According to report released by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, the chance of a chareidi male finding employment is about the same as males from other sectors who failed to complete elementary school.
According to the institute’s executive director, Prof/. Dan Ben-David, the percentage of chareidi and uneducated men finding work has declined sharply from the 1970s, when it was 80%, to 50% today, citing employment figures are almost identical for non-chareidi Jewish and Arab males when comparing the different levels of academic education.
Prof. Ben-David cites that since the chareidi males do not learn core subject matter such as English, science and mathematics after eighth grade so they are poorly prepared to compete in the workplace, basically on the same level as males who have no education.
The report explains that at the end of the 1970s, the lifestyle in Israel was significantly lower and times were different as the marketplace did not demand the level of education required in today’s high tech world but today, as the marketplace has become increasingly competitive the employment opportunities for chareidi males has dropped sharply.
Today, chareidi children represent 20% of the nation’s elementary school students, representing a 57% increase over the past decade as compared to a less than 1% increase in the state schools.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
Note that they consider teaching in a Hareidi school to be unemployment. I suggest anyone in yeshiva who pays no tuition and receives something other than a bed in a dorm and permission to eat in the dining room should be considered employed). They also don’t take into account many hareidim who have employment but are listed as being full time yeshiva students to avoid the military.
The employment figures for Arabs (who do receive secular educations) and Hareidim are similar suggest the problem is not education, but discrimination and persecution. The major employment related skill one picks up in school is to show up on time and do your work, and the yeshiva kids are very good at that.
However employment in Israel requires being part of the westernized ultra-secular society, and that’s the problem
Education (as in reading, writing, simple math) is the door to employment..
Akumpta, Im a bit confused by your statement. I didn’t realize the school classroom rebbe, the judaic store owner, the butcher, and the baker were all part of westernized ultra secular society, just because they work in an occupation.
So the professor thinks parnoso comes from a math book. Ever heard of Hashem?
Those who think this report does not have valid insights into the state of education in Israel need to wake up. This is not the only study to arrive at broadly similar conclusions: that Israeli education standards have dropped since the 1960s and need to rise – particularly in the teaching of science, technology and maths – if Israel is to capitalise on its remarkable achievements in the high-tech sector etc. And for those who want to retreat into a worldview of victimhood (“akuperma”, for example likes to blame “discrimination and persecution”) – WAKE UP! Haredi schools could be leading the way in teaching kids the skills and knowledge they need to build careers which would not only enable them to live free of depending on others for handouts but to be able to balance work and learning. If teaching civics or literature or evolution is considered too problematic then teach maths, computer programming, physics, chemistry, or vocational subjects so that Torah-true kids can go through adulthood without the crushing self-imposed poverty which is increasingly damaging family life within haredi communities. They don’t have to be scientists but they could be technicians, they could be plumbers, electricians, mechanics: “One should flay carcasses in the marketplace and earn a living. He should not say I am a Priest, I am a great man and such work is beneath me”.