Israel

[George]

Christians make up 2.1% of population

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Some 142,000 Christians live in Israel today, 2.1 percent of the total population, the Central Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Most of the Christians - 115,400 - are Arab, and 98 percent of them live in urban areas. The majority - 84,000 - live in the North, almost 20,000 of them in Nazareth, the CBS said. More than 14,000 Christians live in Jerusalem, 16,500 in Haifa, and 8,000 in Shfaram, it said.

This was in the Jerusalem Post today DadErnie.

Your brother in Messiah with much agape love,

George

[Dad Ernie]

Thank you for thinking of me George. So let me get this straight. 142,000 Christians of which 115,400 are Arabs. That leaves 26,600 that are of some other nationality. Meaning Christians that are English, Jewish or even some other nationality. Conclusion: In the Jewish heartland, there is indeed ONLY a very small remnant that are there today of believing Jews.

You certainly have a very large task at hand. May God bless you and keep you and yours safe, full of peace and joy and enthusiasm to take the gospel to the people of Israel.

Your Servant in Christ,

Dad Ernie

[Guest yod]

Have you found any Palestinians or heard of any that are receptive to the Gospel?

there is a messianic synagogue in Haifa which has a Palestinian Arab for a rabbi! A very humble and sweet man, the jews voted him in as their leader.

In the northwest and Galilee there seems to be congregations which are VERY integrated with arabs, russians, and jews.

But before you go running off with those numbers thinking that messianic jews are letting the Jerusalem Post know where they are, you should remember that messianic jews can lose their citizenship and be deported. They would identify themselves as jews before they would say they were "christians"

Have you been in the vicinity of any of the suicide bombers?

I was almost killed 3 times in 6 days during Shavuot of 2001. A car bomb in Jerusalem at the club I was walking to (about a block away), an attempted robbery behind the Inifinity Club the following Tuesday night, and the suicide bomber who killed 23 and wounded another 100 at the same club on June 3rd. I was headed there that night but my ride fell through and delayed me.

George goes to places every day that either have been attacked or have been targeted. He gets on the Egged bus everywhere he goes. He lives beside a coffeeshop that was one of the most recent homicide bombings. You can't go through the Ben Y'huda district of Yerushalayim without being in the vacinity of suicide bombers.

Pray!

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings All,

After several pages of google search, and by no means a lot of them, for there are tons and tons of pages that turned up, this is what I got on "Israel demographics":

http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/PressRelease...es.asp?did=1018

American Jewish Year Book: Israel, Palestinians Ignoring Critical Demographic Trends

December 19, 2003 - New York - Israel and the Palestinian leadership are not giving sufficient attention to critical demographic trends as they seek to achieve a durable peace, according to a recent demography study in the 103rd edition of the American Jewish Year Book.

"The demographic perspective is essential in the search for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," writes Sergio DellaPergola, head of Hebrew University's Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics. DellaPergola has written the lead article in the American Jewish Committee's 2003 Year Book, "Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications."

By analyzing fertility, mortality, economic, migration and population density data since 1948, and projecting trends through 2050, DellaPergola presents a strong case for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The current population in Israel and the territories is about 9.3 million, with some 3 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and some 6.3 million people in Israel, including more than a million Arab citizens. The total population is about 55 percent Jewish and 45 percent Arab.

DellaPergola shows that by 2020, the total population of Israel and the Palestinian territories, according to the medium projection, will be about 14.35 million, with 8.67 million in Israel-6.7 million of whom are Jews-and 5.68 million in the Palestinian territories. Jews will comprise 44 to 47 percent of the total population.

By 2050, according to the medium projection, Israel's population is expected to be 11.9 million, including 8.78 million Jews. More than 14.68 million Palestinians are expected to be living in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus, by mid-century "the Jewish share might diminish to 35 to 37 percent, reverting to a situation very similar to the Jewish-Arab population division in the mid-1940s, towards the end of the British Mandate," DellaPergola projects.

The ongoing conflict, he furthermore argues, has focused attention on a narrow range of issues, causing other socioeconomic matters to be ignored, among them the creation of a Palestinian middle class.

"Failure of the Palestinian Authority to comply with basic social needs such as education and employment will surely be exploited by other centers of power, such as is already happening in the form of social services - together with fundamental indoctrination - provided by Hamas," he writes.

"The common vested interest of Israelis and Palestinians in sustained economic growth sufficient at least to absorb the expected population growth and the ensuing increasing demand for employment, should powerfully motivate the two sides in a quest for political solution and economic cooperation," DellaPergola observes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article discusses the demographics of the State of Israel.

