Prof. Trachtenberg: Child benefits? Like subsidizing a private car when there are traffic jams

September 10, 2022   

Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg, head of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, is concerned about population density in Israel - and strongly supports a policy of reducing the birth rate. The '7 Days' supplement of 'Yediot Aharonot' published an article on Friday about the increasing population density in Israel. According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2020, almost 9.3 million people lived in Israel, and this number is growing at a rate of almost two percent per year. We live in the third most densely populated country among OECD countries, after the Netherlands and South Korea, and in 2050, about 18 million people will live in small Israel. According to UN projections, Israel will then be a more densely populated country than countries like Haiti, Rwanda and Malawi. In a conversation as part of the article, Prof. Trachtenberg admitted: "When I look ahead, I see a darkest future." According to Trachtenberg, the Israeli tradition that sees children as a blessing must change. "The phenomenon of having many children is a result of the Holocaust, of the existential anxiety of the early days of the state, the few versus the many, etc. But the perception that if you have many children, you contribute to the Zionist enterprise - which was true 60 years ago - is absolutely not true today. And not only is it not true, but that same perception of having many children actually threatens Israeli society." As early as 2018, Trachtenberg called for having fewer children. "This is really something that is difficult to say in public. You are actually going against the deep existential anxieties that accompanied us Israelis throughout the 20th century. Perceptually, we are still under the long shadow of the days of the establishment of the state and we have not been able to free ourselves from it. But I also say this to my daughters, even though it is very unpopular: the patriotic act these days is to have two children and no more." Trachtenberg is having trouble convincing state institutions to stop child allowances, property tax discounts for families with many children, and a host of other benefits that, in his opinion, increase the incentive for Israeli citizens to have children. "The fact that the State of Israel continues with economic support that is a function of the number of children in a family is foolish. It's like subsidizing the purchase of private cars, even though there are traffic jams," he said. "The central political issue in this regard is the Haredim. Because many Haredim men study Torah and therefore do not work, the economic support per child is very significant for their family budget. This goes beyond the ideological issue of the mitzvot pro ve rivu, it is a practical matter, a way to generate income for the family.".