Yael Lavie could not sleep.
After 17 years at Bank Hapoalim—11 in Israel and 6 at the bank’s Swiss branch in Zurich—she had built the kind of career many people would have been content to retire on. She had moved to London, opened a private office and immersed herself in the world of high-stakes international business deals when a colleague returned from a global higher-education conference and said something that changed the course of her life.
“He said he wanted to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds studying for degrees that would allow them to make a good living,” Lavie recalled in an interview with JNS. “He wanted to help them break out of the cycle of poverty—for themselves, their families and their communities.”
She paused, remembering the moment vividly. “I heard that sentence and thought: I can help make this happen.”
By the next morning, she had written a detailed two-page proposal outlining how a business-minded approach could scale the idea. She presented it to her colleague, Jewish-Australian philanthropist Martin Moshal, who lives in Sydney. “My response was: ‘Let’s just make it happen,’” she said.
Sixteen years later, the Moshal Program has supported nearly 2,000 students and alumni in Israel, while also operating a parallel initiative in South Africa, where the Moshal family originated. Its graduates—engineers, doctors and software developers—work at companies such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Google, earning starting salaries of about 18,000 shekels (about $5,000) a month and contributing millions in tax revenue to the Israeli economy.
The numbers are impressive. The stories behind them are even more remarkable.
A business solution to a social problem
Lavie, who now serves as the Moshal Program’s chairperson, describes it in the language she knows best: return on investment.
“We come from the business side, the result-driven side of the world,” she said. “We needed to look at things from the end to the beginning—not from beginning to end.”
The “end,” she explained, is a graduate securely employed in a high-paying profession, often earning far more than their parents ever did.
Early on, the program learned that financial support alone was not enough. “You need enough money for them to focus—but money alone won’t get them there,” Lavie said.
Instead, the Moshal Program developed a comprehensive support system surrounding students from the moment they are accepted into the program until they enter the workforce—and beyond.
During their first year, students receive full funding for tuition, housing and most living expenses, and are prohibited from taking outside jobs.
“If you want 95% success and not 70%, you need to make sure they can concentrate, because the talent is there,” Lavie said.
Each student is paired with a dedicated social worker responsible for helping them navigate personal or academic crises before they derail their studies. Beginning in the second year, career coordinators help students build résumés, strengthen LinkedIn profiles, prepare for interviews and negotiate salaries.
The program also requires intensive English-language training and financial literacy courses. Alumni mentor current students and later help open professional doors at their own companies.
“We tell them: You do not have to pay anything back, but we expect you to pay it forward,” Lavie said. “And they do.”
The numbers behind the mission
The results are striking. About 95% of Moshal students complete their degrees, compared to roughly 70% among similar socioeconomic groups nationwide. More than 90% go on to work in their field of study.
According to the program, Israeli graduates earn roughly three times more than their parents combined with their very first salary.
Supporting an engineering student through graduation costs approximately 160,000 shekels ($43,000). In many cases, graduates earn back more than that amount during their first year of employment alone.
Lavie points to even broader long-term returns. Over the course of a career, she said, each Moshal graduate is expected to earn approximately 10 million shekels and pay more than 4 million shekels in taxes.
“Coming from business, I do not know any other investment that brings such a return,” she said.
‘Talent is spread evenly. Opportunities aren’t’
There is one phrase Lavie repeats often: “Talent is spread evenly. Opportunities aren’t.”
“Think about what we are losing,” she said. “Every single one of those youngsters is a potential engineer, a potential doctor, a potential employer who hires 10 other people. The inventions that will never be invented. The startups that will never exist.
“This is not a social issue separate from the economy,” she added. “It is the economy.”
The Moshal Program currently works with 14 academic institutions across Israel. Its student body includes women, Arab Israelis, Haredim and students from low-income communities throughout the country.
Around 40% of participants are women—a notable figure in STEM-related fields. Nearly 20% are Arab students. More than 150 come from Haredi backgrounds, often entering higher education despite major cultural and educational barriers.
Lavie recalls students whose stories remain etched in her memory.
One young woman used to take toilet paper home from school because her family could not afford it. Today, she is a team leader at a major global technology company.
Another student spoke only Yiddish until age 11 and could barely perform basic arithmetic. He is now among the program’s top medical graduates.
Many participants arrive burdened by what Lavie describes as impostor syndrome—the fear that they do not truly belong in elite academic environments.
“What strikes me is that the issue is often not ability, but belief,” she said. “Many talented young people simply do not grow up seeing these paths as part of their possible future.”
One of the program’s greatest strengths, she said, is providing role models who come from similar backgrounds and demonstrate that success is attainable.
After Oct. 7
The war that began after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre has added new strains.
Many Moshal students are reservists who have spent hundreds of days in uniform while trying to complete demanding degrees in engineering, medicine and technology.
For them, Lavie said, the program’s response has remained simple.
“We tell them: If you need another year, we pay,” she said. “We give them peace of mind. If you’re with us, we’re with you.”
Since Oct. 7, the need has only intensified, particularly among students from Israel’s evacuated northern and southern communities.
The organization is now seeking additional donors to expand its reach.
From Zurich to Johannesburg
The Moshal Program was launched simultaneously in Israel and South Africa, where its founder, Martin Moshal, was born and raised.
Lavie also has personal ties to South Africa through her mother and remembers visiting the country during apartheid, experiences that left a lasting impression on her understanding of inequality.
In South Africa, graduates often earn up to eight times as much as their parents.
“The model has proven remarkably transferable,” Lavie said. “The same philosophy, the same support structure and the same insistence on quality.”
“One of the most powerful lessons has been understanding how universal human potential really is,” she added.
Human infrastructure
Lavie returns to one basic idea: human infrastructure.
Israel invests heavily in roads, buildings, defense and technology, she said, but often overlooks its most important national resource—the people themselves.
“It’s important to invest in roads and buildings,” she said. “But human infrastructure is the people. That’s what will make us or break us.”
A Hebrew University economist who analyzed the program’s alumni data reached a conclusion Lavie describes as one of the most moving moments of her career.
The graduates, he found, statistically resemble second-generation higher-education families. In other words, the connection between where they came from and where they are headed has effectively been broken.
“Zero,” Lavie said. “No link. We have actually managed to completely break the connection between where they came from and where they are going.”
She added, “Maybe they don’t believe it yet. But I do. Because I’ve seen it.”
