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How New York Jews are creating opportunities for disadvantaged Israelis seeking high-tech jobs
Until four years ago, Haim Hacohen, 37, was a full-time student in a haredi Orthodox yeshiva in the Israeli city of Ramat Bet Shemesh. Every month he received a government stipend of about $800 for his yeshiva studies, but it was hardly enough to support his wife and five children.
“That’s when I decided to learn programming in my free time in order to make a living,” Hacohen said. “Back then, it was much less accepted in our community, and people didn’t really understand it.”
Then Hacohen saw an ad for a boot camp seeking haredi Jews with some computer experience. He enrolled, and the training eventually led to a job with the software developer Unique. Now he works for Israel’s Education Ministry, where he earns over $4,000 per month calculating attendance, salaries and other data.
“After only one year, I tripled my salary,” he said.
Yirga Semay, 43, immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia alone at age 9. After his mandatory army service, he stayed on in the Israel Defense Forces for over a decade and a half, serving as an officer in a cyber intelligence unit, eventually earning a degree in computer science and an MBA, and marrying and having three children.
Semay’s long-term dream was to establish his own startup, so after retiring from the army he launched a company in the central Israeli city of Ramle. Called MetekuAI, the company and its 10 employees — all Ethiopian Israelis — combine artificial intelligence with human expertise to tackle problematic online content. Among its clients is the Jewish Agency for Israel, for whom Meteku AI focuses on fighting online antisemitism.
“Our vision is to tackle misinformation and fake news concerning Israel,” said Semay, who started the company a year ago. “We help organizations control the narrative by taking active part in online conversations, identifying potential crises before they spread and responding in real time with personalized content.”
Both Hacohen and Semay received help at key points in their careers from programs funded by UJA-Federation of New York designed to help Israelis from disadvantaged communities — including haredi Jews, Ethiopian Israelis, Bedouin Arabs and underprivileged Israelis from the country’s periphery, among others — find places in Israel’s enormously successful high-tech sector.
Hacohen is an alumnus of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)’s Tech Ventures Program, which helps integrate haredi Jews into Israel’s high-tech sector. Semay was assisted by Olim Beyachad, a nonprofit group that for the past 12 years has been working to get more Ethiopian Israelis into higher education and competitive fields. Both organizations receive substantial funding from UJA-Federation.
“Especially in the current climate, our investments in these diverse initiatives represent our commitment to strengthening a flourishing, inclusive and democratic Jewish state for the next 75 years and beyond,” said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of UJA-Federation. “We’re helping to bring hope and possibility to people across Israeli society for the sake of the country as a whole.”
As a founding partner of Olim Beyachad, UJA-Federation gives $180,000 per year to the program, which to date has over 1,400 alumni. Led by CEO Genet Dasa, who was born in Addis Ababa and came to Israel at age 11, the nonprofit aims to steer Ethiopian-Israeli university graduates toward rewarding careers while helping middle- and high-school students in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) so they’ll be better prepared for the job market.
“We know from research that our participants face racism while looking for employment,” said Dasa. “So our mission isn’t just to help them find work but also to change society’s perceptions and negative stereotypes toward Ethiopians.”
Through a group called Siraj, Bedouin Israelis participate in a hack-a-thon and skills building program in southern Israel. (Courtesy of UJA-Federation)
UJA-Federation is also a founding partner of JDC’s Tech Venture Program, which includes Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry and the Haredi Coalition for Employment. The program offers 100 types of services and has more than 5,000 current participants.
“We work with young men ages 17 to 24 who want to integrate into the job market,” said Eli Salomon, who heads the Tech Venture Program. “From the yeshiva world, there’s no natural pathway, so we help to bridge that gap.”
Since its inception in 2006, the initiative has helped 130,000 haredim find jobs.
Programs like these are critical to Israel’s economic health, said Eugene Kandel, the former CEO of Start-Up Nation Central, a nonprofit that helps support Israel’s startup ecosystem. Haredim comprise 13% of Israel’s 9.5 million citizens but account for only 3% of all high-tech workers, according to Kandel. In 30 years, haredim are projected to be 25% of Israel’s population, but they’re ill-equipped to enter the workforce, he said.
