Back to School

Michal Korach

The new academic school year was opened a few weeks ago and tens of thousands of students have returned to their studies. In the past academic year of 2009-2010, there were 244,100 students in Israel, not including the Open University and branches of foreign universities operating in Israel. Of them, 51% were enrolled in universities, 38% in academic colleges and 11% in teaching academic colleges.


Higher education in Israel has been undergoing extensive reforms since the 1990s following a series of reforms instituted by the Israel Council of Higher Education (MALAG) designed to increase access to higher education. As part of these reforms, college-preparatory schools and academic colleges were established, many of them outside of the large metropolitan areas.


Over the past decade the number of students in academic colleges has almost tripled (172%) whereas the number of students in universities and teaching academic colleges has increased at a much slower rate (10% and 17% respectively). Overall, the number of students enrolled in institutions of higher education has increase by 43%.


Academic colleges in Israel may be either public or private. Private colleges are not budgeted by the state, charge higher tuition and generally have lower admission requirements as compared with universities. Private colleges generally offer programs that are in high-demand such as law, economics, business administration, computer science and behavioral sciences.


The estimates for institutions of higher education in Jerusalem are 40,000 students, of which half are enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Other large advanced schools in Jerusalem are Machon Lev, Betzalel, Hadassah College and the Jerusalem College of Engineering.

Nature and Parks

Michal Korach

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority oversees 67 sites in Israel, all of them open to the public, some free of charge. In 2008, these national parks saw 7.9 million visitors, of which 68 percent were Israelis and 32 percent were foreigners. The number of visitors to Israel's national parks has been growing steadily. It has more than doubled in less than 10 years, from 3.7 million visitors in 2001, to 6.1 million in 2005 to 7.9 million in 2008.
The parks in northern and southern Israel received the greatest number of visitors (40% and 27%, respectively), but this could be explained by the fact that these districts are the largest and have more national parks and thus had a greater influx of tourists. In fact, some 75% of all of Israel's national parks are found in the North and South. The Jerusalem District, which contains the Judea and Samaria region, received 12% of all visits to Israeli national parks.
The data clearly shows that tourists prefer parks with natural water sources. The most popular nature parks were the Banyas Springs, Ein Gedi and Beit Yanai Beach. The most popular historical sites were Masada, Caesarea and Qumran.
The Jerusalem district has nine national nature and historical sites, which received 944,600 visitors in 2008 - 43% of them foreign. The most popular nature site in the Jerusalem region was Absalom (stalactite) Cave, which was visited by 198,000 people that year, most of them Israelis. The most popular historical site, Qumran, was visited by 389,300 people, most of them foreigners.

Young Adults

Eitan Bluer

Research has shown that a young population holds the potential to introduce urban renewal and local economic growth. It is therefore beneficial to map out the distribution of young adults in Jerusalem and to identify future trends in an effort to gauge the state of the city and to plan for its future. Jerusalem is currently one of the youngest cities in Israel because of the high percentage of children, but it is actually within the national range in terms of its young adult population (ages 20-34). At the end of 2008, residents of Jerusalem between the ages of 20 and 34 accounted for 22% of the city’s population (170,000), the same percentage as in Haifa - 22% (57,000) and similar to the national rate of 23% (1,665,000), but substantially less than Tel Aviv’s rate of 30% (116,000). Mapping the neighborhoods in Jerusalem which boast the highest percentages of residents in their 20s and 30s may aid policy planning and planning services and infrastructures specifically tailored for their needs such as bus lines that service leisure centers, higher education, etc. In contrast to what one might think, Jerusalem’s 20 and 30 year-olds are not concentrated around Jerusalem’s City Center but, in fact, are spread out throughout the city in a rate similar to their distribution in the population. That is to say that Jerusalem’s largest neighborhoods have the largest numbers of residents aged 20-34. In 2008, 9,500 were living in Ramot (5.5% of Jerusalem’s population of young adults), another 9,300 were living in Pisgat Ze’ev (5.5%), 8,400 (5%) were living in Shuafat, and 8,000 in the Old City (5%).

The number of residents aged 20-34 as a percentage of a neighborhood’s population is a useful indicator that can provide information about the neighborhood’s makeup and potential for urban renewal. In 2008, the neighborhoods of Jerusalem which had the highest number of young professionals as a percentage of their total population were the City Center and French Hill (37%), Nahlaot (32%), Rehavia (30%), and Kiryat Yovel (27%). These neighborhoods also enjoyed the largest number of incoming, new residents between the ages of 20 and 34. In some neighborhoods, including City Center, Rehavia and Nahlaot, between 65% and 68% of the incoming residents were between the ages of 20 and 34, and in Talbiyeh and French Hill the numbers reached 53% and 50% respectively.

An Israeli Vacation

Aviel Yelinek

Many Israelis take time during the Tishrei Holiday season to vacation in Israel and abroad. The long lines at the passport renewal offices at the Ministry of Interior and at the passport control counters at Ben Gurion Airport give rise to a general feeling that many spend the holidays vacationing overseas. In truth, however, there are many more who spend their holidays in Israel. Data from the 2008 Social Survey conducted by the Israel CBS indicate that some 51% of Israelis (ages 20 and over) vacationed overnight in Israel (during the 12 months that preceded the interview) compared with 31% of Israelis who vacationed abroad.

CBS Social Survey data indicate a correlation between the degree of religious observance and the likelihood of vacationing in Israel: in 2008, 58% of secular Jewish Israelis had vacationed in Israel during the preceding year as compared with 55% of National- Religious Israelis and 46% of Ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

Not surprisingly, one’s financial situation would affect one’s decision whether to take a vacation. The 2008 Social Survey indicates that 68% of Israelis citizens who reported that they were extremely content with their personal financial situation had vacationed in Israel during the preceding year, compared with only 58% of those who reported mild content with their personal financial situation, 44% of those who reported that they were not-so-pleased with their situation and 23% of those who said they were extremely displeased with their situation.

A comparison across Israel’s central cities reveals that 48% of
Jerusalem’s residents vacationed in Israel in 2008 compared to 55% of Tel Aviv residents, 53% of Rishon Lezion residents, 52% of Ashdod residents and 47% of Haifa residents.

There are is an obvious disparity within the city of Jerusalem itself between the percentages of the Jewish residents of the city who vacation in Israel compared with their Arab neighbors: 59% of Jerusalem’s Jewish population vacationed in Israel in 2008 as compared with only 24% of Jerusalem’s Arab population.