by Mike Prashker*

Abstract
In recent years, the concept of “shared citizenship” has increasingly entered Israeli educational, social, and political discourse. This is a potentially important development, but in order for the concept to really matter it is essential for it to have substance and a clear meaning. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of shared citizenship as employed in the work of MERCHAVIM. The paper discusses MERCHAVIM’s “shared citizenship” model and its utility to the cause of society-building in Israel.

The model builds on the commonly held legal identity of “Israeli citizenship” and aims to create a substantive shared civic identity without threatening other valued identities. It proposes a consensual civic language that can be used by Israeli citizens of all backgrounds. The five core concepts of the model—identity, access, fairness, spaces of agreement and active shared citizenship— are elaborated in the paper. The value of the model for softening some of the most apparently intractable and threatening societal challenges in Israel is demonstrated with reference to two major ongoing disputes: over primary sources of authority and definitions of statehood. Some of the major challenges to advancing shared citizenship in Israeli society in general and through the education system in particular, characterized as it is by separate school streams, are also addressed. Finally, the article summarizes MERCHAVIM's eight years of experience in advancing shared citizenship education in Israel.

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*Mike Prashker is founder and director of “MERCHAVIM – The Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel”.