Research for the Future

Israel's moment of truth

Showing root (shoresh) socioeconomic-demographic challenges to top Israeli leaders and presenting them with the four-point Shoresh Institution framework (see below) that they can unite around to ensure Israel’s future
Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister, summer of 2024 Benny Gantz, Chairman, HaMahane HaMamlakhti Party, summer of 2024 Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, summer of 2024 Gideon Saar, Chairman, Tikvah Hadasha Party, summer of 2024
Yair Lapid, Chairman, Yesh Atid Party, Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister, summer of 2024 Yair Golan, Chairman, Democrats Party, (merger of Labor and Meretz parties), summer of 2024 Avigdor Liberman, Chairman, Yisrael Beiteinu, summer of 2024 Gadi Eisenkot and Hili Tropper, leaders in HaMahane HaMamlakhti Party, summer of 2024
briefing in Knesset, summer of 2024
Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister, summer of 2024 Yair Lapid, Chairman, Yesh Atid Party, Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister, summer of 2024 Benny Gantz, Chairman, HaMahane HaMamlakhti Party, summer of 2024 Yair Golan, Chairman, Democrats Party, (merger of Labor and Meretz parties), summer of 2024 Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, summer of 2024 Avigdor Liberman, Chairman, Yisrael Beiteinu, summer of 2024 Gideon Saar, Chairman, Tikvah Hadasha Party, summer of 2024 Gadi Eisenkot and Hili Tropper, leaders in HaMahane HaMamlakhti Party, summer of 2024 briefing in Knesset, summer of 2024

Ensuring Israel’s future

Four-point Shoresh Institution framework

Objective: Returning Israel to a sustainable long run trajectory

Ensuring faster economic growth, lower poverty, and Israel’s ability to defend itself

1. Overhauling the education system

Basic tenets of such an overhaul need to include:

  • A significant upgrade of common core curriculum, funding only fully compliant schools;
  • Fundamental change the way that teachers are chosen, taught and compensated;
  • Systemic reform of the education ministry and its methods of operation.
2. Overhauling governmental budgetary priorities

including:

  • Discontinuation of benefits that incentivize non-work lifestyles;
  • Full budgetary transparency so that the public will know what are Israel’s actual national priorities – and among them, who the government supports and how much they receive.

Objective: Safeguarding the above changes

Ensuring faster economic growth, lower poverty, and Israel’s ability to defend itself

3. Electoral reform
  • Cabinet ministers with expertise in their ministry’s realm within an executive branch able to implement its decisions and enforce the law;
  • Creation of effective checks and balances between the three branches of government.
4. Drafting and ratifying a constitution

Setting in stone national foundations that will protect the country and the rights of its citizens, and make it difficult for anyone in the future to set it back.

Naftali Bennett

former Prime Minister

summer of 2024

Benny Gantz

Chairman, HaMahane HaMamlakhti Party

summer of 2024

Isaac Herzog

President of Israel

summer of 2024

Gideon Saar

Chairman, Tikvah Hadasha Party

summer of 2024

Yair Lapid

Chairman, Yesh Atid Party

Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister

summer of 2024

Yair Golan

Chairman, Democrats Party

(merger of Labor and Meretz parties)

summer of 2024

Avigdor Liberman

Chairman, Yisrael Beiteinu

summer of 2024

Gadi Eisenkot and Hili Tropper

leaders in HaMahane HaMamlakhti Party

summer of 2024

briefing in Knesset

summer of 2024

Featured Publications

Haredi towns have Israel to ensure their existence. Israel has only itself.

Featured publication figure
The continued existence of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society is dependent on a strong national economy able to provide economic security and a strong army able to provide physical security. In light of the Haredi society’s exponential growth – doubling its share in Israel’s population every generation (Haredim are 6 percent of the country’s grandparents, but are already a quarter of today’s infants) – the continued existence of the State of Israel is dependent on the Haredim. This interdependence requires an immediate internalization of the current direction that Israel is headed and the consequences of that direction for the country in general, and for Haredi society in particular. This process – involving very rapid changes in the population distribution within towns, alongside a steep and rapid decline in those towns’ living standards – is already well underway in several Israeli municipalities, which allows a glimpse into the future that currently awaits the entire nation, unless dealt with while it’s still possible to do so.

A solution that can return Israel to a sustainable long-term trajectory needs to be founded upon complete overhauls of Israel’s education system and of the government's budgetary priorities. This proposed solution is not directed against the Haredim, but is based on a national goal of increasing equality in opportunities, rights and obligations among all citizens. The social, economic and political processes that Israel has undergone in recent decades – and since January 2023, in particular – have brought the country to its moment of truth. The importance of the need for a sharp and immediate policy pivot cannot be overstated. Haredi towns have Israel to ensure their existence – an insurance policy that the country as a whole will not have, if and when it will begin to look like the Haredi towns.

Israeli economic growth is exceptionally dependent on its high-tech, a sector particularly vulnerable to policy ramifications

Featured publication figure

Employment in Israeli High-Tech: Past, Present, and Future

Yael Melzer and Ayal Kimhi
February 2024

Even before Israel’s recent constitutional crisis, the main barrier to the development of the high-tech industry, Israel’s major growth engine, was a shortage of skilled, professional, and creative labor supply. The share of advanced-degree graduates in the sciences and engineering in Israel is lower than in many developed countries, and is trending downward. In recent years, the share of students admitted to undergraduate programs in these disciplines has risen, as has the share of those completing their degrees. Yet it is uncertain if this trend will continue without an enlargement of the physical and human infrastructures necessary to absorb additional students.

The decline in psychometric scores (serving a similar screening purpose as the SAT in the US) of those admitted to academic studies in sciences and engineering suggests that the supply bottleneck for sufficiently skilled high-tech workers in Israel may due primarily to the quality of the country’s education system, as evidenced by Israeli pupils’ low achievements on international exams.

Uncertainty created by Israel’s constitutional crisis in 2023 negatively affected high-tech investments. Both entrepreneurs and workers began to seek alternatives outside of Israel. It is still too early to accurately assess the impact of the Israel-Hamas war, but even if the situation in the sector will return to normal, the alternatives abroad for Israeli high-tech workers could nonetheless spark future worker shortages.

Featured Video

Israel’s demographic tidal wave – the promo

Prof. Dan Ben-David
September 2023

For more on Israel’s internal root (shoresh) existential challenges, read our publications, watch our videos – and help spread the word.

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