Israel’s new higher education policy, introduced by the Council for Higher Education (CHE) in 1994, was intended to make higher education accessible to population groups on the social and geographical periphery of Israel and narrow social gaps. This article will examine the following main question: Does access to higher education abet social mobility and narrow social disparities? This article emphasises the changes in the role of academia as a gateway to occupations that allow for high social mobility. Previous research has not focused on this qualitative gap. This article asserts that the increase in enrolment in subjects that do not lead to high income in non-affluent localities may perpetuate the qualitative gaps between these localities and affluent ones. This affects the outputs of the academic system; the quality gaps are beginning to have impacts not only among localities in Israel but also on international comparison tests.
Tab. 87: Percentage of undergraduate students in STEM professions and education at selected cities in 2017 .
This paper discusses the innovativeness of the Inheritance Ordinance introduced in Toledo during the 12th century and later reintroduced in Fez in Morocco following the expulsion of Jewish communities from Spain and Portugal. Community leaders in Toledo, and after the expulsion also in Fes, transformed the laws of succession established in biblical times by granting women equal rights on matters of inheritance by marriage. The ordinance also granted unmarried daughters the right to inherit alongside their brothers despite the fact that, according to biblical law, daughters do not inherit when there are sons. Inheritance ordinances had significant social, financial and gendered implications on Jewish lives in many communities. The study will show that leaders of Sephardi Jewish communities were nothing less than advanced in their innovative and unprecedented ordinances related to women’s inheritance. Their innovativeness followed a number of preliminary conditions which enabled it. First and foremost was the authority vested in these Jewish leaders by the monarchy in various parts of Spain and Portugal. The laws of the kingdom in these countries granted women equal rights in succession laws. So as to avoid significant differences and reduce legislative gaps, ordinances were issued to correspond with national realities. Spain had been the world’s center of Jewish Halacha following the period of the Geonim—the heads of the ancient Talmudic academies of Babylonia and its sages—, and the Sephardic sages felt that their position allowed them to make bold decisions. The most innovative Jewish ordinance issued in this regard back in the 12th century was the Tulitula ordinance, originating from the city of Toledo, home to one of the largest and most affluent Jewish communities of the time. The regulation granted wives rights over their husbands’ inheritance regarding property established during their joint lives, as well as property which she had brought with her to the marriage. Following the Expulsion of Jews from Spain, the expelled sages, arriving in Morocco, reinstated the Tulitula ordinance in the newly established community of the city of Fez, further improving women’s position beyond the provisions of the original regulation. The new circumstances following the expulsion resulted in many Jewish communities in Morocco adopting the new version of the regulation. As they had been forced to wander from place to place, the expelled communities encountered severe problems involving family law. The ordinances spread throughout nearly all Jewish communities in Morocco. In the 19th century, a number of changes were introduced to the Fez ordinances, which in practice diminished women’s inheritance rights. However, the essence of the original ordinance was ultimately assimilated into Rabbinical and Supreme Court rulings of the State of Israel, due to its suitability to Israel’s modern inheritance laws and to the legislation of the Women’s Equal Rights Law in 1951. The leadership of Spanish sages and community leaders in various countries and of rabbinical judges in Fez, Morocco, had been both charismatic and rational and included modern components for coping with social change and new realities under the Kingdoms of Spain as well as following the expulsion.
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