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COMMUNITY CRISIS

The Job Market

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for Chareidim in Israel

Several new organizations and programs in Eretz Yisrael work to help alleviate chareidi unemployment
BY GAVRIEL HORAN

In the last few years there is a growing demand for employment in Israel. While a considerable number in the chareidi community are sitting and learning, many of them need to bring home parnassah. In the following pages you'll learn some things you never knew on this topic.

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Statistics Speak
Chareidim comprise some 8 to 11 percent of Israels population 600,000 to 800,000 strong. According to national statistics, over 60 percent of chareidi adults are unemployed, and 55 percent of them live below the poverty line (as compared to 14 percent of the general population). Although the chareidi community makes up only a small fraction of the overall population, it accounts for nearly half of all Israeli school-age children, and due to its high growth rate of 4.5 percent per year, will become a critical mass within the next few decades. If current employment trends continue, experts claim, it will have a significantly negative impact on the Israeli economy in the near future, with a projected 78 percent of the population unemployed or on welfare in thirty years time. According to Dan Ben David, one of Israels leading economists and executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, Were on trajectories that are not sustainable. Although no one recommends that the number of men in kollel should decrease, the problem arises when an individual is forced to go to work for economic reasons but is unable to find substantial employment due to lack of the basic skills, educational credentials, and work experience required to secure a job. Proof of the need for better job opportunities are the four thousand men who showed up at a recent chareidi job fair in Binyanei Haumah in Jerusalem. In response, Israels Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment has recently approved a total of 25 million shekels to create 350 new jobs for the chareidi community. The chareidi population is growing, Knesset Finance Committee chairman and Agudas Yisrael Knesset member Moshe Gafni said. We want to work. We have the ability, and we are not parasites but we dont want to change the way we live.

What should a young man in his mid-twenties do when he is faced with the need to support a wife and several children and he has no work credentials?
The Chareidi Dilemma
What should a young man in his midtwenties do when he is faced with the need to support a wife and several children and he has no work credentials? Furthermore, given the social tension between the secular and chareidi communities in Israel, how likely is it that a secular company will choose to hire a frum candidate over a secular one even if both have the same credentials? In a recent survey, 56 percent of employers said flatly that they would not hire chareidim. Over the years, the Israeli government has attempted to implement numerous programs to assist the chareidi community with employment, but most of the solutions were rejected because many rabbis saw them as attempts to undermine the autonomy of the community and to impose ideological compromises on it. Fortunately, over the past few years a number of organizations have been established to help ease the transition into the Israeli

workforce for those chareidim who have decided to seek employment. Hamodia set out to showcase a few of these organizations and speak to some of the participants in order to learn about the pros and cons of joining the Israeli workforce. So many non-Israelis have children, siblings, or other relatives living in Israel that we consider this matter to be of vital interest to all Hamodia readers.

Im Ein Kemach, Ein Torah

The Kemach Foundation is one such grassroots organization. Founded in 2007 by a group of chareidi activists, Kemach hoped to effect lasting change by working from within the frum community itself. The only way a chareidi person will accept a scholarship to go and learn a trade is if he is dealing with other chareidim, Kemach assistant director Tzvi Schreiber said. Even an openminded secular person cannot understand the needs of the chareidi community. When British real-estate magnate Leo Noe heard about Kemach, he decided to help implement it on a major scale by eliciting the support of a group of private philanthropists around the world. Kemach provides participants with in-depth evaluation and career counseling to guide them along the career path most suited to them. Kemach provides each approved applicant with a grant to cover 85 percent of the tuition cost of either an academic or a vocational study program. The participant must pay the remaining 15 percent out of his own pocket. We do this intentionally, Schreiber said. We believe that in order to be serious about your studies, you have to invest something of your own. About 80 percent of Kemach participants attend one of Israels chareidi colleges, such as the Ono Chareidi University in Ohr Yehudah, the chareidi colleges of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, or the Machon Lev technical college in Jerusalem. Started in 2003, the

