Yesterday in Synagogue, I sat next to a friend who works for an international IT company in Jerusalem. Between the prayers, he voiced concern that his company was about to lay off 10% of staff and cut the salaries of the survivors.

Yes, the recession has reached Israel. The retail price index for October is expected to show  a drop of a whole percentage point. Car sales are down 19.7% as against the previous quarter. Gloom, but not doom.

I continue to maintain that the Israeli economy is facing this downturn in good shape. And the Tel Aviv stock market has picked up on that. Over the past 3 months, it has fallen 22%; difficult, but brilliant compared to the 35% of the FTSE’s world index. Let’s take some specific recent success stories.

For all the problems of its pension funds and aging politicans fighting for their reputations, the Israeli economy is telling the world that it has a lot more to shout about. Worth listening, in my view.