Israeli Demographics

By BJ Bjornson

Via Matt Y., an interesting FP story about how demographics are beginning to shape Israel in ways not planned for by its founders.

The numbers are impressive. In 1960, the Israeli Central Statistical Bureau (ICSB) reported that just 15 percent of students in the Israeli primary-school system were either Israeli Arabs or haredim. Now, about 46 percent are. Around 2020, the majority of primary-school students will likely be composed of children from those two groups, each segregated into its own segment of the school system (Fig. 1). And though, at current rates, it will be well beyond the time horizon of our current projections before these two politically disparate groups "dominate" the Israeli electorate (Fig. 2), by 2030 they are likely to be very close to composing half of all 18- and 19-year olds, the youngest tier of the electorate and the age at which Israelis are first eligible for conscription (Fig. 3a & b) -- a dramatic shift in Israeli ethnic and religious composition.

Such a development is completely contrary to the demographic hopes of Israel's secular Zionist founders, which hinged on a healthy pace of secular-Jewish childbearing and steady streams of Jewish immigrants. For the long run, the founders trusted in the powers of prosperity and modernity to turn Israel's kaleidoscopic assortment of Jewish and non-Jewish ethnic communities into a modern multi ethnic population with European-like aspirations for women and European-like levels of fertility (a measure demographers use to estimate the trend in lifetime childbirths per woman).

The article notes that the major driver of this shift is relative birth rates. While the non-haredic Jewish and Israeli Arabs birthrates have both dropped considerably since the 1950's, (though the Arabs are still higher than the secular Jews), the haredim population is still averaging about 7 children per woman, meaning they're the fastest growing population in Israel.

This rapid growth is causing a number of issues for the Israeli state.

The growth in the haredi population troubles secular Jews for a whole host of reasons, most of them economic. Ultra-Orthodox young men obtain draft deferments and student stipends by extending their study -- for decades -- in religious schools (yeshiva), which are also subsidized by the government. Because they don't work or develop job skills, haredim contribute little to tax revenues and tend to be poor, qualifying them for welfare assistance. And because haredi family sizes are large, they receive government-sponsored child allowances.

Beyond the economic drag, there's politics: Ultra-Orthodox rabbis control access to marriage, conversion, and burial, effectively determining the status of non-haredi private lives across the varied Jewish community. In addition, ultra-Orthodox activists flex their political muscle by censoring advertising and movies, organizing consumer boycotts, mounting mass demonstrations, and harassing secular Jews who violate the Sabbath. Once peace-process-disinterested members of various coalition governments, ultra-Orthodox politicians now rank among the most hawkish in the Knesset, defending haredi settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Although less politically cohesive, Israeli Arab voters favor the flip side of the political spectrum, which makes moderate Israelis wonder how their democracy might function should these two groups grow to dominate the electorate.

The article continues with a explanation of how these forces are in part responsible for the rise of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beytenu party as an alternative to the ultra-Orthodox and Arab parties. His proposals like the recently failed loyalty oath legislation and compulsory service requirements have these two groups as dual targets, a means to disenfranchise enough of them to maintain control in more secular hands, (if a tad fascist and discriminatory).

I'll also note this post from Pat Lang's SST, though without a link I cannot verify the numbers and it should be treated as anecdotal.

"In the past few years, a reported one million Israeli Jews have packed their bags and left Israel, going off to, in some cases, their nations of origin, like Canada, the United States, Europe, South Africa, Australia, etc. These are, by and large, the secular, modern Jews, who have given up on Israel as the promised land, and have moved their money out of Israeli banks, sent their children to colleges outside of Israel, etc. It won't show up on the official statistics, because these are mostly dual citizens, who will not necessarily bother to renounce their Israeli citizenship, but several recent visiting scholars from Israel have confirmed that this is true. And the exodus has not ended.

So Israel is being left to religious fanatics, Russian emigres, settlers who are bigger fanatics, and a shrinking percentage of secular pilgrim Jews of the early Zionist period and the post-World War II exodus from Europe. It is a different country, and the last election reflected that tilt. The singular event, highlighting the transformation of Israel was the Rabin assassination, an unprecedented and tragic event, that may be looked back on as the signal event of the failure of the Zionist experiment.

The second paragraph is the one that worries me. Even without the presumed exodus of the secular population, the demographic data in the first article makes clear that the country risks being dominated by ever more radicalized groups in an area that already has a surplus on such populations. There is no way something like that ends well.