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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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At a Georgetown College Republicans event, member of Germany’s far-right party tells students the Holocaust is ‘used as a weapon’
Marc Bernhard, a member of Germany’s far-right AfD party, told Georgetown students Monday night at an event hosted by the university’s College Republicans that the Holocaust is “used as a weapon against Germany.”
The Forward obtained recordings of parts of the event, which was billed as Bernhard presenting about “mass migration and the future of the West.”
The event followed the AfD’s historic victory in a German state election last month, with party leaders campaigning on the promise of mass deportations and a rejection of the country’s culture of Holocaust remembrance.
During the Q&A period, an audience member asked Bernhard about the AfD’s “opinion on the Holocaust.”
“Our opinion? It’s a very, very large party,” Bernhard responded.
“Do you think German education overcompensates or you know, like, overapologizes?” the audience member followed up.
Bernhard said that over the last decade, accusations of Nazism had become “inflationary, because everyone who does not have the opinion of the government is a Nazi. So nobody takes this serious anymore, because it’s a joke.”
The “Holocaust is also used as a weapon against Germany,” Bernhard told the crowd of about 40. “Why is Poland telling us we need to pay reparations and things like this?”
He blamed anti-Jewish sentiment on “anti-fascists,” saying left-wing antisemitism was “why a lot of Jews leave Germany or a lot of Jews leave France, because they don’t feel secure anymore, especially in Berlin.”
Bernhard, meanwhile, has faced an antisemitism controversy of his own. Last January, he led a campaign to place tens of thousands of fake deportation plane tickets in voters’ mailboxes. The fake tickets read “ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT” in place of a passenger’s name.
The campaign drew comparisons to Nazi-era propaganda that used mock travel documents to encourage Jews to leave Germany, including one that read “free ticket to Jerusalem … never to return.”
Asked about the parallels by PBS FRONTLINE in November 2025, Bernhard said he was unaware of that history.
“Yeah, well, I’m not familiar with these actions,” Bernhard told FRONTLINE at the time. “To be honest, I don’t know them, nor was I aware of them.”
In a statement provided to the Forward, Georgetown College Republicans stood by its invitation to Bernhard, writing that “The AfD is currently leading national polls, and its growing support deserves serious engagement. Just as Republicans reject the American left’s efforts to dismiss our positions as extreme, we too reject the German Socialist Government’s labelling of AfD as extremist.”
The club added that “allegations of antisemitism are totally baseless.”
This wasn’t the first time Georgetown College Republicans hosted a member of the AfD: In 2025, the club hosted the party’s deputy leader, Markus Frohnmai.
The club also drew controversy in March for an X post from the club’s account saying “Let’s Be Honest: Muslims have no place in American society. Their religion is incompatible with our Christian Nation.” Georgetown Republicans said on Instagram that the post was “inconsistent with the values of our organization” and “promptly deleted.”
At Georgetown, Bernhard also engaged in anti-Muslim rhetoric: “We have this problem with people who are not with our culture or with our tradition,” Bernhard said. “Always, where you see problems it’s with Muslims. We don’t have problems with Ukrainians. We don’t have problems with Polish.”
Bernhard’s remarks drew frequent interruptions. The Georgetown Voice, the campus student-run magazine, reported that members of The Georgetown Heckler, Georgetown’s satirical publication, staged a coordinated ringtone prank, with 15 people each setting their ringtones to “funny noises” that went off as Bernhard spoke.
The Jewish Caucus of the College Democrats of America and Georgetown College Democrats also issued a joint statement condemning the College Republican’s decision to host Bernhard.
“We want Georgetown to put the safety of Jewish students above a platform for a foreign politician whose ideology is steeped in antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism,” Leo Auerbach, a senior at Georgetown and vice chair of the Jewish Caucus of College Democrats, told the Forward. “I think that antisemitism has to be called out, no matter who it comes from, whether it’s politically convenient or not.”
The post At a Georgetown College Republicans event, member of Germany’s far-right party tells students the Holocaust is ‘used as a weapon’ appeared first on The Forward.
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In Israel’s elections, where are the women?
On Oct. 27, Israelis will go to the polls at one of the most consequential moments in the country’s history. After years of war, trauma and political division, the next Knesset and government will face decisions that will shape Israel’s future for years to come.
But one question deserves significant attention: Where are the women?
Israel has long celebrated its history of women’s leadership. Golda Meir became one of the world’s first women prime ministers. Generations of Israeli women have built institutions, led social movements and fought to advance equality and democracy.
Yet despite this history, women have never achieved equal representation in Israel’s highest political institutions. Their representation has declined in key positions, and when Israel formed its war cabinet following Oct. 7, 2023, no women were included in its core membership. Women have also remained significantly underrepresented in high-level diplomatic and totally absent in peace negotiations.
For example, the senior Israeli delegation to the hostage deal negotiations in Doha in January 2025 consisted of four men, with no women among its publicly identified members. Similarly, men dominated the leadership of diplomatic negotiations concerning arrangements in Lebanon and coordination meetings regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
The numbers tell an important story.
According to a March 2026 analysis by the Israel Democracy Institute, only 31 of Israel’s 120 Knesset members were women—approximately 26 percent, below the global average of 27.5 percent. Israel’s international ranking for women’s parliamentary representation has fallen sharply, from 61st in 2022 to 92nd out of 181 countries in April 2026.
Women held just five of 24 cabinet positions, fewer than 21 percent, a substantial decline from the previous government, when women occupied approximately one-third of ministerial positions.
