By
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Seventy
years ago, on May 14, 1948, the State of Israel came into
being. It was born just three years after the greatest Jewish
tragedy, the Holocaust, had ended.
It
was a near-run thing: In November 1947, one day prior to the
expected United Nations vote on partitioning Palestine into
Jewish and Arab states, the CIA urged U.S. President Harry
Truman not to throw his weight behind the idea. It didn’t
think this state could survive.
Yet
Israel has become a modern, prosperous nation. It has a
standard of living that rivals Western Europe, though it lacks
significant natural resources. It can boast of scientific
achievements and military and technological clout beyond its
modest size.
It
counts eight living Nobel winners among its citizens and has
helped give the world instant messaging, Intel chips and
smart, autonomous vehicles.
Economic indicators for Israel showed another
successful year in 2017 as, for the first time ever, Israel’s
GDP per capita has surpassed that of major industrialized
countries such as Great Britain, Japan and France.
Despite facing more challenges than virtually
any other country, Israel has transformed from a poor and
fragile backwater to a nation of cutting-edge technologies and
knowledge during seven brief decades, while fighting for its
existence.
It has become a
powerhouse which has seen economic growth for 15 consecutive
years. Its labour market is close to full employment
and the unemployment level is the lowest it has been in decades.
“We
can stop and look back with satisfaction” at the “amazing
achievements made by the Israeli economy in the 70 years of
the State’s existence,” Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug
said at a press conference in Jerusalem in March.
The
skyline of Tel Aviv, its largest city, is changed beyond
recognition. In the 1960s and 1970s, everyone in Tel Aviv knew
exactly where the Shalom Meir Tower was located. It was the
only skyscraper in town, or even in Israel. The 31-floor
building served as an urban monument in the cognitive map of
the city’s residents.
In
the past decade this entire area in central Israel has become
a real skyscraper hub. More generally, close to 800 buildings
across Israel contain 20 floors or more.
In
1948, there were some 650,000 Jews in Israel, who represented
about five per cent of the world’s Jews. Today, 43 per cent of
the world’s Jews live in Israel; this is now the world’s
largest Jewish community. Israel is about to become
home to roughly two-thirds of all Jewish children in the world.
The country managed to receive huge waves of
immigrants, and this population surge has contributed to a mix
of cultures which, many believe, created a fertile ground for
innovation.
“Our ability to absorb immigrants and
integrate them is something not many other countries have done,”
said Yaniv Pagot, head of strategy for the Ayalon Group, an
investment firm. “This is an achievement that has huge economic
implications and also long term social impact.”
Efraim Karsh, the director of the Begin-Sadat
Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, remarked
that “Israel is a melting pot” and on the whole a success story.
Persecution in Europe had sent European Jews
pouring into the country. They were later joined by immigrants
from countries like Morocco, Yemen, Iraq and Iran.
Later arrivals from the former Soviet Union
and Ethiopia have made Israel even more diverse. All of these people
have been forged into a Hebrew-speaking population.
“And I think in a way it’s remarkable,
because you don’t have many societies, Western or otherwise,
absorbing huge populations several times their size and doing it
in such a successful way,” he added.
Israeli Jews are a diverse lot, in outlook,
style of life, and even attire. But on the shared sense of an
Israeli nation they are far more homogeneous than might
outwardly appear.
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