4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
The Coronavirus pandemic has undermined years of economic growth and sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis onto the unemployment rolls. How can Israel—the legendary “start-up nation”—recover from this economic crisis?
Dan Senor, co-author with Saul Singer of the bestselling book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, is one of the world’s leading experts on Israel’s economy in general, and its tech sector in particular. He joins Mosaic’s editor, Jonathan Silver, for a discussion about how the Jewish state became a global technology juggernaut, the prospects for integrating the Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors into the broader economy, and the outlook for an Israeli recovery after the devastation of COVID-19.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
This podcast was recorded over Zoom as part of a virtual seminar series for Israel gap-year students on “The Jewish Political Condition.” You can learn more about, and register for, that series here—even if you are no longer a student!
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0:00.0 | What's an economy for? Today, we'll think about that question, how an economy grows, |
0:13.8 | how it can be made resilient, and how it both fosters and draws upon the fundamental |
0:19.6 | qualities of the society in which it is embedded. |
0:23.4 | And we'll do this by looking at one of the most intriguing and successful modern economies |
0:28.2 | made all the more fascinating because its culture of market-oriented innovation followed so soon |
0:33.9 | after its decades-long experience in socialism, the economy of Israel. |
0:39.4 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. A strong national economy allows |
0:45.4 | for capital investments and the securing of debt. It allows for the acquisition and maintenance |
0:50.5 | of advanced military weaponry. A strong national economy not only makes possible |
0:55.3 | national security, but also energy independence, public health, a strong national economy |
1:01.0 | makes it possible for the government to provide for the general welfare and protect the common good. |
1:07.2 | But how, how in Israel does that economy grow? |
1:11.7 | And what are the challenges friends of Israel should worry about? |
1:15.1 | This week, I speak with Dan Cynor, co-author of the 2009 bestseller Startup Nation, |
1:20.8 | an energetic investor in the Israeli tech sector and much else about the Israeli economy. |
1:26.9 | Now, Startup Nation remains an indispensable book to understand Israeli entrepreneurship, |
1:32.3 | but it's also a decade old, and I wanted to understand what he thinks the book got right |
1:37.3 | and what's changed over time. |
1:39.4 | If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, |
1:45.2 | Google Play, and Spotify. |
1:51.2 | I hope you leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas. I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes at podcast at tikfafunds.org. And of course, |
1:57.4 | if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit our website, |
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