Opinion
From challenge to growth engine: Israel’s Haredi opportunity
With the State of Israel soon heading to elections, Moshe Friedman, Co-Founder at KamaTech, writes about what happens if we shift our perspective from challenges to opportunities.
In a few months, the State of Israel will head to elections. The campaign will naturally focus heavily on the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) community: the draft, state budgets, core curriculum education, and religion-and-state relations.
Yet there is a question rarely asked: What happens if we shift our perspective from challenges to opportunities? What if, instead of only asking whether the Haredi community poses a challenge to the Israeli economy, we ask whether it also represents one of its greatest growth opportunities?
This question is especially relevant today because Israel is experiencing two simultaneous revolutions. The first is demographic: the Haredi population is young and rapidly expanding. Over the coming decades, hundreds of thousands of young Haredim will enter the workforce. Consequently, what they do for a living and how much they earn is no longer merely a sectoral issue, but a question about the very future of the Israeli economy.
The second revolution is technological: Artificial Intelligence. It is precisely at the intersection of these two shifts that a massive opportunity may lie. For years, one of the primary barriers preventing Haredi women from entering the tech sector was the starting-line gap. A talented young Haredi woman often had to compete for a junior position against graduates of prestigious universities or elite military tech units who had already accumulated hands-on experience.
While that gap has not vanished, AI is redefining what it means. A junior developer equipped with AI tools can learn faster, write and test code more rapidly, and achieve output levels that previously demanded years of experience. Furthermore, because the underlying technology is evolving at breakneck speed, even seasoned industry veterans are forced to relearn their craft.
In that sense, the clock has partially reset for everyone. Concurrently, new professions are emerging around AI, and the technology is expanding well beyond the traditional confines of high-tech. Banks, hospitals, manufacturing plants, insurance firms, retail companies, and the public sector will all need talent capable of turning AI into everyday workflows. Israel may soon require far more tech-skilled professionals than the high-tech sector currently employs.
Looking at recent history proves what is possible. Over the past decade, a profound shift took place quietly: thousands of Haredi women entered the technology sector. This occurred as dedicated pathways were built, enabling skilled women to receive rigorous professional training and connect with top-tier employers while fully preserving their religious lifestyle.
The results are dramatic. The employment rate for Haredi women, which stood at roughly 50% in the early 2000s, has surged in recent years to about 81%—virtually matching the 82.5% rate among non-Haredi Jewish women. In parallel, the share of Haredi women working in high-tech rose from around 3% in 2014 to 4.9% in 2024, and Haredi women now represent approximately 5.6% of all women employed in Israeli tech.
Behind these statistics lies a massive social and economic transformation: in just ten years, thousands of Haredi women became software developers, engineers, data specialists, chip designers, and AI practitioners, integrating into leading tech companies in Israel and worldwide.
Yet this very success underscores the immense potential that remains untapped. The proportion of Haredi women employed in high-tech is still nearly half that of non-Haredi Jewish women (4.9% vs. 9.5%), and the average wage of a Haredi woman remains only about 67% of that of a non-Haredi Jewish woman.
In other words, while the progress over a single decade has been substantial, the vast majority of the upside still lies ahead. The key lesson is that when tailored pathways are established, there is no need to demand that an entire population change its identity as a prerequisite for integration. It is entirely possible to recognize internal talent and align those capabilities with market demand. When done right, everyone wins: the employee, the family, the companies, and the nation.
Alongside women, a new generation of Haredi tech entrepreneurs is emerging, with companies like Elementor, Triple Whale, and Reflectiz already demonstrating the model's viability. Now imagine this momentum scaled up in the AI era: thousands of young Haredi women building and deploying AI systems across the Israeli economy, alongside Haredi founders building the enterprises of tomorrow.
This is not achieved by attempting to remake Haredi society, but through tailored programs, world-class training, and bridging Haredi talent directly to where the economy needs it most.
This is neither mere philanthropy nor just social policy, it is a viable national growth strategy. Israel stands at a rare crossroads: one of the youngest and fastest-growing demographics in the Western world is meeting a transformative technological revolution. If we bridge the two effectively, a decade from now we will not simply be discussing the challenge of integrating the Haredi community into the economy—we will be talking about one of Israel’s most powerful growth engines.
Moshe Friedman is the Founder and CEO of KamaTech and the 12A Venture Capital fund.
