In a casual conversation with two young Americans in Tel Aviv about the pros and cons of moving to Israel, one told Andrew Jacobson that he could never do it because his degree from Columbia University “doesn’t mean anything here.” Jacobson believes his interlocutor hit on something important about Israeli society:

It’s true that a Columbia degree doesn’t carry the same prestige points or brand signaling here [in Israel]. Most people haven’t a clue about [the university’s] acceptance rate or perceived exclusivity. To be clear, the degree is valuable for what you actually learned: the knowledge, skills, and “education” part of “higher education.” But not the brand name.

All this got me thinking: prestige—the social prestige from association with Brand X or Club Y—seems to exist less in Israel. Nobody seems to care. More than that, many Israelis resent it. I want to understand why.

Jacobson recalls an invariable pattern he encountered while working as a consultant, visiting different Israeli firms and asking their managers to talk about themselves:

We would ask [the managers] to explain their professional experience and credentials, how many years they had been at the company, etc. Without exception, the first thing each member of management would say is the name of his or her marital partner, how many children they have, and where they live. For instance: “I am married to Yifat. We live in Hadera, and have three beautiful children.” Sometimes they would say [the children’s] names. But only then, after providing bigger context of Things That Actually Mattered to them, would they continue to list their PhDs from Hebrew University.

This isn’t to say that they thought their job was not important, but that there were things that mattered more: . . . deep, unchosen identities—people, religion, family, maybe nationality, to name a few—[that] remain at the center in Israeli life.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”