Since Israel’s Independence was declared in 1948, there has never been a time when the percentage of the total population being Jewish has been lower than it is currently.

According to the annual report printed by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), which was published this past Monday, in honor of Israel’s 73rd Independence Day, showed that the proportion of Jews in Israel’s overall population fell below 74% for the first time ever.

The report shows that there was a sharp decrease in the percentage of more than half a point, in just three years. Today, the total percentage is 73.9% while three years ago for Israel’s 70th birthday the percentage was 74.5%. When Israel was founded the percentage was 82.1%.

This year, the general population of Israel is approximately 9.327 million. Among which, are approximately 6.984 million are Jews (73.9%) and about 1.966 million are Arabs (21.1%), from all denominations including Muslims, Christians, and Druze. An additional 467,000 people are defined as others, including non-Arab Christians, members of other religions, and those registered as having no religious classification in the census.

Since last year’s Independence Day, the population of the country has grown by 137,000. With approximately 167,000 babies who were born over the year and an additional 16,300 olim, but also taking into account the approximately 50,000 people who died over the course of the year.

Since the state was declared, the CBS states that some 3.3 million people have immigrated to Israel, with 1.5 million of them hailing from the former Soviet Union.

The CBS data also show that at the end of 2019, about 46% of the total Jewish population in the world lived in Israel and that by Israel’s centennial birthday, the expected number of citizens in Israel will be close to 15.2 million.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)