Cultural Legacy
The earliest known inhabitants of Israel were the Caananites, a people who urbanized around the third millennium before the common era, or B.C.E., and established several city-states, one of which was Jericho. Later invaders to the area included the Hebrews, a group of Semitic tribes from Mesopotamia, and the Philistines, an Aegean people of Indo-European origin, around 1400 B.C.E. The area was later to be submitted to Persian, Roman, Arab Caliphates, Ottoman and British rule.
Cultural Demography
Today, Israel's population numbers about 7.5 million inhabitants, and around 80 percent are Jewish. The three broad Jewish groupings are: the Ashkenazim, or Jews who came to Israel mainly from Europe, North and South America, South Africa and Australia; the Sephardim, who trace their origin to Spain, Portugal and North Africa; and Eastern or Oriental Jews, who descend from ancient communities in Islamic lands. It is estimated that around 40 percent of Jews in Israel today were born in Europe and America, 26 percent in Israel, 19 percent Africa and 16 percent in Asia.
Of the non-Jewish population, around 82 percent are Muslims, nine percent Christian and nine percent Druze and others. The majority of these people are Israeli Arabs-Palestinians who did not flee the land of Palestine during the 1948 war that created the state of Israel.
Officially, the population growth rate is about 1.2 percent today. That number obfuscates certain key trends in the last few decades. While the non-Jewish minority grows at an average rate of 4.9 percent per year, the Jewish population has after 1989 increased by more than 27 percent as a result of massive immigration to Israel, primarily from the republics of the former Soviet Union. Since 1989, nearly 840,000 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. Overall, in recent years, the number of those who immigrated to Israel since 1948 reached three million Jews.
In terms of language, Hebrew is the official language of Israel. Arabic is used among the Arab minority. English is the most commonly used foreign language in Israel.
Health and Welfare
In terms of health and welfare, Israel's infant mortality rate is very low at 4.28 deaths per 1,000 live births. Likewise, life expectancy rates at birth are very high, with the average for the total population being 80.61 years of age (78.54 years for males and 82.79 years for females). As noted above, according to recent estimates, the population growth is estimated at 1.2 percent, and the total fertility rate at 2.38 children per woman.
Israel's literacy rate is exceptionally high at 97.1 percent (98.5 percent for males and 95.9 percent for females). That high rate of literacy is explained by the fact that education between ages five and sixteen is free and compulsory.
About 9.5 percent of GDP in this country is spent on health expenditures; about 5.9 percent of GDP in this country is spent on education. Access to water and sanitation in this country is regarded to be very good.
Human Development
One notable measure used to determine a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which has been compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and edu cation, as well as economic standard of living.
In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Israel in the very high human development category at 15th place. Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief,
www.countrywatch.com . See Bibliography for list of general research sources.