What the headlines do not mention is that this outflow from Israel is taking place primarily among secular Israelis

The headlines are a warning alarm, but is anyone listening?

The headlines state that for the past several years, Israel has experienced net losses in its population, primarily because a huge number of Israelis have chosen to abandon Israel and live elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live in Los Angeles, New York, and other major cities around the world.

What the headlines do not mention is that this outflow from Israel is taking place primarily among secular Israelis. Orthodox flight from Israel is practically nonexistent, while aliyah to Israel from abroad is overwhelmingly Orthodox.

These facts speak for themselves; they need no elaboration. But one waits patiently for some serious reaction – much less introspection — from the Israeli secular community. Its leaders continue to utter the same tired banalities, the same boilerplate remedies — and nothing changes. And all the time, the real remedy stands silently by, waiting to be noticed. But it is not noticed, because the remedy has religious overtones and would force the leadership to reevaluate the past. Those who speak constantly of intellectual honesty do not have the honesty to admit failure, especially the failure of their secular society.

But all this time, the only solution is readily at hand. What is desperately needed in order to avoid additional losses is a radical change in focus. In secular schools today, the preoccupation is single-minded: Identification with and imitation of the West and with non-Jewish values. The unspoken secular goal is to become another state on the Mediterranean, another Spain, another Italy, another Greece: k’chol hagoyim is the ideal.

By contrast, in Orthodox schools and yeshivos the emphasis is on Jewish difference and separateness. Every Shabbos night we celebrate these differences with the brachah, Hamavdil bein Yisrael la’amim, Who separates us from the nations….”

An Israeli student might go through 12 full years of schooling without ever hearing the notion that we are a people apart, and without ever having been exposed to the unique Jewish concept of kedushah, which means not only holy and sacred, but also separate and unique. He might never hear that the Jewish people and the Jewish state have a special mission in the world: to bring kedushah into the world, to become model people that will inspire and uplift civilization.

Israeli youngsters enter professions and careers without ever having heard of such “radical” ideas as holiness and kedushah and existence of G-d as the Creator — much less never having seen a Rambam text or studied a Rashi in Chumash. So when things become difficult in Israel, why not move to Los Angeles or Montreal, where life is so much easier?

These demographic figures are a warning bell. Unless Israel introduces some serious Jewish content into its schools, the cracks in the supporting beams will, G-d forbid, widen, with very unwelcome consequences.

One cannot help thinking of the classic definition of a fool, often attributed to Einstein: He who repeats the same mistake again and again and expects different results. Israeli secular leadership may be religiously challenged, but they are not fools. Still, they repeat the same discredited mantras again and again: change personnel, enlarge the budget, increase benefits, loosen bureaucracy, lower taxes — all while refusing to ask basic questions such as: How is it that the Orthodox remain loyal to the country, while so many non-Orthodox abandon her for greener pastures?

Professor Einstein, how would you label such behavior?

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1096)