News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 152,000 Israelis, or 2.1 percent of Israeli citizens, are Christian.  The CBS released statistics regarding the Christian population this week in honor of Christmas.

Approximately 80 percent of Israeli Christians are Arabs, while most of the rest are immigrants from the former Soviet Union who arrived in Israel along with a Jewish relative.  Roughly 74 percent of the nation’s Christians live in the north, and 98 percent live in cities.

The town with the largest Christian population in Israel is Nazareth, followed by Haifa, Jerusalem, and Shfaram.  The average Christian birthrate is 2.1 children per woman, while the birthrate was 4.0 for Muslims, 2.8 for Jews, and 2.6 for Druze in 2006.