“About 60% of haredi homes have computers, so it’s not like they’re completely disconnected, but most of them cannot go to universities,” said Kandel, also a former chairman of Israel’s National Economic Council. “The quality of the places they do study is not great, and most haredi men don’t learn English. So it’s mostly the women who are joining high tech.”
Kandel has served on the advisory board of UJA-Federation’s Benin Scholars Program, which gives talented young people from Israel’s socioeconomic periphery the chance to pursue undergraduate studies in STEM fields. A pilot of this program is operating this year with 180 students across three institutions: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Sami Shamoon College of Engineering in Beersheba. The program offers large scholarships and living stipends alongside psychosocial support and career guidance. It is slated to grow to six or seven institutions and encompass some 700 students, which would make it among the largest STEM scholarship programs in Israel.
When it comes to integrating Israel’s minorities into the high-tech sector, Arab Israelis — who comprise 21% of Israel’s population but only 1.8% of its high-tech employees — are cause for more optimism, Kandel said.
“For many years, Arabs were very wary of high-tech because it was related to defense, and in many cases Arabs couldn’t get into that, so they studied other fields like law and medicine,” Kandel said. “But that’s no longer the case.”
Fahima Atawna is the executive director of Siraj, a nonprofit based in Beersheba that aims to get more Bedouin youth into technology, starting in middle and high school. The organization, whose name means “source of light” in Arabic, was established six years ago. It has partnered with Ben-Gurion University and, more recently, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose students teach local Bedouins how to write code as well as soft skills like working in teams.
“We hope to be a source of light for all those students who dream of a future in high-tech,” said Atawna. “I know that we are a poor community, but our approach is not to sit here and say, ‘We are weak and poor.’ Rather, I know that I’m smart and have ability. Just give me opportunities.”
At present, two cohorts with a combined 43 Bedouin teens ranging in age from 14 to 18 participate in the program, which receives annual funding of $50,000 from UJA-Federation.
Israel is home to an estimated 280,000 Bedouin, of whom fewer than 100 work in high tech, according to Atawna. But the numbers are growing.
“When I started, there were zero Bedouin high-tech graduates at Ben-Gurion University. Now, 21 Bedouins study computer science and software engineering there,” Atawna said. “My community understands that you can do this work from home. You don’t have to travel to Tel Aviv. And Beersheba has good companies like Microsoft and Intel, and it’s very close to our villages.”
She added that companies are being encouraged to hire minorities because having people from diverse backgrounds adds value.
Raghad Aboreash, 15, who lives in a Bedouin village 20 minutes from Beersheba called Hura, said she joined Siraj after hearing about it from friends.
“I like trying new things; it’s in my character. I’ve learned Python” — a computer programming language — “and how to build programs, and I’ve made friends in America. I want to be a software engineer.”
Mohammed Alafensh, 15, from the Bedouin city of Rahat, is studying software engineering and physics. He hopes Siraj will help pave the way to success.
“I dream of becoming a big engineer, because this is the future,” he said. “I will be great at this.”
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Did Netanyahu ignore Oct. 7 warning? An independent inquiry could cost him re-election.
Israel’s election campaign effectively begins today, as political parties submit their list of candidates who will contest the Oct. 27 election. It is difficult to imagine a more politically explosive moment for the publication of a new investigation into the failures surrounding Oct. 7.
Today’s report in the Haaretz newspaper alleges that Benjamin Netanyahu received an extraordinary personal warning from UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed roughly a week and a half before the Hamas attack. According to the report, bin Zayed told Netanyahu during a 45-minute telephone conversation that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel that could cause bloodshed and destabilize the region.
Netanyahu reportedly replied that he believed Hamas was focused on the West Bank and assured the Emirati leader that Israel was prepared. The Haaretz report cites multiple senior foreign sources reportedly briefed on the conversation and an adviser to bin Zayed who was present for the call.
Even more consequentially, the investigation says Netanyahu did not pass this specific warning to the heads of the Shin Bet, Mossad or Israel Defense Forces. Former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former IDF chief Herzi Halevi, for their part, told Haaretz that they had not been informed of such a warning, while the UAE president did not respond to the news organization.
