Greetings, 
For the 24th time, the Israel Democracy Institute is holding the annual Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society (formerly the Caesarea Forum). This year, for the first time, the conference will embark on an exciting multi-year process, led by IDI and in cooperation with senior government officials, business sector representatives, academic and research institutes, as well as prominent members of Israel's civic and social sectors. 

The initiative will create a continuum of joint strategic research and thinking that aims to ultimately bring about real change to Israel in specific areas.

Beginning this year, status updates regarding the progress being made by our think and do tanks will be presented at each Eli Hurvitz conference, as well as  elaborated  on in the published conference materials. These preliminary findings and analyses will serve as a basis for fruitful discussions, both at the conference and afterwards.  This year, the various think tanks will address the central theme of the 2017 conference, Two Economies - One Society, about  which Prof. Eugene Kandel will expand upon in the following pages.
As part of this new approach, the think tanks' research topics were incorporated into

the Institute's multi-year action plan. For example, IDI launched a working group this year, which is formulating
recommendations on how Israel should best prepare for tomorrow's labor market. We assembled this group once we realized that without proper preparation, the changes expected to undermine the stability of regimes and democracies may actually be caused by the erosion of the existing employment model, as well as a growing fear of a sharp rise in unemployment rates around the world.

Special thanks to Prof. Eugene Kandel, Chairman of the conference.

Best regards, Yohanan Plesner President, Israel Democracy Institute