Of the approximately 5.9 million Israelis in 1997, about 4.7 million were Jewish. While the non-Jewish minority grows at an average rate of 4.9% per year, the Jewish population has increased by more than 27% (3% per year) since 1989 as a result of massive immigration to Israel, primarily from the republics of the former Soviet Union. Since 1989, nearly 841,000 such immigrants have arrived in Israel, making this the largest wave of immigration since independence. In addition, almost 20,000 members of the Ethiopian Jewish community have immigrated to Israel, 14,000 of them during the dramatic May 1991 Operation Solomon airlift.

Of the non-Jewish population, about 75% are Muslim Arabs, 16% are Christian Arabs, and about 9% are Druze (non-Arab) and others. The three broad Jewish groupings are:

Ashkenazim - Jews whose ancesors lived in Germany and eastern-Europe. Most immigrants to Israel from North and South America, Russian, South Africa and Australia are Ashkenazim.

Sephardim- Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain, Portugal, and North Africa. This category also includes Near-eastern or Oriental Jews, people who descend from ancient Jewish communities in Islamic lands.

Yemenite Jews - Jews whose ancestors lived in Yemen.

Education between ages 5 and 16 is free and compulsory. The school system is organized into kindergartens, 6-year primary schools, 3-year junior secondary schools, and 3-year senior secondary schools, after which a comprehensive examination is offered for university admissions. There are seven university-level institutions in Israel.

With a population drawn from more than 100 countries on 5 continents, Israeli society is rich in cultural diversity and artistic creativity. The arts are actively encouraged and supported by the government. The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra performs throughout the country and frequently tours abroad. The Jerusalem Symphony, the orchestra of the Israeli Broadcasting Authority, also tours frequently as do other musical ensembles. Almost every municipality has a chamber orchestra or ensemble, many boasting the talents of gifted performers recently arrived from the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Folk dancing, which draws upon the cultural heritage of many immigrant groups, is very popular. Israel also has several professional ballet and modern dance companies. There is great public interest in the theater; the repertoire covers the entire range of classical and contemporary drama in translation, as well as plays by Israeli authors. Of the three major repertory companies, the most famous, Habimah, was founded in 1917.

Active artist colonies thrive in Safed, Jaffa, and Ein Hod, and Israeli painters and sculptors exhibit and sell their works worldwide. Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem have excellent art museums, and many towns and kibbutzim have smaller high-quality museums. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem houses the Dead Sea Scrolls along with an extensive collection of Jewish religious and folk art. The Museum of the Diaspora is located on the campus of Tel Aviv University. Israelis are avid newspaper readers. Israeli papers have an average daily circulation of 600,000 copies. Major daily papers are in Hebrew; others are in Arabic, English, French, Polish, Yiddish, Russian, Hungarian, and German.

Population: 5,842,454

note: includes about 171,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, about 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, about 6,500 in the Gaza Strip, and about 172,000 in East Jerusalem (July 2000 est.)

Age structure:

0-14 years: 28% (male 825,443; female 787,159)

15-64 years: 63% (male 1,831,142; female 1,820,424)

65 years and over: 9% (male 248,695; female 329,591) (2000 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.67% (2000 est.)

Birth rate: 19.32 births/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Death rate: 6.22 deaths/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Net migration rate: 3.63 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2000 est.)

Sex ratio:

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.01 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.75 male(s)/female

total population: 0.99 male(s)/female (2000 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 7.9 deaths/1,000 live births (2000 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:

total population: 78.57 years

male: 76.57 years

female: 80.67 years (2000 est.)

Total fertility rate: 2.6 children born/woman (2000 est.)

Nationality:

noun: Israeli(s)

adjective: Israeli

Ethnic groups: Jewish 80.1% (Europe/America-born 32.1%, Israel-born 20.8%, Africa-born 14.6%, Asia-born 12.6%), non-Jewish 19.9% (mostly Arab) (1996 est.)

Religions: Jewish 80.1%, Muslim 14.6% (mostly Sunni Muslim), Christian 2.1%, other 3.2% (1996 est.) Official figures do not exist as to the number of atheists or otherwise non-affiliated individuals, who may comprise up to a quarter of the population referred to as Jewish.

Languages: Hebrew (official), Arabic used officially for Arab minority, English most commonly used foreign language

Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

total population: 95%

male: 97%

female: 93% (1992 est.)