Haaretz traces the warning to an earlier chain of intelligence in which Sinwar himself had spoken ominously of an approaching “earthquake” – an enormous operation. That warning reached the Shin Bet on September 15 and produced high-level discussions in which Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned that Israel was moving toward confrontation.
Veteran journalist Shlomi Eldar, the co-author of the report, said bin Zayed concluded Israel had not heeded such signals – but Netanyahu “tried to convince bin Zayed that we are fine with Gaza.”
Netanyahu denies the central allegation completely. “There was no such warning,” his spokesman Topaz Luk said on Israel Radio. “I think this is another effort to distort the truth ahead of elections.”
The question of who is telling the truth leads directly to a democratic mechanism that has repeatedly been called upon at moments of national trauma throughout Israel’s history: a commission of inquiry.
That very mechanism was employed in response to the catastrophic failures surrounding the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the Agranat Commission investigated the conduct of the military and government. State commissions of inquiry have likewise examined the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre and the killing of Arab citizens by police in October 2000.
Oct. 7 was the greatest security failure in Israel’s history, leaving more than 1,000 people dead, hundreds taken hostage, communities overrun and the country plunged into years of war.
Netanyahu has resisted all calls to establish an independent state commission – trying instead to set up an inquiry in which the opposition and coalition politicians would have equal say, guaranteeing any findings would be politicized. He has also attempted to deflect all blame onto the security establishment – making the issue a central one in the election campaign.
“You knew, you ignored it, you failed and you are guilty,” said opposition politician Yair Golan Tuesday, addressing his comments to Netanyahu. “We will set up a state inquiry that will expose the truth and those guilty will have to face justice .. for negligence that caused a massacre.”
Under the Commissions of Inquiry Law adopted in 1968, once the government establishes a state commission, its members are appointed by the president of the Supreme Court, and its chairman must be a serving or retired judge. The arrangement is intended to give the investigation independence from the political figures and institutions whose decisions it may ultimately have to judge.
And therein lies a rather extraordinary convergence. Netanyahu and his government have spent years attacking the legitimacy of precisely the institution entrusted by law with ensuring the independence of such an investigation: the Supreme Court. The campaign to weaken the judiciary that tore Israel apart before Oct. 7 has since provided a convenient argument against using the established mechanism for investigating Oct. 7 itself.
Netanyahu argues that a commission whose members are selected by the Supreme Court president cannot command broad public confidence. His opponents argue that a bespoke “political commission” may sound superficially balanced, but conclusions associated with coalition appointees would inevitably be dismissed by Netanyahu’s opponents as an attempt to protect him. Meanwhile findings associated with opposition appointees would be portrayed by his supporters as an attempt to destroy him. Israel would begin with two political camps choosing investigators and almost certainly end with two political camps accepting different versions of the truth.
The opposition has therefore refused to participate, arguing that the proposal would allow Netanyahu to influence the investigation of his own government. The stalemate has produced an outcome that is increasingly difficult to view as accidental: there is no agreed commission, no authoritative account of what happened and an ever-expanding vacuum in which every faction is free to construct its own version of Oct. 7.
Into that vacuum has flowed something far more disturbing than an ordinary argument over political responsibility. Netanyahu has worked relentlessly to shift responsibility toward the intelligence chiefs, the generals and especially the Shin Bet. Around him has grown an increasingly elaborate conspiracy theory that Oct. 7 may have involved something more sinister than incompetence and catastrophic misjudgment: an internal betrayal designed to damage Netanyahu politically.
What the Haaretz report provides is another powerful indication of how much remains unresolved, along with a potentially devastating explanation for Netanyahu’s determination to keep the established investigative mechanism from examining it. If the report is substantially correct — if Netanyahu personally received another serious warning before Oct. 7, misunderstood its significance, failed to circulate it to the security chiefs and then spent years attempting to redirect responsibility toward those same institutions — his resistance to a genuinely independent inquiry is clearly a political calculation..
“It’s like a knife in the stomach,” said Merav Svirsky, whose parents were killed in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hardest hit on Oct. 7, and whose brother was kidnapped and killed in Gaza. “My father and mother could have been alive. My brother would not have been kidnapped and would be alive. And while others resigned, Netanyahu clings to his seat.”
