Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

The Baby War in Israel
Thursday, May 10, 2007

The real money has always been on demographics to change the political situation in Israel. These numbers strike me as representing slower growth than I would have imagined.

The number of Arabs living in Jerusalem grew twice as fast as the city's Jewish population over the past decade, according to a report by an Israeli research institute.
At current growth rates, Jews will comprise 60 percent of the holy city's population by 2020 compared with 66 percent now, according to projections by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
It said the Arab population would rise from 34 percent to 40 percent over the same period.
The city's population in 2007 stands at 720,000 people, a figure that includes east Jerusalem which was captured and later annexed by Israel after the 1967 war, as well as new districts built in the same area.
Over the past 40 years the Arab population has grown by 257 percent from 68,000 to its current level of 245,000, while the number of Jews living in the city has risen by 140 percent -- from 200,000 to 475,000.
The Arab birth rate for the past decade has been between three percent and four percent, more than double that of Jews. If this trend continues Arabs will make up 50 percent of the population by 2035, the report said.
Jerusalem's demographic evolution has been altered by the departure of thousands of Jewish families from the city itself to the outskirts and nearby settlements in the occupied West Bank, where living costs are cheaper.

Update: Now I see why. Later in the report the study points out that Hasidic Jews will up the birth rate among Jews in Israel."

After 2025, the Jewish majority will rebound past its current 80 percent position as natural growth in high growth Jewish sectors overtakes growth in Arab population groups."

The so-called secular and traditional Jews would drop from the current 64 percent to 56 percent of Israel's population. The secular-traditional sector would decrease from the current 80 percent to 71 percent of the Jewish community.
The report linked predicted Jewish growth to the current "baby-boomer" generation as well as steady immigration. At the same time, Arab fertility rates dropped from over nine births per woman in the 1960s to 4.4 in 2000 and 3.6 in 2006.

This is a mixed blessing for moderate Jewish lovers of Israel, as the ultra-Orthodox are not particularly Zionist, don't serve in the Army, and are a heavy financial burden on the State because of the subsidized education they receive.

Labels: Middle East

Posted by B Feiler at 7:03 AM
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