Israelis in her majesty's service

Another school year has opened in Israel, and with it come emails from my university friends: "We're starting another year without you, when will you be back?"

This time the message finds me at the hotel lobby for a large intentional scientific convention in North America. I read it, and the heart aches. I look up from my laptop, and again see the familiar image crying out with symbolism: Before me is a group of Israeli PhD students. None of them is here representing the Jewish State.

We meet at least twice a year at conventions, and the group continues to grow. All share the Israeli background, the first degree we earned in Israel, and the continuing academic career abroad – in the US, Australia, Europe, and the Dutch Leiden University in my case.

We all know the scenario, which is familiar to quite a few people like us, but the figures recently published by the media still managed to surprise us – we didn't realize the numbers were so great. In our field we're already identified as "the exiled Israelis," the ones who grew in Israeli academia and today are spread at universities worldwide.

It begins and ends with research conditions – a high academic level, which is not missing in Israel, but for a change is accompanied by salaries that allow one to make a dignified living and concentrate on the research work itself, and not on some part time job that covers the rent. There's a researcher post, and there's a travel budget that would not shame a senior lab director in Israel and allows one to travel anywhere in the world to advance the research.

So it's true that you promised mom to "keep your best idea for the Weizmann Institute when you return," and you promised your best friends from the army that you "won't end up like Moty in Zurich." Yet at the end of the day, you pack your bags and make the best decision for your career.

We miss Israel

Israelis are excelling in their doctoral work overseas. In the last important convention, two Israeli doctoral candidates appeared as major writers in the list of publications that won the prizes for best publication. This is certainly quite an honor. One of them represents the queen of England, while the other one represents the Queen of Holland.

The European advisors take great pleasure in this and proudly speak of the high-quality Israeli "merchandize" that arrived at their research groups. The Israeli mind is working well, but in the service of Her Majesty. The sweat and blood from our first degree at the Hebrew University are bearing fruit currently being picked by non-Hebrew universities.

To those who slam us for leaving the country in search of better conditions and not planning to return, I have a message straight form the heart: We all love Israel and miss it terribly. Some of us even volunteer for military reserve duty during our few short vacations, and all of us would have been glad to return later in our academic career – if only there was a job opening for us.

Yes, I dream of going back to Israel and setting up a lab in my field, which is not so developed there (evolutionary algorithms.) But as my exiled friends in England say, I'm apparently very naïve.  

To those of you who are already thinking about sending a scathing response, I say this: Place your yourselves in our shoes and think of what you would do in our case. After being trained for many years and achieving proven academic success, would you go back to Israel with a PhD to sign up for unemployment payments, or would you go on to a promising job at a good lab overseas?

Only recently, Professor Yoram Peri called for "letting academicians win, in Israel!" I heard about new funds set up for this end, which are certainly a praiseworthy trend. Yet to me this seems too little too late. As usual.

The Dutch Queen, on whose behalf I appear today worldwide, has been ridiculed as naive in matters related to palace renovation in an old Israeli sitcom. In matters related to academics she apparently possesses solid comprehension of the issue. The State of Israel may be good when it comes to renovations, not a "sucker," but not so good when it comes to long-term planning.

With a national annual budget of about one billion dollars for all institutions of higher learning – the budget of one medium university in the US – what will prevent me and hundreds like me from ending up like Moty in Zurich?

The writer is a physics and computers graduate from Jerusalem's Hebrew University. Today he lectures and is working on his PhD at Leiden University