Israeli Jew

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Israeli Jews
ישראלים יהודים

A few Notable Israeli Jews: Yitzhak Rabin • David Ben Gurion • Hayyim Nahman Bialik • Ilan Ramon • Amos Oz • Natalie Portman • Bar Refaeli • Itzhak Perlman • Yisrael Meir Lau • Shlomo Artzi
Total population
?
Regions with significant populations
Israel        5,393,400 75.7% of the Israeli population[1]
Languages
Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Sephardi Jews, other Jewish ethnic divisions

Israeli Jews refers to the Jewish inhabitant of Israel throughout the period of the declaration of the state of Israel and until today. The Jewish population comprise approximately 75% of the population of Israel.^[1]

Jews living in the region prior to the establishment of the State of Israel are referred to in English as Palestinian Jew and in Hebrew as "HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el (The Jewish Community in the Land of Israel).

Contents 1 Demographics 2 History 2.1 Background 2.2 1948 Arab-Israeli War 2.3 1949 - present 3 Religion 4 Ethnic and religious groupings 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Demographics

According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 75.6% were Jews of any background^[1] Among them, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel) — 22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries. ^[2] Nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who immigrated from Europe, while around the same number are descended from Jews who immigrated from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia. Over two hundred thousand are, or are descended from, Ethiopian and Indian Jews.^[3]

In recent decades, considerable numbers of Israeli Jews have moved abroad.^[4] Reasons for emigration vary, but generally relate to a combination of economic and political concerns. (see also Yerida)

[edit] History

[edit] Background

Jews have long considered Israel to be their spiritual home. A series of Jewish kingdoms and states existed intermittently in the region for over a millennium until the failure of the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire ended up with widescale expulsion of Jews from their homeland in the 2nd century CE. After crushing Bar Kokhba's revolt in 135, Emperor Hadrian renamed Provincia Judaea to Provincia Syria Palaestina, a Greek name derived from Philistine (Hebrew פלשת Pəléšeṯ).

It was later conquered from the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantines) by the Muslim Caliphate in the 7th century and became populated by Arabs. Throughout the centuries the size of Jewish population in the land fluctuated. Before the birth of modern Zionism, by the early 19th century, more than 10,000 Jews lived in the area that is today's Israel.

Following centuries of Diaspora, the 19th century saw the rise of Zionism, the Jewish Nationalist Movement, a desire to see the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine, and significant immigration. Zionism remained a minority movement until the rise of Nazism in 1933 and the subsequent attempted extermination of the Jewish people in the Holocaust. In the late 1800's large numbers of Jews began moving to the Turkish and later British-controlled region. In 1917, the British endorsed a Jewish homeland in Mandate Palestine by passing the Balfour Declaration. The Jewish population in the region increased from 11% of the population in 1922 to 30% by 1940^[5]

In 1937, following the Great Arab Revolt, the partition plan proposed by the Peel Commission, was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership; but accepted tentatively by Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion. This was notable, as Ben-Gurion showed a willingness to essentially accept about 1/3 of the land that would ultiamately be won by Israel in the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war. As a result, in 1939, the British caved to Arab pressure because of support needed for WW2, abandoned the idea of a Jewish national homeland, and abandoned partition and negotiations in favour of the unilaterally-imposed White Paper of 1939, which capped Jewish immigration, and put subject to review under further agreement with the Arabs. Its other stated policy was to establish a system under which both Jews and Arabs were to share one government. The policy was viewed as a significant defeat for the Jewish side as it placed severe restrictions on Jewish immigration, while placing no restriction on Arab immigration.

In 1947, following increasing levels of violence, the British government withdrew from Israel. The 1947 UN Partition Plan split the mandate into two states, Jewish and Arab, giving about half the land area to each state. Immediately following the adoption of the Partition Plan by the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected the plan to create the, as yet un-named, Jewish State and launched a guerilla war.

On May 14, 1948, one day before the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine led by prime minister David Ben-Gurion, made a declaration of independence, and the state of Israel was established on the portion partitioned by UNSCOP for the Jewish state.

[edit] 1948 Arab-Israeli War

Hoping to annihilate the new Jewish state, the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq invaded the territory partitioned for the Arab state, thus starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The nascent Israeli Defense Force repulsed the Arab nations from part of the occupied territories, thus extending its borders beyond the original UNSCOP partition.^[6] By December 1948, Israel controlled most of the portion of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan River. The remainder of the Mandate consisted of Jordan, the area that came to be called the West Bank (controlled by Jordan), and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Egypt). Prior to and during this conflict, 711,000^[7] Palestinians Arabs fled their original lands to become Palestinian refugees, in part, due to a promise from Arab leaders that they'll be able to return when the war is won.

Most Israeli-Jews refer to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as the War of Independence, while most of the Arab citizens of Israel refer to it as the Nakba (catastrophe), a reflection of differences in perception of the purpose and outcomes of the war.^[8][9]

[edit] 1949 - present

After the war, only 14-25% (depending on the estimate) of the Arab population remained in Israel. When Israel refused the reentry of most, and when subsequent offers of partial repatration were rejected, they became refugees (see Palestinian refugee and Palestinian Exodus). At the same time, many Jews fled or were expelled from surrounding Arab countries and Iran, migrated to Israel. The new Jewish immigration to Israel doubled Israel's population within one year of its independence. Israel's Jewish population continued to grow at a very high rate for some years, fed by waves of Jewish immigration from round the world, most notably recently following the collapse of the USSR.

Since 1948, Israel has been involved in a series of major military conflicts, including the 1956 Suez War, 1967 Six-Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, and 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, as well as a nearly constant series of ongoing minor conflicts to preserve its national interests.

Israel is currently also embroiled in an ongoing conflict with Palestinians in the territories controlled since the Six Day War in 1967, despite the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, and the ongoing efforts of Israeli, Palestinian and global peacemakers.

Today, Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a population of over 7.1 million people, of which about 5.8 million are Jewish.

[edit] Religion

Roughly 12% of Israeli Jews defined as haredim (ultra-orthodox religious); an additional 9% are "religious"; 35% consider themselves "traditionalists" (not strictly adhering to Jewish Halakha); and 43% are "secular" (termed "hiloni"). Among the seculars, 53% believe in God. However, 78% of all Israelis (and virtually all Israeli Jews) participate in a Passover seder. ^[10]

Unlike North American Jews, Israelis tend not to align themselves with a movement of Judaism (such as Reform Judaism or Conservative Judaism) but instead tend to define their religious affiliation by degree of their religious practice.

[edit] Ethnic and religious groupings

In his book from 2001 "The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Culture and Military in Israel", the Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling identified and divided the modern Israeli society into seven population groups (seven subcultures): The secular upper-middle class group, the national religious group, the traditionalist Mizrahim group, the Orthodox religious group, the Arab citizens of Israel, the Russian immigrants group and the Ethiopian immigrants group. According to Kimmerling, each of these population groups have distinctive charcteristics, such as place of resident, consumption patterns, education systems, communications media and more.

[edit] See also

• Israelis
• Arab citizens of Israel

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Kehilot | Secular & Religious Jewish Communities of Israel