October 12, 2013 • By Jim Russell •
What else is one supposed to think when the Associated Press offers up such click bait, "Israeli ex-pats' Nobel win highlights brain drain"? Success only found outside of Israel! Exodus Ireland Israel! Yes, Israel is dying:
In its early years, Israel built a half-dozen top-flight universities that have become among the world's finest. Israeli academics, for instance, have won six Nobel prizes in chemistry and economics in the past decade alone.But the country's higher education system has fallen onto hard times. In its latest survey of the world's top universities, Times Higher Education, a British publication, lowered the rankings of leading Israeli institutions. The Hebrew University fell to 191 from 137 last year, Tel Aviv University fell to 199 from 158, and the Technion, Israel's top technological university, fell out of the top 200.The country's infectious entrepreneurial spirit was nurtured by generous government backing of R&D in the 1990s to create a hi-tech boom that earned it the nickname "startup nation." The military proved to be a fertile training ground for promising engineers, and a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union over the past two decades gave a sharp boost to science and technology. Numerous breakthroughs were pioneered in Israel, such as Wi-Fi technology, the computer firewall and instant messaging.
Emphasis added. Oh yeah, one million immigrants from just one country might have a thing or two to do with innovation. That said, Israel really needs greater density and world class urban amenities so talent won't have to look elsewhere. Nobel-winning expats Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt are proof.
Levitt left Israel in the 1980s, before the tech boom of the '90s. Suffice to say, he was pushed out:
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