From 1948 to 2008
We have squandered the degrees of freedom bestowed on us by our founding fathers. So next year - 2008, just like 1948 - marks the beginning of a decade in which our generation will or will not exhibit the wherewithal to implement the policies that determine if the country will reach its 120th birthday.
By Dan Ben-DavidAccording to recent IMF data, living standards in Israel - as reflected in GDP per capita - are expected to rise this year by 3.3 percent. This will be the fourth straight year with such high growth rates. However, these years reflect a recovery period that comes on the heels of a severe recession. As can be seen in the graph, the four consecutive years of fast growth since 2003 are indicative of nothing more than a return of Israel's economy to the problematic long-run growth path that has characterized it between the 1973 turning point and the outbreak of the intifada in 2000.
This slow-growth, long-run path reflects a relative decline in Israeli living standards, compared with the leading Western countries. For example, countries like the G7 nations, who were wealthier than us in the mid-1970s, have grown faster since then (2.1 percent per year in the G7 versus 1.7 percent in Israel) - despite the past four years. The further behind Israel's living standards fall, the more attractive life abroad becomes for many Israelis whose skills and training are in demand overseas.
This is not some abstract or distant theoretical issue, but a very real crisis already in full swing. The emigration rate from Israel by physicians is even greater than that of high-tech professionals. The high outbound rate of physicians is exceeded by the emigration rate of university professors, which is greater than that of every other group in the country.
How severe is the situation in Israeli academia? While the number of European professors in the United States falls between 1 percent and 4 percent of the total number of professors in their respective home countries, the number of Israeli professors in the U.S. is 25 percent of the number remaining in Israel. Nothing in the Western world remotely compares to this rate of emigration.
This problematic path results from very low employment rates and low labor productivity rates, despite a high-tech sector that is thriving on a global scale. Israel's education system, which has become the worst in the Western world, is one of the main reasons for the decline. In addition, there are large population groups that are increasingly disengaging from Israeli society. For example, the majority of the ultra-Orthodox and Israeli-Arab populations are not employed, nor do they participate in preserving or defending their way of life. If, just one generation ago, the children of these groups made up one-fourth of primary school pupils, today they comprise half of the children in the lower grades.
The State of Israel is on a growth path that is unsustainable in the long run - especially when taking into consideration poverty and inequality trends that have been steadily increasing since the 1970s. An unsustainable path means we can expect a clear and inevitable break in the path in the future, whether this results from intentional, well-informed government policies or a tremendous social explosion that may lead to the country's salvation the hard way - or to its demise.
In 1948 we attained independence. This coming year, 2008, Israel will celebrate its 60th birthday. The country has come full circle during its first six decades. Against all odds, extraordinarily strong foundations were built in defense, education, science and health during the first decade of the newly born country. These seedlings, planted and nurtured by our parents - who sacrificed so much to ensure their survival and growth - endowed Israel with a large amount of subsequent breathing space that allowed us to weather the dysfunctional leadership, the distorted national priorities and the cultural deterioration that has characterized so much of the past three decades.
We have squandered the degrees of freedom bestowed on us by our founding fathers. So next year - 2008, just like 1948 - marks the beginning of a decade in which our generation will or will not exhibit the wherewithal to implement the policies that determine if the country will reach its 120th birthday.
The writer teaches economics in the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University.
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The study is not thorough. While it may provide numbers of intellectual leaving the country, it does not investigate the reason for the grande derangment. Truly, the persuasions of the hearts of these intellectuals should be investigated. Frankly, I have known several Israeli professeurs who have left Israel because they "married" nonorthodox women, goyim, and persons of their own gender.
The study is not thorough. While it may provide numbers of intellectual leaving the country, it does not investigate the reason for the grande derangment. Truly, the persuasions of the hearts of these intellectuals should be investigated. Frankly, I have known several Israeli professeurs who have left Israel because they "married" nonorthodox women, goyim, and persons of their own gender.
It's quite simple, post the Yom Kippur war Israel started pouring resources into economically unproductive settlement and policing of the captured/occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank. This is the policy that is ruining the country economically and socially. This is the wake up call that so many ignore!
It is not because of a drop in the standard of living that talented young scholars have left country. It is because our government is not willing to invest money in their future. Cuts in university funding by the government have led to the loss of 800 lecturers’ posts since 2001. This number is equal to a medium sized university. Brilliant students finish writing their theses, are asked to go abroad for a post-doctorate, only to find that there is no job for them to come back to. Or the only jobs available are part time external lectureships, paid only during the term time, not during the summer, and without pensions. After studying for ten years and more, from BA to completing a doctorate, this is no way to live. If the government wants to keep our best and brightest here, the solution is simple. Bring those lectureships back to the universities.
The solution is very simple, one has to deny everybody who does not serve in the army Israeli citizenship and stop paying them ALL social benefits.
it is astounding to note the lack of replies to this article , regardless of thier content, on such an important article. compare this with the pistarchio controversy. It is indicative of a lack of national debate about where Israel, like it or not, is heading.
I don't see any constructive propositions to mend the so-called horrific emigration of our best people. But, at the same time the writer find a way to specify the enormous achievements of the People and its State:"Against all odds, strong foundations werebuilt......These seedlings, planted and nurtured by our Parents.....". Yes the 60th Birthday should give thanks to all the Moroccans and other Sepfarads who stuck by their irremediate commitment to Israel despite all the allechiant offers from Canada, Brazil, Argentina and France and Spain. They and others who suffered at the beginning ought to receive our deep thanks for their efforts. Yes it is sad to read about the "brain drain", but in spite of and because of it, thanks to others who took up the CHALLENGE and continue the construction of the Israel Inra-Structue, which never ends...
If mainstream Jewish Israelis used less birth contrtol and abortion they would not be producing just half of lower primary / elementary school pupils. In far more difficult times Jews had larger families.