Emma Graham-Harrison
The Guardian / October 6, 2024
Fears grow of a brain drain that could undermine country’s hi-tech economy as liberal families conclude social contract has been broken.
This summer, the Nobel laureate Prof Aaron Ciechanover joined a group of prominent Israelis gathered in the ruins of the Nir Oz kibbutz to demand a hostage release and ceasefire deal.
Nir Oz was the worst hit of all the communities targeted by Hamas on 7 October, with a quarter of its residents kidnapped or killed. Twenty-nine are still in Gaza.
If the hostages were not brought back, the basic social contract that underpinned Israeli society would unravel, the 77-year-old professor of medicine warned – with catastrophic consequences for the entire country.
He cited an accelerating “brain drain” of doctors and other professionals as a worrying sign that some of Israel’s elite already feel they no longer have a future in the country. And without them, Israel itself might struggle to have a future.
Ciechanover is a long-term critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and joined protests against his government before the war. But concern about this trend is not limited to political opponents of the Israeli leader. 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.
Noam is a father of three with businesses that include a PR consultancy and a cannabis pharmacy. He expected that his 40s would be a time of “less doing, more enjoying”, after decades of hard work.
Instead, he and his wife spend evenings poring over school options in European countries as they weigh up where to start a new life. The war increased the urgency of the search, but it has been a decision born out of longstanding concerns.
“The main reason we are leaving is that we are seeking a better future for our children. Even if peace can be brokered tomorrow, we still can’t see a future we want to be a part of,” Noam said. “The demographics speak for themselves.”
He thinks Israel’s economy will be hampered by the growing number of ultra-orthodox young people not qualified for professional jobs because they do not study maths or science, or speak English. Socially, he fears the rise of religious conservatives will make life hard for secular Jews. “If you ask me what we are headed for, you can look at the Iranian model, where religion plays a major role in daily life.
“Even without the enemies we have all around [the region], that’s a good enough reason for any child loving parent to take his children away from harm.”
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.”
While the horrors of 7 October are not the root cause of departures, they have accelerated them for many Israelis. Noam said over the last year that five or six families at his children’s school had taken their children out of classes to head abroad, and that he wanted to give his children back a “normal” childhood after a year of alarms and constant threats.
After Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, some Israelis felt failed by a state and army that had promised security, and that still has not yet brought back all the hostages held in Gaza. Others felt their social contract with the state had broken down, as they sent their children to die as soldiers while tens of thousands of ultra-orthodox men were exempted from military service.
“All the elders, the people I hold dear, they say: go, leave. These are people who fought, played an active role in building this place,” Noam said. “The other thing they tell us is: never send your kids to the military. This is a major, major shift.”
Dror Sadot and her partner also decided they had to speed up their planned departure after the war started. They were horrified by how many Israelis were supporting a war that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, and felt isolated at home.
“It wasn’t even just the usual suspects. People who consider themselves as leftists started talking about revenge, saying this is a just war,” she said.
They booked a flight to Berlin a month after 7 October and Sadot does not think she will go back. Although learning German is a struggle, she feels at home in other ways.
“In Israel, I’m considered as crazy in the best case, in the worst case a traitor. At least here my opinions are accepted,” she said.
Most of her friends would like to leave as well. “Everyone is talking about it, a few have done it, but it takes time, and not everyone has the privilege to leave. Especially if we talk about Palestinians, but also not all Israelis have a second passport, or they have family [responsibilities],” she said.
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.
“We call it silent departing,” said Ciechanover. “They won’t let anyone know until they board the airplane.” He cited the recent loss of a senior paediatrician who announced she had decided to extend a fellowship for three years days before she was expected back in Israel.
Committed to Israel, he flips between hope and despair for its future, but intends to see it take shape from his home. “I am not going to be an emigrant,” he said. “I’m proud of my old country, and not looking for a new one.”
Emma Graham-Harrison is the Guardian‘s senior international affairs correspondent
