Many cities around the world are currently engaged in finding a place for themselves in the global market for goods and services. Success in this global competition requires each individual city to position itself in the most appropriate and worthy place in the global economy. Jerusalem tries to position itself in the global economy and looks for that coveted and worthy place. Tourism and pilgrimage are for Jerusalem obvious or “natural” economic pursuits, connecting this historic city, holy to the three monotheistic religions, with the rest of the world. However, there are some inherent problems in that, such as seasonal fluctuations, changes in volume as a result of the shifting political and security situation and a relatively high proportion of low-skilled and commensurately low-paying jobs. Jerusalem is therefore in need of new economic pursuits that will offer higher income levels compared to tourism and public services. The idea to position Jerusalem as a center of educational services in the global economy is the main thrust of this policy paper. It is founded not only on the city’s own past achievement in higher education but on its future potential. Educational services around the world have increasingly become more “globalized” in recent decades. Students move across boundaries and sometimes great distances in order to get the right kind of service in terms of quality and price. Higher education services have become increasingly important in the economy of many cities, which keep losing much of their manufacturing and commercial industry.

With increased globalization of higher education the English language has recently become its main mode of instruction. The predominant role of the English language in exporting higher educational services has spurred universities in countries where English is not the spoken language to offer teaching services in English to students from abroad, and thus avail them to this growing global market in higher education. Such a development has been noted in some north-western European countries, where courses and study programs taught in English were made available to foreign as well as local students. Jerusalem should learn from all this that it is not possible to further build a system of higher educational services for export on the basis of the English language.

Instruction in English to overseas students is currently practiced in some Israeli universities. However, frameworks developed in these institutions have never grown to be a substantial component of their activities. In most of them the number of overseas students is rather small and consists of a small percentage of the overall student body. The overseas student programs are run as a separate entity and in some cases are even housed in a separate building on campus. The general pattern that emerges is that of a separate activity, adjunct to the main activity of an institution, namely, the teaching in Hebrew to Israeli students. Most institutions do not offer full-fledged undergraduate academic degree programs for overseas students. Undergraduate programs are based on one-semester or one-year attendance as part of a full undergraduate program of studies taken at the home university abroad, mostly in the United States. Most of the students coming to study in Israeli institutions are Jewish, many of them being financially assisted by Jewish organizations as well as the Israeli government, who are interested in enhancing the attachment of young Jews to Israel and to the Jewish people. It therefore comes as no surprise that the main array of subjects offered to overseas students in Israeli institutions of higher education are primarily Jewish Studies, Israel Studies and Middle East studies. The limited list does not represent the potential demand for university studies but rather the perception of what Israeli institutions should teach their overseas Jewish students. In this respect these institutions appear to largely serve a national-Zionist cause of drawing young Jews across the world to Jewish and Israeli contents.

The only higher education institution that has recently broken away from the long established model has been the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. It had established the Raphael Recanati International School where series of full-fledged undergraduate programs are taught in English in several subjects: Business Administration, Communications, Computer science, Government and Psychology. Over three quarters of the some eight hundred students come from overseas. The rest are Israeli students interested in studying these subjects in English. The experience of the Interdisciplinary Center points to the potential for attracting to Israel students from abroad in subjects in high demand in the global economy of higher education.

Unlike their partial involvement in undergraduate studies some Israeli institutions, the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem included, offer overseas students full programs of graduate studies that lead to a master’s degree. Most of these graduate programs, such as the one at the Hebrew University, offer a range of subjects similar to those in their partial undergraduate program, concentrating on Jewish-Israel and Middle Eastern Studies. Other institutions offer graduate programs in different subjects, such as Natural Sciences at the Weizmann Institute, and Business Administration at Bar-Ilan University and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. Several universities offer graduate programs in medicine and health studies, such as The Hebrew University, Tel-Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University.

Up to now the number of students studying each year in Jerusalem in all the frameworks designated for overseas students remains relatively too small to have a significant impact on the overall urban economy. There are two factors that impede the substantial growth in the numbers of overseas students in Jerusalem, and for that matter in the country at large. Security is often cited as the main factor. Another factor is the rather narrow spectrum of subjects offered in English in Jerusalem. In light of the recent development of a global economy of higher education and the needs of Jerusalem to enlarge and upgrade its economic base, it is appropriate to ask whether the city cannot broaden the scope of higher education services it offers to the wide world over and beyond the Jewish and Israeli subjects currently available to overseas students.

One way to do it is to enlarge the global scope of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by developing the Rothberg International School as a more autonomous and therefore a more conspicuous major player in the world market of higher education. An alternative way for the Hebrew University to enter the global market of higher education in full force is to do what some European universities have done, as briefly described above. Step by step, depending on the attractiveness of a subject and the availability of the appropriate staff, specific departments or schools at the Hebrew University will prepare a full-fledged curriculum of courses offered in the English language for the benefit of overseas students.

A completely different avenue is the establishment of a new independent university in Jerusalem solely dedicated to teaching in English and primarily catering to overseas students. The Hebrew university could be party to a joint venture with an entrepreneurial body with proven experience in the global market of higher education. For that matter, one could think of other high quality colleges, currently operating in Jerusalem, joining this venture and bringing in their specific expertise in particular subjects. The Jerusalem School of Technology and the Hadassah Academic College are two such colleges.

The potential market for overseas students coming to study in Jerusalem is varied. Both West and East European countries can serve as a potential market over and beyond the Jewish Diaspora of North America. Studying in a country not one’s own has become almost a fashion among the West European young population. Israel's Palestinian neighbors as well as young persons from some less hostile Arab countries could be a potential market for the more internationally inclined higher education institutions in Jerusalem. Even if the antagonism and animosity between Israel and the Arab world will not fully subside, there just may be enough Arab students who would want to study subjects in which Jerusalem's institutions are more proficient in and less expensive compared with those of Western Europe and North America, the traditional destination for many students from the Arab countries. The geographical proximity of Jerusalem to the place of residence of these potential students in comparison to remote cities in Western Europe and North America might be an important favorable factor that could draw Arab students. They could easily go back to their families on weekends, holy days and family occasions. Moreover, in the Palestinian Arab sections of the city these Arab students could find a comfortable familiar environment to live and dine in while they are studying in Jerusalem, much in the same way Arab students from other regions of Israel do, when coming to study in Jerusalem. In the future they could even find that several of the academic and administrative staff are Arabs themselves, a factor that might be significant for Arab students for whom studying in another country results in leaving the familiar cultural environment. This factor applies more to those Arab students who will choose to study in one of the Arab higher education institutions operating in the city and teaching mostly in the Arabic language, such as the al-Quds University. The Arab-Palestinian part of Jerusalem might in this way be party to linking the city to the global economy of higher education. However, all these hopes for the development of a sizable Palestinian and Arab market of students making use of institutions of higher education in Israel largely depend on the security situation existing in the country at large and particularly in Jerusalem.