Israel’s most important weapon is in danger

Sophisticated beeper attacks and the interception of missiles on a massive scale are made possible by technology developed by people who received a good education. In light of the security challenges that we’ll face in the future, given that half of Israel’s children are today receiving a third-world education and belong to the fastest-growing population groups, Israel will not become a failed state in a few decades. It will simply cease to exist.

The issue of a core curriculum within Israel has tended to center around whether such studies should be made mandatory for Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) schoolchildren — as is the case for other children in Israel, and in other developed countries. Unfortunately, this domestic debate has been detached from the overarching question on the quality of the core education received by those Israeli students who actually do study it. Threatened with – and having experienced – attempts at its annihilation, the powerful importance of knowledge as a unique weapon that keeps the country and its citizens alive cannot be overstated. Among other things, that knowledge enabled the interception of missiles on a scale humanity has never witnessed before, and the simultaneous explosion of thousands of pagers and mobile devices that were Hezbollah’s alternative to mobile phones.

The children who will need to have the knowledge required to ensure Israel’s future are sitting in classrooms today – and that’s a source of great concerns.

Comparing Israeli results with those in the other developed countries that administer the international PISA exams, since 2006, indicates just how low the achievements of Israeli students have been over the years in core subjects: mathematics, science, and reading (first graph). It should be noted that Haredi boys do not study these subjects and do not take these exams. Had they done so, Israel’s national score would be even lower.

Students in the secular-Jewish school system have scored below the majority of OECD countries, according to the average results of all PISA exams from 2006 to 2022. Students in the religious-Jewish (non-Haredi) school system have done even worse, coming in below 80 percent of OECD countries, and Israel’s Arabic-speaking students rank below many third-world countries.

These very problematic outcomes are exacerbated by the state of education in the Haredi community – or, more precisely, by Haredi leaders who leverage their political power to effectively prevent any knowledge relevant to working in a global labor market and maintaining a liberal democracy from reaching Haredi boys. Moreover, the national impact of their lack of knowledge is amplified by the fact that Haredi fertility rates are roughly three times higher than those of secular Jews, traditional Jews, Arab Christians, and Druze. They are double the fertility rates of Israel’s Arab Muslims, and are two-thirds higher than those of religious non-Haredi Jews. Consequently, the Haredi share in Israel’s population is doubling every 25 years – in other words, every generation (second graph).

While Haredi men aged 50-54 currently make up 6% of Israel’s population, their grandchildren, aged 0-4 are already 26% of all Israeli toddlers. As the population share of Haredi boys – who do not study the pertinent material and do not participate in exams – continues to grow at a rapidly increasing pace, the reported average achievement of Israeli students taking the PISA exams, which is already below all relevant developed countries, will be less and less reflective of the actual average national knowledge level of all Israeli students.

Today, 22% of Israel’s first-graders are in Arabic-language schools, and another 22% are in Haredi schools (third graph). In addition, there are many non-Haredi Jewish children in Israel’s geographic and social peripheries who also receive a very low quality education. Thus, about half of Israel’s children are receiving an education at third-world levels, and they belong to Israel’s fastest-growing population groups. When adults, these children will only be able to maintain an economy that matches their third-world skills. But a third-world economy cannot sustain first-world health, welfare, and defense systems. In lieu of an advanced military to defend it in the most violent region on Earth, future Israel will not become a third-world nation; it will simply cease to exist.

Israel can still pivot away from this track to a sustainable trajectory, but there exists demographic-democratic point of no return. After that, laws that are already difficult to pass in the Knesset will become impossible to enact. The people of Israel must understand and internalize the severity of the picture presented here and the speed at which changes are occurring.

We need a government that will replace sectoral and personal agendas with national priorities, a government that can distinguish between superficial and core problems. Specifically, Israel needs a government with the courage to set aside left-right, religious-secular, Arab-Jewish divides and save the ship, as it were, before the Jewish state becomes the Titanic. It’s in our hands, and this is a clarion call for all hands on deck!

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Additional details on Israel’s direction and what can be done to change it may be found in the Shoresh Institution’s website.