As war and religion rages, Israel’s secular elite contemplate a ‘silent departure’ | Israel | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/06/as-war-and-religion-rages-israels-secular-elite-contemplate-a-silent-de
(...) Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s former chair of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, joined forces with the administrative expert Ron Tzur to warn that Israel faces an existential threat.
In a paper calling for a new political settlement, they warned that under a business-as-usual scenario “there is a considerable likelihood that Israel will not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the coming decades”.
Among the threats they highlighted were rising emigration, particularly among the people who have built up Israel’s hi-tech sector and the schools and hospitals vital to attracting the global elite. “Israel’s locomotive of growth is innovation, and that is driven by a small group of several tens of thousands of people in a country of 10 million,” the paper warned. “The weight of their departure from the country is immense in comparison to their number.”
The problem precedes the 7 October attacks and the war that followed, as demographic and political shifts have prompted some secular, liberal Israelis to question their future in a state increasingly dominated by religious traditionalists.
(...) Secular Israelis who prioritise living in a liberal democracy are a shrinking portion of Israel’s population, said Uri Ram, professor of sociology and anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
By 2015, only a minority – although, at 45%, a large one – of the Jewish population in Israel defined themselves as secular, and that is shrinking as religious and ultra-orthodox Jewish families, on average, have more children.
Data from the first class at elementary schools in 2023 showed that only 40% of children were in the secular stream, he said.
“There is a growing problem of ‘brain drain’, and it will increase, firstly, if the military risk is not reduced and, secondly, if the state does indeed turn more populist-autocratic,” said Ram, who has researched the struggle for Israel’s future between liberal, mostly secular Israelis like Noam and a group he describes as ethno-religious traditionalists.
“In these situations, the upper middle classes will send their young generations abroad. Jews are well networked in desired academic and professional markets abroad, and family and work connections will assist the integration of young, educated Israeli immigrants in the desired locations.”
(...) It is hard to evaluate the scale of departures so far. In 2023, during the prewar domestic turmoil over Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, there was a net departure from Israel of between 30,000 and 40,000 people, the newspaper Haaretz reported.
Immigration is not only one-way: some Israelis abroad have seen a country in crisis and decided to return. Noam Bardin, a former chief executive of the satnav app Waze, flew back to Israel on 8 October.
Tech firms drive the economy but only employ 10% of the workforce, Bardim told Haaretz in a recent interview, warning that, without that talent, Israel’s recent years of economic success could unravel. “That’s only 400,000 people, 50,000 of whom comprise the main engine – engineers, senior executives at funds, whom the whole world is trying to recruit. If these people leave the country, we’ll become Argentina.”
Ciechanover fears the process is accelerating faster than is captured by official statistics or anecdotal observations. It takes time to pass the exams needed to practise in another country, and find jobs, housing and schools. Many colleagues don’t tell friends or family when they start this process.