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"All Israel is responsible for one another." (Babylonian Talmud, Shavuot 39a)
Israel's high standards of health services, top-quality medical resources and research, modern hospital facilities and an impressive ratio of physicians and specialists to population are reflected in the country's low infant mortality rate (5.4 per 1,000 live births) and long life expectancy (80.9 years for women, 76.7 for men). Health care for all, from infancy to old age, is ensured by law and the national expenditure on health compares favorably with that of other developed countries.
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The People
... Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity. (Psalms 133:1)
Israel is home to a widely diverse population from many ethnic, religious, cultural and social backgrounds. A new society with ancient roots, it is still coalescing and evolving today. Of its 6.4 million people, 77.8 percent are Jews, 17.3 percent are Arabs (mostly Muslim) and the remaining 4.9 percent comprise Druze, Circassians and others not classified by religion. The society is relatively young and characterized by social and religious commitment, political ideology, economic resourcefulness and cultural creativity, all of which contributes momentum to its continuing development.
Women in Israel
Women's lobbies are today more prominent than ever, contributing to the advancement of the status of women in Israel, through appeals to the High Court of Justice and the blocking of discriminatory legislation.
Jewish Society
Following their expulsion from the Land of Israel some 2,000 years ago, the Jews were dispersed to other countries, mainly in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Over the centuries, they established many large Jewish communities in lands near and far where they experienced long periods of growth and prosperity, but were also subjected at times to harsh discrimination, brutal pogroms and total or partial expulsions. Each wave of persecution and violence strengthened their belief in the concept of the 'ingathering of the exiles' and inspired individuals and groups to return to their ancestral homeland. The Zionist movement, founded at the end of the 19th century, transformed the concept into a way of life, and the State of Israel translated it into law, granting citizenship to every Jew wishing to settle in the country.
Minority Communities
Some 1.5 million people, comprising some 23 percent of Israel's population, are non-Jews. Although defined collectively as Arab citizens of Israel, they include a number of different, primarily Arabic-speaking, groups, each with distinct characteristics.
Muslim Arabs, almost one million people, most of whom are Sunni, reside mainly in small towns and villages, over half of them in the north of the country.
Bedouin Arabs, also Muslim (estimated at some 170,000), belong to some 30 tribes, a majority scattered over a wide area in the south. Formerly nomadic shepherds, the Bedouin are currently in transition from a tribal social framework to a permanently settled society and are gradually entering Israel's labor force.
Christian Arabs, some 113,000, live mainly in urban areas, including Nazareth, Shfar'am and Haifa. Although many denominations are nominally represented, the majority are affiliated with the Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
The Druze, some 106,000 Arabic-speakers living in 22 villages in northern Israel, constitute a separate cultural, social and religious community. While the Druze religion is not accessible to outsiders, one known aspect of its philosophy is the concept of taqiyya, which calls for complete loyalty by its adherents to the government of the country in which they reside.
The Circassians, comprising some 3,000 people concentrated in two northern villages, are Sunni Muslims, although they share neither the Arab origin nor the cultural background of the larger Islamic community. While maintaining a distinct ethnic identity, they participate in Israel's economic and national affairs without assimilating either into Jewish society or into the Muslim community. |
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The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (1948) guarantees freedom of religion for all. Each religious community is free, by law and in practice, to exercise its faith, to observe its holidays and weekly day of rest and to administer its internal affairs. Each has its own religious council and courts, recognized by law and with jurisdiction over all religious affairs and matters of personal status such as marriage and divorce. Each has its own unique places of worship, with traditional rituals and special architectural features developed over the centuries.
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Israel is an old-new country, small in size, but with a culturally active, heterogeneous population. Four thousand years of Jewish heritage, over a century of Zionism, and more than half a century of modern statehood have contributed to a culture which has already created an identity of its own, while preserving the uniqueness of 70 different communities.
A largely immigrant society, Israel's creative expression has absorbed many different cultural and social influences, as it blends tradition and innovation, and strives to steer a course between Israeli particularism and universalism.
The constant search for cultural identity is expressed through creativity in a broad range of art forms, appreciated and enjoyed by a great many people as part of daily life.
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Agriculture in Israel is the success story of a long, hard struggle against adverse conditions and of making maximum use of scarce water and arable land. When Jews began resettling their historic homeland in the late 19th century, their first efforts were directed - mostly for ideological reasons - to turning barren land into fertile fields. The secret of Israel's present agricultural success lies in the close interaction between farmers and government-sponsored researchers, who cooperate in developing and applying sophisticated methods in all agricultural branches, as well as technological advancement, new irrigation techniques and innovative agromechanical equipment.
Since Israel attained independence in 1948, the total area under cultivation has increased by a factor of 2.6 to approximately 1.1 million acres. The irrigated land area increased by a factor of 8 to about 0.6 million acres until the mid 1980s; however, owing to the growing shortage of water - coupled with intensive urbanization - this has now come down to less than half a million acres. During the past half century the number of agricultural settlements grew from 400 to 750, but the share of the population living in them has fallen from 12 percent to less than 5 percent.
Today, most of Israel's food is domestically produced and supplemented by imports, mainly of grain, oilseeds, meat, coffee, cocoa and sugar, all of which are more than covered by agricultural exports. Farm production consists largely of dairy and poultry products as well as a large variety of flowers, fruit and vegetables. During the winter months, Israel is Europe's greenhouse, exporting long-stemmed roses, spray carnations, melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, kiwis, mangoes, avocados and a wide variety of citrus fruits.
The share of agricultural product in the GNP declined from 11 percent to 1.5 percent between 1950 and 2001, and the proportion of agricultural exports decreased from 60 percent to 2.2 percent of total exports. This, despite an absolute increase of annual exports from $20 million in 1950 to $782 million in 1999 (though down to $630 million in 2001) due, inter alia, to the widespread introduction of innovative farming methods and export-oriented farming. |
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Israel, with a population that has increased from 800,000 in 1948 to 5.6 million today, is the only developed country in the world in which population continues to grow against a backdrop of population density. In fact, according to Israel's master plan for the 21st century, Israel, in the area north of Be'er Sheva (where 92% of the population is concentrated), will be the most densely populated country in the world within thirty years - if present trends continue. The master plan anticipates that by the year 2020, the country's population will exceed 8 million, its built-up space will treble, and the number of cars on its roads will increase three-fold, reaching 3.6 million. Without wise planning, the Israel of tomorrow may well resemble a never-ending field of asphalt and concrete, its air polluted, its groundwater contaminated, its serenity disturbed by traffic noise and pollution. But a different vision is also possible.
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Holocaust (Sho'ah in Hebrew) is the name given to the twelve-year period in which the Nazis implemented their schemes to exterminate European Jewry. Beginning in 1933 when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, millions of Jews were subjected to humiliation, discrimination, slave labor, torture and death. The Nazis and their collaborators in other countries hunted down every Jew - from the prominent professional to the lowly laborer - in their relentless pursuit of the ultimate "solution" to the "Jewish question".
Please click here for an introduction to the series on the Holocaust.
Please click here for a list of websites on Holocaust. |
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