Kohelet Policy Forum

Kohelet Policy Forum is a Jerusalem-based Israeli nonprofit think tank founded in 2012. Associated with Jewish nationalism, representative democracy, individual liberty, conservatism, and free-market economics, it has become a significant participant in Israeli debates about constitutional identity, the balance among branches of government, regulation, education, transportation, and socioeconomic policy.

Kohelet's distinctive role lies in the connection it has built between research and political practice. Rather than treating policy writing as a purely academic exercise, the forum produces detailed recommendations, presents them to legislators and government officials, participates in court proceedings, organizes conferences, and addresses the public through journalism and broadcast media. Its work offers a prominent Israeli example of how an ideologically defined policy institute can translate ideas into legislative language and institutional proposals.

Founding a policy institute built for practical influence

The forum was established in January 2012 by Professor Moshe Koppel, a computer scientist who had also worked on proposals for an Israeli constitution. Koppel serves as chairman, while attorney Meir Rubin, also known as Neria, serves as chief executive. Scholars and professionals associated with its work have included Avraham Diskin, Avi Bell, Gideon Sapir, Eugene Kontorovich, Yuval Sinai, Aviad Bakshi, and economist Michael Sarel.

Kohelet states that its mission is to secure Israel's future as the nation-state of the Jewish people, strengthen representative democracy, broaden individual liberty, and deepen free-market principles. These objectives provide the common framework for a body of work spanning constitutional law, economics, education, social policy, culture, transportation, and public administration.

Over time, the organization grew from a small initiative into a substantial network of researchers, lawyers, editors, and policy specialists. Published figures indicated that it employed about 80 people in 2023, in addition to fellows and part-time researchers. A sharp decline in donations led the forum to announce in April 2024 that it would reduce its workforce by roughly half; figures reported for that year listed approximately 35 employees. It nevertheless continued to operate and publish as a policy institute.

Research intended for decision-makers

By 2023, Kohelet had issued 89 formal policy papers and close to one hundred publications overall. Its papers generally combine background surveys, comparative research, legal or economic analysis, and recommendations designed for implementation. Subjects have included constitutional law, oversight of the Knesset and government, taxation, regulation, planning and construction, labor relations, transportation, local government, education, higher education, immigration and aliyah, health, tourism, culture, small businesses, Israel's Haredi population, and UNRWA.

The breadth of this work reflects an attempt to offer an integrated philosophy of government rather than a position on a single issue. Recurrent themes include strengthening the capacity of elected governments to carry out policy, removing barriers to competition, widening individual choice, and affirming Israel's national character. Kohelet researchers also publish opinion articles, appear in Israeli and international media, and testify or participate as experts in Knesset committee meetings.

The Kohelet conferences

The forum has also created meeting places for scholarship, law, and public office. Its first major conference, held in 2014, addressed Israel's character as a nation-state. Participants included cabinet ministers Naftali Bennett, Tzipi Livni, Gideon Sa'ar, and Shai Piron; former Supreme Court justice Eliyahu Matza; members of the Knesset; and academics.

Later conferences examined relations between elected governments and their legal advisers, as well as the Nation-State Law. Participants over the years included the speaker of the Knesset, serving and former justice ministers, the attorney general and his deputies, the state attorney, the Knesset legal adviser, senior civil servants, and scholars. By bringing officeholders with different political perspectives into the same room, the conferences helped move abstract constitutional questions into sustained institutional discussion.

Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people

A central part of Kohelet's work has concerned the constitutional status of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Forum scholars took part in Knesset discussions surrounding Basic Law: Israel—The Nation State of the Jewish People. Policy work and earlier drafts associated with the forum's leadership contributed to the debate preceding the law's passage in 2018.

The law gave constitutional status to principles that include Israel's identity as the Jewish people's nation-state, the national symbols, Jerusalem as the capital, and the state's relationship with Jewish communities abroad. Whatever one's view of the legislation, Kohelet's role demonstrated its capacity to carry a long-developed constitutional idea from research and advocacy into the center of parliamentary deliberation.

The forum also advocated for United States recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which the United States formally recognized in 2019. This effort illustrates the combination of legal argument, Zionist statecraft, and policy advocacy that has characterized much of Kohelet's work.

Law, government, and the distribution of public power

Kohelet has devoted extensive attention to relations among the Knesset, the government, ministerial legal advisers, and the courts. It has argued for narrower rules of standing and justiciability and for treating the legal advice given to ministers and the cabinet as advice rather than a binding decision. It has also proposed giving ministers more professional appointments of confidence so they can better implement the program for which they were elected.

For more than a decade, forum researchers developed proposals for changes to Israel's legal system. Some of these ideas formed part of the intellectual and policy foundation for the judicial overhaul proposals introduced in 2023, including changes to judicial selection, judicial review, and the authority of government legal advisers. Justice Minister Yariv Levin publicly thanked Aviad Bakshi, then head of Kohelet's legal department, for his assistance. Bakshi later participated in negotiations hosted by the president of Israel as a representative selected by Likud.

