In honor of the new Jewish year of 5769, which begins Monday night, the Central Bureau of Statistics has released the latest population statistics. The bottom line: Jewish growth is up, Moslem growth is down.
Israel's population at the end of 2007 stood at over 7.24 million, including 5.48 million Jews (75.6%) and 1.45 million Arabs (20%).
The Jewish population grew by 1.6%. By contrast, the United States population grows annually by 0.9%.
The Muslim population grew by 2.8% in 2007 - compared with 3% just two years earlier, and 3.8% in 2000.
The Jewish population in Judea and Samaria [not including Jerusalem neighborhoods in areas liberated in 1967] stood at 282,000 at the end of 2007, according to the Interior Ministry. This is an increase of 5.2% over the year before - three times higher than the population jump in all of Israel. The population figures do not include citizens living in communities deemed illegal by the government.
At the beginning of 2007, the total world Jewish population was 13,155,000, the 2007 Annual Report of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) reported. This represents an overall growth rate of 0.5% over the previous year's figures. The Diaspora experienced a net decrease in population of 20,000 Jews, while Israel's Jewish population increased by 80,000 souls.
Number of Children per Jewish Woman - Up
The number of children per Jewish woman rose slightly in 2007, while dropping in other ethnic/religious groupings. It rose among Jews to 2.8 children per woman from 2.75 the year before. Among Muslim women, this figure dropped from 3.97 in 2006 to 3.9 in 2007, and from 2.64 to 2.49 among Bedouin.
In total, Israel's population grew by 1.8% in 2007 - equivalent to the growth rates in the 1980s, when immigration was down. In the early 90s, when immigration from the Soviet Union was at its peak, the population grew by approximately 3% a year.
Single Women - Up Nearly 2% a Year
On the other hand, Jewish bachelorhood also continues to rise. In 2006, 76% of the males aged 20-29 were single, compared with 73% six years earlier. Among the women in that age group, a full 60% were single, compared with 54% in 2000.
Another worrisome factor is that while 33,880 Jewish couples married in 2006, 13,439 divorced - 85% of the total divorces in Israel. Among the Moslems, 9,273 weddings were held, and 1,134 couples divorced - only 8% of the total divorces.