For more than 17 years, no woman has held any of Israel’s four most senior political positions: prime minister, foreign minister, defense minister or finance minister.
The disparity extends beyond elected office. A Knesset research report found that women accounted for 64 percent of Israel’s civil servants in 2024, yet held only 9 percent of the highest-ranking positions.
These figures are particularly troubling because, throughout Israel’s recent crises, women have demonstrated their indispensable leadership.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, women have mobilized emergency responses, supported displaced families and kept civil society organizations functioning under extraordinary circumstances. Many have done so while confronting fear, grief and uncertainty in their own families.
Women who lead nonprofit organizations, advocacy movements and social-change initiatives develop expertise directly relevant to government. They understand how policies affect people, how institutions function, how to mobilize resources and how to bring communities together around shared challenges.
These are precisely the skills needed in public leadership.
But at the very moment Israel has depended on women’s leadership, women have had too little influence over the decisions shaping its future.
Israel’s electoral system places considerable importance on the composition of political party lists. Voters choose parties, and the placement of candidates on those lists affects who ultimately enters the Knesset. Some parties have adopted gender-balanced lists, while others have included far fewer women in positions with realistic prospects of election.
Efforts are emerging to change that. Seventeen women make up a majority of the slate for Beyachad (Together) — the merger of Naftali Bennett’s previously unnamed faction with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. Meanwhile, even though ultra-Orthodox parties do not allow women to be their candidates to the Knesset, a new party called Haredi Public has included two women on their slate.
Two women whose candidacies have been particularly meaningful to me are Moran Zer Katzenstein and Moria Rodal Silfen, whose leadership I have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand through The Collective, Elluminate’s leadership advancement program. Through a Jewish and feminist lens, we invest in, train, connect and elevate women leaders advancing social change. Both women have demonstrated extraordinary courage and leadership in confronting some of Israel’s most pressing challenges.
Katzenstein, founder of Bonot Alternativa, a nonpartisan women’s organization advocating for women’s rights and
democracy, is running with The Democrats, led by Yair Golan. Her organization gained international recognition in 2023 when women dressed in the iconic red robes and white bonnets of The Handmaid’s Tale staged silent protests against Israel’s judicial reforms, becoming a powerful symbol of the pro-democracy movement.
Silfen, CEO of the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Prostitution (TFHT), was running with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party until his decision Monday to withdraw from the race. For more than a decade, Silfen has led efforts to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Israel, advancing legislative reforms and protections for vulnerable women.
Both women have been pursuing different political paths, but their candidacies illustrate a shared truth: Israel has an extraordinary reservoir of experienced women leaders ready to bring their expertise from civil society into national decision-making.
Their candidacies demonstrate what becomes possible when women move from influencing public policy through civil society to seeking a direct role in making it. But the issue goes beyond numbers on a ballot.
Representation matters because who participates in decision-making influences which experiences are heard, which questions are asked, which problems receive attention and which solutions are considered.
Consider the challenges Israel faces: rebuilding communities devastated by war, responding to trauma, strengthening democratic institutions, addressing economic pressures, supporting families and restoring trust across a deeply divided society.
Women bring essential expertise to every one of these challenges—as professionals, public servants, community leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs, advocates and members of families and communities affected by the war.
The goal is not simply to increase the number of women in office, but to ensure that Israel’s institutions benefit from the full range of leadership and expertise available in its society. What they need are opportunities, investment, visibility and access to the institutions where decisions are made. For this reason, we should continue to invest in women-led civil society organizations and the relationships that help them succeed.
These organizations are not peripheral to Israel’s future. They are developing solutions to pressing social challenges, supporting vulnerable populations, strengthening communities and creating opportunities for public participation. When women leaders connect across issues and sectors, they exchange expertise.
Whatever its political composition, Israel’s next government will confront enormous challenges. Meeting them will require the knowledge, experience and leadership of the entire population.
Golda Meir’s legacy should not simply be something Israel celebrates. It should remind us that women’s leadership belongs at the center of national decision-making.
The women who have sustained the state throughout years of crisis have demonstrated their capacity to lead. They should not have to prove it again.
The post In Israel’s elections, where are the women? appeared first on The Forward.
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Vance declines to endorse Netanyahu, a day after Trump backs prime minister
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance has refused to endorse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just a day after President Donald Trump announced his support for the incumbent Israeli leader.
“I’m not anti-endorsing. I’m not pro-endorsing,” Vance told journalist Mark Halperin in a Monday interview. “I’m not getting involved in the Israeli elections.”
“I endorse American candidates,” the vice president added, noting that he is focused on the U.S. midterms.
Trump declared his support for Netanyahu, who is running for reelection, in a Sunday Truth Social post in which he deemed the Israeli leader “a Great Warrior Prime Minister” and a vital partner in removing the Iranian threat. Recent polls show Netanyahu closely trailing former IDF chief-of-staff Gadi Eisenkot in the election, which will take place on Oct. 27.
Liberal Middle East policy advocates, including J Street, have blasted Trump’s decision to back Netanyahu, arguing that he’s acting against the interests of U.S. taxpayers.
While Vance declined to endorse the Israeli prime minister, he has previously involved himself in international elections. In April Vance joined Trump in backing then Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Hungary, although that support did not end in victory.
Last year, the vice president also met with the leader of the far-right Alternative for German political party, AfD, in Munich but he did not issue an official endorsement for that candidate.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Vance declines to endorse Netanyahu, a day after Trump backs prime minister appeared first on The Forward.