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Ono Chareidi University campus is the largest chareidi college in Israel, with over 2,500 students attending degree programs in law, business administration, accounting, and computers. Classes for men and women are separate, and are scheduled three half-days a week to give students the opportunity to learn in kollel or yeshivah the rest of the time. It also gives them time to adjust to the new atmosphere, Ono director Yechezkel Fogel said. Kemach-sponsored students can take concentrated high-school equivalency

exams in less than a year. This makes it possible for someone with no previous secular education to start practicing law in only four years. Throughout the course of their studies, Kemach follows the progress of participants to ensure that they successfully complete their programs. Without any advertising, eleven thousand people have approached Kemach for assistance since 2008, and today the organization grants five thousand scholarships a year to both men and women: 55 percent for

vocational studies, and 45 percent for academics. We dont advertise, Tzvi Schreiber said. Anyone who needs to go to work knows how to find us.

Walking the Thin Line

Nonetheless, the decision to go to work is not always an easy one. When one serious lamdan came to Kemach because his family was in need, its career counselor convinced him to return to kollel and instead gave his wife a scholarship to study for a degree. Today

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hes still in kollel, and shes supporting the family. One young man who learned in the Mir kollel for many years decided to earn a bachelors degree in social work to ease his familys economic distress. Kemach funded 85 percent of his studies at the Chareidi College in Bnei Brak. Until today my decision to leave kollel is tormenting me, he said. I was learning well, and I enjoyed learning. Many people leave because they are tired of learning, but I left because I needed parnassah. It wasnt an easy choice, but what pushed me to continue was that I felt I could make a real contribution in the world with my talents as a therapist. There are very few chareidi social workers, and there is a tremendous need. There are many people who can be a maggid shiur, but not many chareidi therapists. ... I now feel like I have a mission in life. We always have to walk a thin line, Tzvi Schreiber said. On the one hand, a young man should sit and learn all day.

On the other hand, many people dont have what to eat at home. People often come to us with the same complaint: We cannot continue with things the way they are! It is not uncommon for applicants to confess that there is literally no food at home to feed their many children. One mother even admitted that she was giving her baby a mixture of flour and water to drink because she couldnt afford formula. Schreiber points out that Kemach is not only for poor people. We are here to help any chareidi person who needs to advance in his or her skills, regardless of his or her economic situation. We dont want a chareidi guy to be a water carrier his whole life. If hes going out to work, he should have a good job. We have classes around the country filled with men learning to be lawyers, electricians, engineers, and bank employees, and we even have people training for more offbeat occupations, including one future commercial pilot and a professional storyteller.

A Yerushalmi chassid once came to Kemach looking to become a CPA (certified public accountant). Hed noticed that there were no accountants in Meah Shearim. He agreed to go to one of the chareidi colleges, but he refused to accept a government diploma. Kemach assured him that they would keep his diploma on file and give him their own diploma to post in his office. After a few months of studies the chassid returned and told them that he had changed his mind and wanted the official diploma after all. Having done all this hard work, I want to frame the diploma and hang it on my wall, he said with pride. In the near future, Kemach will also be involved in assisting people with job searches. Tzvi Schreiber recalled the parable of the unsafe bridge that kept claiming victims. To solve the problem, the town decided to build a hospital under the bridge instead of fixing the bridge. We are fixing the broken bridge by helping people help themselves, he said.

Chareidi men attending one of Mafteachs Workplace Skills seminars.

