By 2050, almost one in four Israelis will be a member of the ultra-Orthodox community, a new report by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) released earlier this month has found.

The report examines the impact of a larger Haredi population on Israeli society as a whole. It considers both a scenario in which the community’s patterns in education and employment converge with those of the general Jewish population and a scenario in which they remain similar to current patterns, in which they are largely separate.

According to the report, the most recent projections from the Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that by 2050, 24.4 percent of Israelis will be Haredi, while IDI’s own projections put the figure at 22%. Currently, some 14% of Israelis, or 1.45 million people, belong to the community.

“The rapid growth of the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) population is expected to have a dramatic impact on Israel’s economy and society, due to the group’s distinctive patterns of education and employment,” the authors of the report, Dr. Gilad Malach, Dr. Itamar Yakir, and Roe Kenneth Portal, wrote.

Currently, Haredi levels of participation in higher education and in the workforce, especially among ultra-Orthodox men, are significantly lower than those of the non-Haredi Jewish population.

Unless trends change, the growth of the Haredi population would mean the overall share of Israelis eligible for matriculation exams and those holding a........

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