Israeli politicians who grew up poor see poverty as a challenge to overcome, not a systemic problem

NOVEMBER 7, 2026 07:51Public opinion and trust surveys in Israel consistently show low confidence in Knesset members, often lower than confidence in journalists.Many citizens view MKs as self-interested politicians focused on power, prestige, and income, with little concern for the common citizen. Yet some lawmakers grew up poor.Does this automatically determine how politicians themselves understand inequality and deprivation?A new Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) study shows that being raised in a needy family does not automatically determine how politicians view inequality.The study, conducted by Dr. Shiran Tayeb Elmakias of HUJI’s Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare under the guidance of Prof. Momi Dahan of the Federmann School of Public Policy and Government, was recently published in the journal Representation.DR. SHIRAN TAYEB ELMAKIAS (credit: Hadar Binyamin)Titled “From presence to meaning: Lived experience and the limits of substantive representation,” the study investigates how former lawmakers connect their childhood memories to their views on poverty, ethnicity, and political responsibility.Based on interviews with Israeli legislators from the 1990s, it demonstrates how vivid memories of hardship can coexist with political views that emphasize personal effort over systemic barriers facing disadvantaged communities.“A politician who grew up with deprivation might be expected to view inequality differently from someone raised in comfort, but personal experience does not speak for itself,” explained Tayeb Elmakias. What matters most, she said, is how politicians interpret the struggles they lived through.Tayeb Elmakias brings her own life experience to her academic work. Born in the development town of Kiryat Gat to a Tunisian taxi driver, her husband’s family arrived from Morocco, and today he is a mechanical engineer.A mother of three children aged four to nine, she is currently pursuing postdoctoral research at the University of Haifa and the University of Pennsylvania.Her doctoral dissertation, supervised by leading social welfare researcher Prof. John Gal, examined how policymakers in the 1960s and 1970s conceptualized economic need.She told The Jerusalem Post that she discovered a fascinating tension: lawmakers from historically disadvantaged Jewish communities described difficult childhoods in vivid detail, but when discussing ethnic inequality more broadly, their accounts often shifted toward self-reliance, hard work, and personal achievement instead of social barriers that faced their communities.“This is the first study of its kind in Israel,” she added proudly. “There are studies abroad about representation of politicians, but not about their childhood experiences.”The study was based on in-depth interviews with 15 former MKs who served between 1992 and 1999, nine of Mizrahi background and six of Ashkenazi origin across various political parties, including both coalition and opposition lawmakers.“I found that similar backgrounds did not automatically translate into shared political views,” Tayeb Elmakias observed.“It surprised and disappointed me. Voting often involves emotions and shared identity, so I assumed MKs who grew up with discrimination and poverty would carry those experiences into their legislative actions.“But many Mizrahi MKs did not advocate for laws specifically targeting disadvantaged communities. If you’re in a place of power, you shouldn’t forget. One MK said his father was rich in Morocco, but here he faced poverty.”She said she studied how they told their life stories, how they explained poverty and discrimination, and how they understood their responsibility toward people facing hardship.Former Mizrahi MKs recalled childhoods marked by overcrowded transit camps (ma’abarot) in the 1950s, living in tents or simple structures without running water or electricity, and watching their parents struggle to put food on the table.In contrast, Ashkenazi participants generally described more financially secure upbringings; the few who did recall severe hardship viewed it as a specific family circumstance rather than a broader ethnic pattern.How do MKs interpret their shared past?Across all backgrounds, participants expressed a general commitment to helping the needy. However, when discussions turned to overcoming inequality, former MKs who had risen from poverty often cited their own success as proof of what others could achieve through hard work and perseverance.“Hardship was framed as something to overcome through personal effort rather than evidence of structural barriers requiring government intervention,” Tayeb Elmakias said.“The interviews can’t establish how today’s politicians think. It would be interesting to interview some of them today, but they could be influenced by their parties’ platforms,” she suggested. “Those I interviewed didn’t have much admiration for MKs in the 25th Knesset.”Tayeb Elmakias noted the study’s relevance to contemporary politics. For instance, former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, was born in Tiberias to parents Meir and Esther Eisenkot (his family name was originally Azenkot and was changed by a clerk after they arrived from Morocco).He was raised in Eilat, which was then a poor frontier town. Despite overcoming modest beginnings to reach top military and political leadership roles, he has rarely leveraged his Mizrahi background politically, she said.Tayeb Elmakias pointed to public commentary surrounding politicians’ backgrounds, citing harsh rhetoric from Channel 14 television host Yinon Magal, who called Eisenkot a “monkey” and a political puppet managed by “Ashkenazi elites.”“It was insulting and very unfair,” she said. “I myself have felt uncomfortable at times when giving my two surnames. We live in Yavne, and while many Mizrahi Israelis like me have advanced, names like mine remain less common in academic life.”The research involved retrospective accounts, shaped by memory and later interpretation, and didn’t directly test whether the former MKs’ views translated into particular laws or policy outcomes, she continued.“But having left the parliament enabled them to reflect more openly, with less concern about potential political repercussions.”The study acknowledges its limits: it was a small qualitative study of former Jewish MKs that did not test direct legislative voting outcomes or Arab MKs from poor backgrounds, but she may do so in the future.Ultimately, the research raises a fundamental question for modern democracies: When legislators claim to represent a community because they come from it, how do they actually interpret that shared past?“Our study does not suggest that descriptive representation is unimportant,” Tayeb Elmakias concluded. “Rather, it shows that understanding true representation requires looking closely at how politicians explain their life stories, not just their identities.”Follow us on Google