A Year of Activity at the Taub Center

State of the Nation Report 2021

At the end of each year, the Taub Center publishes its annual State of the Nation Report. After publication, we turn to government offices and policy makers from all ends of the political spectrum and propose to meet and discuss the findings, and at the same time government and professional bodies turn to us. In the past year, we received such inquiries from such prominent establishments as the Bank of Israel, the State Comptroller’s Office, and the President’s Residence, as well as from a variety of government ministries, Knesset members and ministers, and international bodies.

In April 2022, a meeting was held about the 2021 report with the Director General of the President’s Residence, Eyal Shviki. Following the meeting, President Yitzhak Herzog sent Taub Center President Prof. Avi Weiss a letter in which he addressed the social issues raised in the report and the work of the Center, which “professionally and clearly paints an overall, yet comprehensive picture that arouses interest in trends and processes taking place in Israeli society.” The President also noted the “important contribution of the Taub Center to the highlighting of social and economic trends in Israel in a reliable and impartial manner for several decades and with noteworthy persistence.”

The participants of the meetings often recommend that we meet other parties and present our research findings to them, or alternatively turn to their colleagues and recommend that they meet with us.  Thus more conversations and meetings are created by way of “word of mouth.”

Notifying relevant professionals of new research associated with their work

When a new study is published, the Center’s distribution team informs the parties for which the research field is relevant to their work, and then schedules meetings.

For example, in July, Prof. John Gal and Shavit Madhala met with Daphni Moshiov, who supervises the utilization of social benefits in the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, and Amit Yaron, who heads community programs at Ashalim-JDC. At the meeting, data from the field of welfare from the State of the Nation 2021 report were presented, with an emphasis on the non-uptake of rights. At the meeting, Taub Center researchers were presented with the program A City That Advances Rights promoted by the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs in cooperation with JDC, and the researchers were asked to advise on developing and implementing the program.

In May, the Center’s researchers met with Yair Maayan, CEO of the Negev Bedouin Development and Settlement Authority – the government body responsible for advancing Bedouin society in the South. At the meeting, research was presented on the relationship between the demographic youth bulge, violent crime, and shortages in the Arab marriage market in Israel.

The discussion dealt with the issue of demographics in Bedouin society and educational trends among Arab women. This led to a discussion of the importance of focusing on specific populations and of an in-depth understanding of them for the purpose of policy planning. This study was also presented to the Minister of Internal Security Omer Bar Lev (Labor) and his deputy, MK Yoav Segalovitch (Yesh Atid), who headed government activities to eradicate crime and violence in the Arab sector.

The Taub Center Initiative on Early Childhood Development and Inequality

The year 2022 was the third year of activity of the Initiative on Early Childhood and Development and Inequality. Following the publication of studies and as part of the Initiative’s activities, the researchers held regular meetings with policy makers and worked to expand their circles of influence and to promote collaborations in the field of early childhood.

The second semester of the educational seminar on early childhood, Between Research and Policy, was held this year. The seminar is intended for managers in public service and in the third sector who deal with early childhood, educators, and researchers. The seminar combines current theoretical knowledge with insights from professionals in the field, and contributes to creating an interdisciplinary approach to the field of early childhood. The seminar is a unique forum that connects different foci of action and common discourse, and the versatility of the seminar participants allows observation of the early childhood field from different angles.

As part of promoting the contents of the research to the public, a video was released on the topic of inequality in access to supervised and subsidized educational frameworks. In the video, a series of policy alternatives were presented to help in overcoming existing barriers that parents face when trying to enroll their young children in these frameworks.

To watch the video click here.

After three years of activity, the Initiative has positioned itself at a unique intersection between officials in the field and policy makers. Being connected to the field and seeing its needs and problems up close, the Initiative’s researchers have created a space for those in the field to present the essential issues, and in doing so highlight them. At the same time, they present their research to policy makers for use in their work.

To read more about the activity of the Initiative on Early Childhood Development and Inequality, click here.

We are grateful to the Beracha Foundation, the Bernard van Leer Foundation, and Yad HaNadiv, whose generous support enables the activities of the early childhood research initiative at the Taub Center.

Events and conferences

During 2022, the Taub Center held two major conferences. The first conference, Dilemmas and Developments in Early Childhood Care in Israel, was held on July 20^th as part of the Taub Center’s initiative on Early Childhood Development and Inequality with the support of the Beracha Foundation, the Bernard van Leer Foundation, and Yad HaNadiv.