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Reaching a Balance
Because our community places such strong emphasis on the fact that Torah is the most important pursuit, when a person needs to work for economic reasons, he often feels like a second-class citizen, said Rabbi Yitzchak Ravitz, director of chareidi programming at the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC, also known as the Rabbi Yitzchak Joint). We have to Ravitz balance the fact that Torah must remain the focus while helping individuals who need to work. No one says that supporting your family is an evil thing, but its a sensitive line. Today we are not seeing fewer kollel members, but rather those who arent learning are entering real jobs as opposed to just hanging around or doing menial labor. Rabbi Ravitz attributed the changes to the fact that the anti-Torah atmosphere in the government is waning. When the government tried very hard to take learn Torah and help support yeshivos, people away from Torah learning, people just as you find in America and naturally went in the opposite direction England, Rabbi Ravitz continued. At and refused to work. Today, since the the same time, we are seeing changes government isnt coming out strongly to outside Israel as well, with a large growth change the chareidi world, people are in kollelim. Nowadays everything is more open to making the decision starting to balance out. themselves. Little by little, the Ruben Gorbatt, the director of attitude toward chareidim is JDCs Chareidi Employment changing in the government; Initiative, oversees several of the they see that we are here to stay, largest chareidi employment and things are not similar at all organizations in Israel, to the way they were. including Mafteach, Shachar, Furthermore, in the 1980s, and Career Alternatives for when many chareidi parties were Women. Ruben Gorbatt voted into the Knesset, large From its founding, the Joint amounts of money were poured into the has always helped the chareidi support of kollelim and yeshivos. In recent community, starting with the Old Yishuv years, however, the government has in Eretz Yisrael , going on to the Mir canceled many benefits for kollel families, Yeshivah in Shanghai [during World War and the economic crises of 2002 and II], and continuing until today, Mr. 2008 financially ruined many of the Gorbatt said. main donors to yeshivos, forcing people Fifteen years ago the Joint began to go out to work. implementing programs to provide Today, Israel is beginning to develop religious Jews with much-needed a concept of G-d-fearing baalei batim who employment skills. They began providing

Today, Israel is beginning to develop a concept of G-dfearing baalei batim who learn Torah and help support yeshivos, just as you find in America and England.

vocational training for a few hundred individuals each year, but not until 2005 did these programs begin to have a major effect. Today they serve over six thousand people each year. We have proven that the chareidi community is highly receptive if you come to them with good programs that work with their sensitivities; they want to acquire skills, professional training, and academic credentials in environments that are respectful of their culture, Mr. Gorbatt continued. We are a laboratory to test new programs that can then be implemented by the government on an even greater scale. Altogether, the Joints chareidi employment services have provided over nine thousand individuals with training, experience, and long-term employment over the past six years. All these initiatives are accomplished with the support and brachos of the Gedolei Hador.

Thinking About the Future

Although the Israeli government offers a number of job-training and placement programs, they are rarely used by the frum community, due primarily to issues of tznius and other sensitivities. In 2006 the Joint launched the first Mafteach Chareidi Job Opportunity Center in Jerusalem, with the widespread support of Gedolim from across the spectrum. Mafteach is a onestop agency that provides career counseling, basic workplace skills, advanced vocational training, and assisted job search and placement all within a halachically acceptable framework. Mafteachs job centers have separate hours for men and women, frum staffing, and appropriate resources for the services they offer. On enrolling, clients receive career counseling to determine an appropriate career path, followed by a series of workshops to assist them with resume writing, English, basic computer and math skills, and budgeting. Due to the immediate success of the program,

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similar centers were opened in Beitar, a career. I didnt want to be a shlepper Ashdod, Beit Shemesh, Bnei Brak, for the rest of my life. I wanted to use Tzefas, Elad, and Haifa. Since 2006 the my head, not just my hands. Today he network has helped seven thousand is working in electronic programming. frum people find jobs, and today it Initially my family was afraid for me serves a total of 3,500 clients each year. to go to school. They thought that there When they first come to us, most would be negative influences. Now participants lack the proper they all agree it was the right credentials and skills to work, decision. said Rabbi Naftali Flintenstein, A Kosher Environment the director of Mafteachs The Joint also funds Career Jerusalem center. Furthermore, Alternatives for Chareidi they often have no idea where Women, an organization that their talents lie. Today there are provides job training in some of many big positive changes taking Rabbi Naftali the top Bais Yaakov seminaries place. People are thinking about Flintenstein in Israel. Although most their future: What can I learn seminaries have long prepared frum today so that I can work tomorrow when women to work in the oversaturated, the need comes? underpaid profession of teaching, When Shlomo B. of Haifa came to prompting those who fail to find Mafteach, he was working in a teaching positions to seek typically lowsupermarket stocking shelves. I wanted

