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Israels Brain Drain

Adrien Terrell
The University of Texas of El Paso

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Abstract
Israels Brain Drain plays such an important role in Israels economy. The reason why
people are leaving their home country is because there are better paying jobs elsewhere and/or
more career opportunities. Another reason is the lack of funding for higher education by the
government. This paper will analyze an article by Gershom Gorenberg, Israels brain Drain,
which better explains the problem that Israel is having, and a photo that gives an accurate count
of just how many people do leave Israel by Sybil Otterstein, Ayala Yarkoni, and Natalie
Edelman. This paper analyzes the rhetorical aspects of ethos, logos, and pathos by giving a
whole new perspective to the audiences outlook on the situation by showing its effectiveness.

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Israels Brain Drain
Most of the world doesnt take into account of what is happening to the countries around
them. Most mind their own business, and keep away from the rest. Israel is suffering from brain
Drain that started occurring during the 1970s because theyre still suffering from a war. In this
article published late October of the year 2013, Israels Brain Drain, Gershom Gorenberg writes
and explains the main reasons for the brain drain that is happening in Israel. Gorenberg also
writes about why those events happened in the first place, and gives a few tips on how to resolve
it. This analysis paper will help spread the word about the crisis that is happening in Israel by
using ethos, logos, and pathos to shed some light to the intended audience.
Gershom Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect after many
years of being an associate editor for The Jerusalem Report. Gorenberg is also the author of The
Unmaking of Israel which was later named by Newsweek/The Daily Beast as one of the ten best
books of 2011, and co-authored The Jerusalem Reports 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin,
Shalom Friend which won the National Jewish Book Award. He wrote for The Atlantic Monthly,
The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Mother Jones and in the Hebrew for
Haaretz. Gorenberg was also a commentator on the Middle East Affairs and the interface of
religion and politics which led him to appear on Sixty Minutes, Nightline, Dateline, Fresh Air,
CNN and BBC. He lectured at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Council, and the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Middle East Institute, the Wexner Graduate
Fellowship, and for universities and congregations to talk about different point of views of
politics, Mideast affairs and religion.
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This article includes information from several different sources that Gershom provides.
The sources that are mentioned are: Taub Center, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences
and Humanities, Ben-David, etc. Some of the sources were professors that had been interviewed.
Taub Center is a Jerusalem-based social-policy institute that provided information to
Gorenberg about the statistics of the type of ratio there is to the jobs there in Israel compared to
the opportunities in the U.S. For example, for every ten tenured/tenure-track faculty at the
colleges and/or universities in Israel, there are three Israelis in the same positions in the U.S.
That is considered the greatest scale at an intellectual rate than of any other country in the entire
world. The President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Ruth Arnon said in a
committee room We were once stars on the world stage; we are going downhill; talent is
leaving... while giving a report on the state of the countys academic research. The reason that
he made this statement was because the main reason for Israels brain drain was not economy so
much, but the government funding. The government funding lacked in the area for higher
education which was a huge problem. This is why people actually seeking higher education left
to the countries throughout Europe or leave to the United States. One of the Taub reports was
written by Ben-David about budgets. This report gives information about how during the first 25
years of Israels independence it invested heavily into higher education from 1948 to 1973 when
the country was still developing. By investing so heavily into higher education Israel quickly
rose to the U.S. level in 1973 pertaining to the ratio of university faculty population. After this
peek was reached it quickly declined to a third of what it was in 1979 to present.
Gorenberg establishes a strong article with all the sources which makes him a credible
and trustworthy writer. He uses a good number of credible sources that provided him with tons
of information. The sources are knowledgeable in the field that Gorenberg is covering and all
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information is indeed relevant by supporting his argument throughout the entire article.
Gorenberg establishes an emotion that is intended for the audience through communication.
The emotion that Gorenberg attempts to get across is for the people that like to be
informed about world news and to colleges and universities and to be aware of the situation.
Hes trying to get inform people of the poor economy that his home country is having because of
the way the government choses to spend their money.

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References
Gorenberg, G. (2013, October 24). Israels Brain Drain. Retrieved from
http://prospect.org/article/israels-brain-drain
South Jerusalem. Gershom Gorenberg. Retrieved from http://southjerusalem.com/gershom-
gorenberg/