The post Did Netanyahu ignore Oct. 7 warning? An independent inquiry could cost him re-election. appeared first on The Forward.
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Tidbits: New German textbooks about the Jewish religion
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
צום ערשטן מאָל זינט דעם חורבן האָבן די דײַטשישע עפֿנטלעכע שולן באַקומען לערנביכער געווידמעט דער ייִדישער רעליגיע, כּדי די לערערס זאָלן קענען זיי ניצן ווי אַ טייל פֿונעם קוריקולום.
די סעריע פֿון אַכט בענד, „דעת הדורות“ (דאָס וויסן פֿון די דורות), וועט לערנען תּלמידים צווישן 10 און 16 יאָר אַלט אויף דײַטש וועגן דער תּורה, דעם תּנך, די תּפֿילות, ייִדישער עטיק, הלכה, יום־טובֿים, דעם ייִדישן לעבנס־ציקל און דער ייִדישער געשיכטע.
דער ערשטער באַנד, וואָס קאָנצענטרירט זיך אויף דער תּורה, וועט מען אָנהייבן ניצן אינעם נײַעם שוליאָר.
די ביכער, וואָס זענען צונויפֿגעשטעלט געוואָרן דורכן „צענטראַל-ראַט פֿון די ייִדן אין דײַטשלאַנד“ בשותּפֿות מיטן „ערנסט קלעט פֿאַרלאַג“, ווערן געצילעוועט סײַ אויף פּריוואַטע ייִדישע שולן סײַ אויף מלוכישע שולן איבער גאַנץ דײַטשלאַנד.
דער ציל איז צו באַקענען די תּלמידים מיט דער ייִדישער רעליגיע און טראַדיציעס אין אַ צײַט וואָס עס וואַקסט דער אַנטיסעמיטיזם איבערן לאַנד.
ביז איצט האָבן די לערער פֿון רעליגיעזע ייִדישע לימודים נישט געהאַט קיין מאָדערנע לערנביכער וועגן יהדות אין הסכּם מיטן קוריקולום, אַזוי ווי ס׳האָבן געהאַט די לערער פֿון קריסטלעכע רעליגיעזע לימודים. צוליב דעם בלויז האָבן די לערער פֿון דער ייִדישער רעליגיע געמוזט אַליין צונויפֿשטעלן אַרבעט־בויגנס און אַנדערע מאַטעריאַלן, וואָס זיי האָבן איבערגעזעצט פֿון אַנדערע שפּראַכן.
אין אַ מעלדונג האָט שילה ערלבוים, די אָנפֿירערין פֿונעם אָפּטייל פֿון פּאָליטיק און רעליגיע בײַם ייִדישן צענטראַל־ראַט, געזאָגט: „מיר האָבן טאַקע געדאַרפֿט אַ סיסטעמאַטישן לערן־רעסורס, וואָס באַזאָרגט די קינדער נישט בלויז מיט לערן־מאַטעריאַל, אָבער מוטיקט זיי זיך אַקטיוו צו באַטייליקן,“ האָט זי געזאָגט.
„דורך ׳דעת הדורות׳ קענען זיי לייזן בילדער־רעטענישן; זיך דערוויסן וועגן די געשעענישן פֿון משה רבינוס לעבן דורך אַ ווערפֿל־שפּיל, אָדער אויספּרוּוון זייער וויסן פֿון ייִדישע טערמינען דורך דער מאָבילקע אָדער אַ „גיכענטפֿער קאָד“ (QR code),“ האָט ערלבוים געזאָגט.
יאָזעף שוסטער, דער פּרעזידענט פֿונעם ייִדישן צענטראַל־ראַט, האַלט אַז די לערנביכער זענען אַ וויכטיקער אויפֿטו. „אַ דאַנק דעם פּראָיעקט וועט די ייִדישע רעליגיעזע בילדונג איצט זײַן גלײַך מיט די קריסטלעכע רעליגיעזע לימודים,“ האָט ער געזאָגט.
צו לייענען וועגן דעם אויף ענגליש גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To read about this in English click here.
