Jerusalem – Israeli Government Drawing Haredim To Tech World With State-Funded Support

Jerusalem – Tel Aviv has become a booming tech industry globally and the government wants to take advantage of tech savvy connoisseurs, including conservative Jewish groups.

In an effort to grow the Israeli tech boom and include the country’s most technologically talented, Israel has initiated state-run incentive programs including 200 hours of free mentoring offered to haredi industrialists and a state-funded program for haredi startups offering up to 2 million Israeli Shekels, or just over $570,000.

And the payoff goes further – each startup can receive 5.6 shekels, or about $1.61 from the government for every shekel it receives from nongovernment investors. That money can be paid back as a loan that goes toward future income.

“More haredi tech employees means more tech employees and more innovation,” said Avi Hasson, Israeli economy chief scientist in an interview with The Wall Street Journal (http://on.wsj.com/1hCvlVs).

More educational programs offering computer sciences, engineering and biotechnology have been aimed at haredim in recent years. Any haredim men accepted into a scientific study in school gets full tuition paid for by the government. Once the student graduates, the loan becomes a grant no longer in need for repayment.

And men aren’t alone – IT-services provider Matrix IT Ltd. and software development service company RaChip Ltd. take advantage of their high-female haredi employee percentage to offer developmental services – same-sex work environments, censored Internet connections and an eight-hour workday to help with child care. Studies show 69 percent of haredi women between ages 25 and 62 were employed as of the first quarter of 2014.

Government incentives come on the heels of a recent survey that show it’s difficult for haredi men to become part of the tech age. The Ministry of the Economy’s Equal Employment Opportunities Commission found that 37 percent of Israeli employers do not want to hire haredi men.

As the technology age grows worldwide, future occupations for haredi men change with it. Typically, the occupational future for haredi men has included religious studies. Present day, haredi men and women are finding themselves with more career opportunities outside of religious studies.

The haredim make up about 12.5 percent of Israel’s eight million people, up from 9 percent a decade ago.