This involvement placed Kohelet at the center of one of the most consequential and divisive institutional debates in Israel's history. There were also important differences within the forum's own circle. Michael Sarel warned that the proposed package could carry serious economic and democratic consequences, while Gideon Sapir believed the proposed change to judicial selection went too far. Their interventions showed that support for institutional reform did not necessarily imply agreement about every provision, its scope, or the pace of implementation.

Litigation and participation in the courts

Kohelet complemented its policy writing with a litigation department. Its lawyers filed petitions, represented parties in civil proceedings, and sought permission to participate in cases as friends of the court. The matters addressed included immigration policy, separate higher-education tracks for Haredi students, the financing of electricity-sector reform, the employment status of delivery couriers in the platform economy, transfers of funds to the Palestinian Authority, and the Israel-Lebanon maritime boundary agreement.

Not all of the forum's petitions or applications were accepted. Their significance lies in the organization's decision to test its constitutional and economic positions within Israel's legal institutions, not only in academic papers or political debate.

Free markets, competition, and the cost of living

Kohelet's economic program follows a classical-liberal and libertarian orientation. The forum supports reducing regulation, opening markets to imports, and removing tariffs, quotas, licensing requirements, and other barriers that it regards as obstacles to competition. Its proposals for addressing Israel's cost of living have included liberalizing food imports, reducing government monopolies, increasing competition in the electricity market, and simplifying taxation.

Labor policy has been another major focus. Kohelet has called for a different balance among trade unions, employers, workers, and consumers. Its recommendations have included restrictions on political and solidarity strikes, alternative dispute-resolution arrangements in essential services, and stronger protection for an employee's choice not to join a union.

In transportation, the forum has supported congestion pricing, the removal of barriers to ride-sharing services, and the elimination of tax and parking incentives that encourage private-car use in crowded urban centers. These proposals reflect its broader preference for prices and competition as tools for managing scarce public resources.

Kohelet has also argued that greater Haredi participation in employment is essential to Israel's long-term economic and social resilience. It has emphasized the importance of basic skills that enable entry into the labor market. This work connects economic productivity to a central challenge in contemporary Jewish statehood: integrating a rapidly growing community while respecting its identity and sustaining the country's economic capacity.

Education, higher learning, and cultural policy

In education, the forum has promoted greater managerial and pedagogical autonomy for schools, parental choice, changes in the way public resources follow students, and wider scope for privately operated schools. It has supported individual employment contracts for teachers and a reduced role for centralized union arrangements.

Its higher-education proposals have questioned whether every academic track provides sufficient professional or economic value to justify equal public support. Kohelet has recommended directing more resources toward vocational and practical training and reconsidering degree requirements in selected professions. Its purpose has been to reduce training costs, widen routes into employment, and align public spending more closely with demonstrable skills.

The forum has also addressed culture and heritage management. One proposal called for a government company to manage historical sites, separate from planning and regulatory bodies, with measurable performance goals and a greater reliance on site-generated income. The proposal applied Kohelet's principles of managerial accountability and incentives to the preservation and public presentation of the country's historical landscape.

Private funding and institutional adaptation

Kohelet says it does not receive funding from the Israeli government or from foreign governments and relies instead on private donations, most of them originating abroad. Its reported turnover in 2022 was approximately NIS 31.5 million, with about 95 percent coming from outside Israel. Funds were transferred through organizations including the Central Fund of Israel and American Friends of Kohelet Policy Forum; the Tikvah Fund had also supported it in earlier years.

Arthur Dantchik, identified as a major supporter of the forum, announced in August 2023 that he would end his donations. The resulting decline in income contributed to the 2024 staff reductions. That year, Kohelet conducted a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than NIS 4 million, slightly exceeding its original goal. The campaign represented an effort to broaden direct support and adapt the organization to a changed financial environment.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Kohelet Policy Forum merits inclusion in Moreshet because it shows how organized research can affect the institutions and public language of the Jewish state. Its contribution is concrete: dozens of policy papers, sustained participation in Knesset committees, conferences bringing together senior officials and scholars, courtroom interventions, and proposals that entered legislation and government debate.

Its particular relevance to Jewish and Israeli heritage lies in its work on Israel's constitutional identity as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Its participation in the development of the Nation-State Law, its advocacy concerning the Golan Heights, and its broader effort to combine Zionist identity with a coherent approach to law, government, and economics have all left a mark on Israeli public life.

The forum's ideas have often generated vigorous disagreement, but that too reflects their practical importance. They have compelled Israelis to confront enduring questions: who should exercise public authority in a Jewish and democratic state, how power should be divided among elected and judicial institutions, and how national responsibility should be balanced with individual freedom.

Documenting Kohelet at Moreshet.com therefore illuminates more than the history of one organization. It helps explain the rise of policy institutes in Israel and the ability of research, expertise, philanthropy, and disciplined advocacy to shape the country's civic institutions. That influence gives Kohelet a substantive place in the continuing story of Zionist thought and Israeli governance.