Haredim Expected To Excel At Black-Hat SEO

The first recruits will serve as the van guard.

Hertzeliya, Israel, April 30 – When Google opened its first research and development center in Israel in 2006, company executives were focused more on the quality and quantity of available personnel for the development of new initiatives, but the ensuing years have brought to their attention the potential benefits of employing Haredim, whose expertise with black hats should make them naturals at black-hat SEO.

Companies interested in the field of Search Engine Optimization are rushing to recruit these potential stars, to engage their expertise either in exploiting search engine algorithms to their clients’ advantage, or to refine those algorithms to more accurately reflect the value of a given page.

Black-hat SEO emerged in the 1990’s as a field ripe for development, but only in the last several years have tech companies become aware of the availability in Israel of hundreds of thousands of men who devotedly wear black hats for large parts of the day and night. The Haredi stronghold of Bnei Brak, for example, lies a twenty-minute drive away from Google’s Tel Aviv campus, with similar commutes to Microsoft’s facility in Raanana, or a slew of tech companies in Hertzeliya Pituach.

“I can’t believe no one has thought of this before,” said Yossi Matias, who runs Google’s Tel Aviv facility. “Here you have an entire population that maintains black-hat capabilities, day in, day out, and they’re basically desperate for employment opportunities. And they’re just over the highway,” he added, gesturing east toward Bnei Brak. Haredim have struggled to integrate into the Israeli workforce, and they account for a disproportionate number of poor families.

“This could really be the opportunity that both Haredim and the tech sector have been looking for,” says Idi Ott, who writes about technology and business in her weekly column, Idi Ott Tik (“the Idi Ott File”). “It’s the ultimate win-win situation, and not just for the principals, but for Israeli society as a whole. ‘Sharing the burden’ has become a major political issue,” she noted, referring to tensions that have pit the Israeli middle class and secular against the Haredim, whose dedication to Torah learning all but removes them from the ranks of the wage-earning, taxpaying public, but who still receive government benefits that favor their large families.

Haredi leaders have been reticent, given the political sensitivity of discussing pursuits other than full-time scholarship, but one head of a prominent yeshiva told PreOccupied Territory on condition of anonymity that he’d always wanted to start a dos-com, but was beaten to the punch by the Jerusalem-based butcher Hacker.