Jewish world.” Learning with students from Jewish communities all around the world helped her fulfill that. To her, the declaration is relevant to world Jewry today and will continue to be relevant in the future. 

The creative element of the program helped students not only understand the declaration in an academic sense but also allowed them to see it through a more physical lens. “The art was the glue between the things you can touch and the things you cannot touch,” Amir said. “When I can feel it and see it, I can understand it better”. Ekaterina feels similarly. “For me,” she said, “art is an important tool for conveying symbols that are sometimes difficult to express in words.” Amir found the collage project particularly special because the medium sets a frame for the artist, yet every student still came up with something so different. Participants in the program said that seeing the work of other students was a meaningful experience. 

Amir’s message for those looking to learn more about the declaration is to “start from the roots, not from the trees”. He feels it is essential to learn about the history of Jews all around the world and to read the declarations of the countries that inspired Israel’s own document to understand it. We are really grateful to be able to offer this program to the students to build strong connections between global Jewish communities and deepen a shared global Jewish identity. We look forward to running more cohorts in the future. 

Click HERE to read Talia Agam's article in the Times of Israel on this program.