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Far-right win in German regional race sends shockwaves through Europe
(JTA) —
A victory for Germany’s far-right party in an eastern federal state has reverberated across the globe, exposing the widening rifts between alarmed centrist leaders and insurgent nationalist movements in Europe.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won 43.8% of the vote in an election in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, crushing the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, which held 17.2% support, according to preliminary figures.
The AfD is now heading toward 39 seats in Saxony-Anhalt’s 83-seat state parliament. It’s expected to fall 3 seats short of an outright majority, leaving open the question of whether it can form Germany’s first far-right state government since World War II. The party has proposed a sweeping nationalist agenda that includes deporting immigrants, defunding “anti-German art” and teaching children less about the country’s Nazi past.
Merz told reporters in Berlin on Monday he was “deeply shocked” and “unsettled” by the results, which he said rippled through the rest of the country and the world. He added that it was impossible for Germany to “go back to business as usual” after so many voters in Saxony-Anhalt chose a party that “questions the democratic institutions in our country.”
The results dealt the CDU its “most severe defeat” in decades, conceded Merz, who leads the party once headed by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merz said that he was searching for answers to “why far-right populism and far-right extremism was able to rise in such a rapid manner,” suggesting that his party may have underestimated the “fears of our population” amid economic crises and rapid technological change. He said that minorities in Saxony-Anhalt would be particularly vulnerable under an AfD government, but noted that the state would still have obligations to follow federal law, including regarding immigration policy.
Merz also directed his message to the rest of Europe, saying that Germany had a “special responsibility because of its history” to keep its political order “deeply anchored in Europe.”
Despite the scale of the CDU’s defeat in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz ruled out stepping down, saying, “Giving up is not an option.”
Though Saxony-Anhalt is one of Germany’s smallest regions, home to some 1.7 million voters, its election results quickly sent shockwaves through other European countries whose leaders, like Merz, are fighting to fend off far-right, anti-immigrant parties in national elections next year.
French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad called the AfD’s regional win a “grave moment in Europe” and said that “nationalism and xenophobia will never be a solution.”
“We cannot forget our history,” said Haddad, an ally of centrist President Emmanuel Macron. “That is the meaning of the choices made by France and Germany.”
France’s government faces its own fears of a right-wing populist wave. Marine Le Pen, the head of the far-right National Rally, has dwarfed all other candidates in polls heading into France’s presidential election in 2027, when term limits force Macron to step down.
Across the Channel, British Chief Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds said in an interview on Times Radio that the U.K.’s Labour government “will not be reaching out to a right-wing populist party.” She added that she put the AfD in “the same political bracket” as Reform UK, the far-right party that surged in local elections earlier this year.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also condemned the AfD’s victory. The far-right party has alarmed Poland, Ukraine’s neighbor, with its pro-Russia stance, as it seeks to halt Germany’s military aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.
“In Poland, only idiots or traitors can rejoice at the triumph of the AfD in Germany,” said Tusk.
Meanwhile, the AfD was cheered by nationalist, anti-immigration party leaders in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, all of whom have sought to capitalize on economic and social grievances similar to those that contributed to the AfD’s victory Sunday.
Santiago Abascal, the head of Spain’s far-right Vox party, called the result “a great hope for Germany and for Europe.”
André Ventura, the founder of Portugal’s far-right Chega party, said that “the Germans too are opening their eyes against illegal and uncontrolled immigration, corruption, and the capture of our freedom and identity.”
And in the Netherlands, the AfD received a “Congratulations” from the far-right Party for Freedom’s leader, Geert Wilders.
While President Donald Trump has yet to officially respond to the Saxony-Anhalt election, he posted a screenshot of the results without comment on his Truth Social account Sunday night.
Trump’s post was shared by Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian presidential envoy and businessman, who said the AfD scored a “historic win” that would “put migration under control.”
Elon Musk, the billionaire and former Trump adviser who campaigned for the AfD last year, gave his support to the national party leader Alice Weidel on X, which he owns, writing “Well done” in German.
Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s candidate in Saxony-Anhalt who hopes to become the state premier, responded by praising Musk.
“Thank you, @elonmusk, for your support and for your clear and highly important perspective on the political developments of our time — including here in Germany,” he wrote.
The post Far-right win in German regional race sends shockwaves through Europe appeared first on The Forward.