paying work as secretaries or cashiers, Career Alternatives gives them the opportunity to enter financially more rewarding fields in the high-tech industry, financial analysis, and engineering. The Joint then seeks out corporations that are willing to hire a large number of seminary girls so that they can work in a somewhat frum environment. Working in a secular environment takes a lot of getting used to, although most have reported highly positive experiences. Getting hired may be challenging, Yekutiel F. said about his experience working in an accounting firm in Tel Aviv. But once youre hired, they dont care if youre chareidi. If you do good work, you are accepted, and if not, not. Dovid P. has been working at IBM in Israel for several decades. He said that

Chareidi employment services at Jerusalems Mafteach center

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Some Numbers
The Kemach Foundation: academic and vocational scholarships 972 (0)2 537-8889 Email: info@kemach.org Mafteach: chareidi employment opportunity centers 972 (0)2-571-5488 Career Alternatives: employment advancement for Bais Yaakov girls 972 (0)2-658-0707 Shachar: chareidi employment in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) 972 (0)52-790-6167 Ono Chareidi Campus: chareidi college program at Ono University 972 (0)3-915-8324 Chareidi College: private chareidi college program Jerusalem: 972 (0)72-272-7461 Bnei Brak: 972 (0)3-915-8685 Machon Lev Technical College: religious department of Jerusalem College of Technology 972 (1)700-503-232

non-frum coworkers often look at him as the Rav of the office and come to him with their sheeilos. One immodestly dressed woman once came crying to him because someone had said something inappropriate to her. Is there anything wrong with how Im dressed? she asked. Naturally, not all marketplace experiences are positive. In the hightech world, team-building social events for coworkers are common, and not showing up may be detrimental to ones career advancement. Often these events revolve around activities that take place at the beach or in nonkosher restaurants. Shimon Zalmanson, originally from England, has been working in high-tech in Israel for seventeen years. He pointed out the many unattractive features of the high-tech workplace for a chareidi man, including tznius issues, and the fact that after taxes one may not come home with much more than what he received as a kollel stipend. At the end of the month, you still need the gemach [free loan fund] and have to make payments on installment, like kollel men, he said.

Opening Up Doors Of Communication

In addition to the positive effect mainstream employment is having on the participants themselves, it is also effecting change in Israeli society as a whole. Many people still think that anyone who looks different from them is their enemy, Mr. Gorbatt said. I think that because of our work, secular Israelis are becoming less hostile to chareidim, seeing that we are all human beings and have more in common than we have differences. Yossi P. of Bnei Brak recounted his first experiences working in a secular environment. My coworkers initially looked at me strangely. Of course they tried to be polite, but I was so foreign to them. They didnt even know if they were allowed to say hello to me or how to act. After a while they saw that I didnt have a tail or horns, and that not all chareidim are parasites, like what they see in the media. Someone recently told Yossi that he was the first chareidi person he had ever spoken to in his life. The problems between secular Israelis and chareidim arent about

Many people still think that anyone who looks different from them is their enemy. I think that because of our work, secular Israelis are becoming less fearful of chareidim, seeing that we are all human beings and have more in common than we have differences.
army service or unemployment. The problem is about baseless hatred. The two communities dont even know each other. Mr. Gorbatt added, Our goal is to build a bridge of understanding, respect for the chareidi lifestyle, and to breach the barriers of communication that currently divide the country. I am an optimist I think in the future we will see chareidi doctors, lawyers, and engineers in Israel, just like we see in America and England. I also hope that the Israeli public can learn from the solidarity of the chareidi people; you dont find such unity anywhere else in Israel or the world. I hope all of Klal Yisrael I will be so united someday!

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