published
in Times of Israel on September 26, 2024. Israel’s most important weapon is in danger by Dan Ben-David 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 pupils who actually do study it. As the only country in the world that
is threatened with – and has experienced – attempts at its annihilation, the
importance of knowledge as a unique weapon that keeps us alive cannot be
overstated. Among other things, that
knowledge that 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 pupils
have been over the years in core subjects: mathematics, science, and reading.
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. Pupils 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. Pupils 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 pupils 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. 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 relevant material and do
not participate in exams – continues to grow at a rapidly increasing (i.e.
exponential) pace, the average achievement of Israeli pupils 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 pupils. Today, 22% of Israel’s first-graders are in Arabic-language schools, and
another 22% are in Haredi schools. In addition, there are many non-Haredi
Jewish children in Israel’s geographic and social peripheries who also receive
a very low quality education. In other words, about half of Israel’s children
are receiving a third-world education, and they belong to the fastest-growing
segments of the population. As adults, they 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 a 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 our ship
before we become the Titanic. It is in our hands, and this is a clarion call
for all hands on deck! |