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12 Tishrei 5761 - October 11, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
A Crowded Country
by Yated Ne'eman Staff

Population density in Israel is among the highest in the world, having reached an average of 278 people per square kilometer in 1999 according to the new Statistical Yearbook of Israel of the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Population density differs significantly in various regions of the country, the Statistical Yearbook shows. The Tel Aviv area is the most crowded, with a density figure of 6,700 people per square kilometer. Population is the sparsest in the South, where the figure is just 16 people per square kilometer. Jerusalem has the second highest density figures in Israel, with 1,130 people per square kilometer. The figure in Haifa is 931 people per square kilometer, and in the North, 234 per square kilometer. With 646,000 people, Jerusalem is Israel's largest city.

In Israel's urban-based population, more than 91 percent of the population lives in towns and cities with more than 2,000 residents.

Among cities with populations of more than 100,000, Ashdod registered the fastest growth rate at 6.2%. Rishon Letzion was next at 4.6%.

The Jewish population of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is now more than twice what it was when the Oslo agreement was signed, seven years ago. Some 210,000 people now live in Yesha communities.

During 1999, 29,300 Jewish couples were married in Israel, as compared to 17,200 Muslim unions. On the other hand, 10,195 couples were divorced last year; the majority--9,110--were Jewish.

Last year, 89,286 infants were born to Jewish mothers, and 34,514 to Muslim mothers.

Jerusalem

About 56 percent of Jerusalem residents live in parts of the city annexed in 1967, according to the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Some 46 percent of residents of these parts of the city are Jews, accounting for 38 percent of the city's total Jewish population.

A total of 633,700 people lived in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, 68 percent Jews and 31 percent Arabs. In 1967, the city was 74 percent Jewish and 26 percent Arab. Since then the Arab population has grown by 186 percent while the Jewish population has grown by only 121 percent. The city's total population has grown 138 percent.

About 93 percent of Jerusalem Arabs are Muslim. The growth rate of the city's Arab population, at 3.5% percent, is three times that of the Jewish (1.2%). The Arab birthrate in Jerusalem, 34.7 births per 1,000, is much higher than the Jewish rate (25.2 births per 1,000). This however is higher than the average for Israel as a whole (21.8 births per 1,000).

If current growth rates continue, the institute expects the city's Jewish population to reach 588,700, or 62 percent of the total, in 2020, while the Arab population will be 357,800, or 38 percent of the total.

The Arab majority is particularly high in the Old City. This is also the most crowded part of the city, with 32,488 people living in less than a square kilometer of space. Since 1967, the population of the Old City has grown by 37 percent.

The number of chareidi children of kindergarten age has been declining: 15,672 last year compared to the peak of 16,046 reached three years earlier. A recent study predicted that chareidim, who in 1995 comprised 29 percent of the city's population, would make up 32 percent in 2020.

This 2.3 percent decline is much steeper than the 0.7 percent drop among kindergarten children in the secular and national religious schools, which numbered 9,315 last year.

Immigration Boom

A staggering 35 percent growth in immigration in 1999 has led to the highest Israeli population growth rate in five years according to the 1999 Statistical abstract released by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Some 63,000 immigrants arrived. Almost 90% of the immigrants came from the former Soviet Union, 36% from the Russian Federation.

The population at the end of last year topped 6.2 million and posted a total growth rate of 2.7% or about 165,000 people.

According to the report, over one in every seven people now living in Israel arrived within the last 10 years, representing some 900,000 individuals. Of those, more than 90 percent hail from the former Soviet Union.

Jews and immigrants arriving under the Law of Return are 82% of the population, growing 2.5% to 4.95 million, a growth rate that is still high by world standards, where the average rate is 1.3%. Registered Jews were 78.57% of the total population.

There are some 200,000 non-Jewish immigrants and their families living in Israel, of which 180,000 are Christian and 20,000 unclassified. There represent those officially registered as non-Jews. The actual number of true non-Jews is much higher.

The Arab population reached 1.15 million, 18% of the total. This includes Moslems, Druse, and Christians and has remained constant for the past few years.

The report thus places Israel among the fastest growing and most densely populated countries in the world. Even the traditionally high growth rate of two percent in North Africa and the rest of the Middle East is outstripped by Israel. Only Central Africa's growth rate is comparable.

The growth rate has affected Israel in many ways. While Israel's largest cities posted low to moderate growth levels, the expansion rates of some smaller communities were frequently in the double or even the triple digits.

The extreme example of the chareidi town of Elad, which began the year with 200 residents and ended it with nearly 3,000, served only to highlight the trend of fast expansion among many Israeli towns. Only the kibbutzim saw negative growth, with some 500 people leaving for other communities.

These developments have steadily advanced Israel's high level of urbanization. Already, 91% of Israelis live in communities with over 2,000 people, and the rate is increasing by nearly 0.2% per year.

 

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