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Midrash.Tech
Midrash.Tech is a nonprofit social impact fund focusing on Haredi entrepreneurship and innovation, through venture philanthropy, Israel global advocacy, and digital diplomacy. The inaugural Midrash.Tech Jerusalem Innovation Forum was held in December 2017 at the historic Heichal Shlomo landmark in Jerusalem to explore the rising power of the Ultra-Orthodox Haredi community, the fastest growing segment of the Jewish People, with active representation at the Knesset and ministerial cabinet positions.
Midrash.Tech and partners sponsored the event, which was chaired by its founder Nachman Mehl, and co-hosted by journalist Mordechai I. Twersky and Rabbi Naftali Weinberg.
The conference featured prominent speakers and panel discussions led by Foreign Press Association Chairman and Associated Press Bureau Chief Joe Federman, Bloomberg News Bureau Chief Michael S. Arnold, Israel Democracy Institute – Center for Religion, Nation and State Director Dr. Shuki Friedman, and keynote speaker John Medved, founder of OurCrowd.
Participants included leading thinkers, innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers, students, academics, mentors and venture philanthropists.
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Israeli, American, and World Jewish Population and Geopolitical Trends
Recent Jewish population dynamics are characterized by continued steady increase in the Israeli Jewish population and immigration growth, with flat or declining numbers in other countries (the Diaspora). Two countries, Israel (6.6 million, or 45%), and the United States (5.7 million, or 39%), account for roughly 84% of the world’s core Jewish population (14.6 million) (Sergio DellaPergola 2018).
The Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish population is the fastest-growing community segment, with active representation at the Knesset and ministerial cabinet positions. The recent pandemic sparked a 40% surge of Haredi internet adoption in Israel, creating an opportunity for it to become a future engine of economic growth. More than half of the Haredi community in Israel is under 16 years of age. At its current growth rate, the Haredi community will double in size every 16 years and is set to soar to 40% of the Jewish population in Israel by 2065 (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics).
Diaspora countries, by contrast, have low Jewish birth rates, an increasingly elderly age composition, and a negative balance of people leaving Judaism versus those joining. Among non-Orthodox Jews, the intermarriage rate in America exceeds 71% (Pew Research 2013). The assimilation rate of roughly one million secular Israelis living in America is estimated at 75% (YNet March 25, 2017). Unlike most other American Jews, Orthodox Jews tend to identify as Republicans (Pew Research 2015). Over the last fifteen years, while liberal mainstream American Jews have moved famously leftward on Israel and became its critics, Haredi Jews are embracing the Jewish State (Mosaic Magazine, June 30, 2020).