The conference focused on the difficulties faced by families and early childhood practitioners in Israel, and presented local initiatives to deal with these difficulties. The conference sessions dealt, among other issues, with early childhood poverty and its effect on the brain development of toddlers, inequality between children, and the severe manpower shortage in the field of early childhood education and care — a major challenge facing the goal to provide the best education to the next generation and to reduce disparities. A variety of unique local initiatives in the field were also presented, indicating that early childhood care can be promoted even with local and limited means.

On November 14^th, the annual Herbert M. Singer International Conference was held for the 12^th time on the topic of Inequality in Health: Defining Challenges, Developing Solutions.

The conference examined the issue of health disparities from a broad perspective, looking at the medical services provided to the public and the social and economic conditions that affect personal and public health in Israel. Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, Principal Researcher and Chair of the Taub Center Health Policy Program, presented the report of the committee to determine a strategy for reducing health disparities in the coming decade (the Decade Committee), which he heads, and spoke about the challenges and potential impact of the report. The other conference sessions dealt with the influence of factors such as geographic location, poverty, education, ethnicity, and gender on health inequality and food insecurity.

The two conferences were attended by senior officials from government ministries, representatives of local authorities, academics, media outlets, representatives of social organizations and the third sector, and a wide variety of other officials in the fields relevant to the conference topics.

In November, the Taub Center celebrated its 40^th anniversary at an event held at the Israel Museum, with the participation of many members of the Center’s Board of Directors and General Assembly, as well as representatives from government ministries, embassies, civil society organizations, philanthropists, and academics. The keynote speaker at the event, Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, spoke about society and the economy in Israel. The evening concluded with a musical performance by the singer and composer David Broza. A video was also shown about the activities of the Taub Center and its influence over the years, as well as a video of President Yitzhak Herzog in which he congratulates the Taub Center for its enormous contribution to the State of Israel. To view the President’s good wishes on the occasion of the 40^th anniversary celebrations, click here.

Following the publication of the State of the Nation Report 2021, a virtual event was held in February to discuss some of the report’s topics that are on the public agenda. The discussion, entitled Employment in Crisis: The Labor Market and the Welfare System in the Wake of COVID-19, focused on the areas of the labor market and the welfare system in Israel. The discussion was attended by the researchers Shavit Madhala and Michael Debowy from the Taub Center, and Hadas Fuchs, Labor Market Research Manager, Strategy and Policy Planning Department, Employment Branch. Michael Debowy presented the impact of COVID-19 on the labor market, and described the employment trends on the eve of the crisis.  Shavit Madhala presented data on working from home, and reviewed the welfare system’s response to the COVID crisis. Hadas Fuchs responded to comments and referred to the activity of the Labor branch to promote employment in the economy. Fuchs also referred to the challenges created by the COVID crisis in the labor market and to the promotion of professional training in the labor sector. She presented the new project Avodata, that gathers comprehensive information on occupations, study paths, and professional training.

International relations — consultation and learning from Taub Center researchers

Contact with the OECD and advice on writing the report on Israel

As part of the close and long-standing relationship between the Taub Center and the OECD, Taub Center senior officials met with a delegation from the organization, which came to Israel for the purpose of writing the biennial economic report on Israel (the EDRC report). At the meeting, the findings of the Center’s research on macroeconomics, the labor market, working hours and patterns of working from home in the various sectors of the economy, as well as in the fields of education and early childhood, were presented. Also discussed at the meeting were public health in Israel and workforce issues in the health system, dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and vaccination rates. After this meeting, a follow-up meeting was held with the members of the delegation, in which the researchers referred to the EDRC report and gave comments and points for reference in a variety of areas.

Contact with embassies

The Taub Center maintains regular contact with embassies of several countries. The connection is maintained through meetings around the Center’s main publications and in conversations with the Center’s experts in the fields of society and economy. The most prominent example of this is the US Embassy. The Center’s staff met with representatives from the embassy’s Economic Department regarding the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the Israeli economy. After the meeting, Taub Center researchers were invited to give a general lecture to the entire embassy staff to introduce them to Israeli society so that they become better acquainted with the society in which they operate. The lecture dealt with social and economic issues in Israel, focusing on the labor market and the high tech field. The lecture aroused great interest among the participants, and there was an in-depth discussion of the contents. The US Ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, then invited the President of the Taub Center, Prof. Avi Weiss, to participate in a dinner he hosted for experts in the fields of economy and society in Israel.