Happy 61st Birthday, Israel
At the birth of Israel in 1948, the population was 806,000, 35% native born and the rest immigrants. Tel Aviv was the only city in Israel with more than 100,000 residents.
At 61, Israel's population is 7,411,000 - an increase of 125,000 over this time last year. There were 154,000 babies and more than 12,000 immigrants last year, creating a growth rate of 1.8%. Native-born Israelis account for 70% of the Jewish population with at least half being second generation Israelis. About 75% of Israel's population is Jewish, 20% Arab and about 5% "other." There are 14 cities with populations greater than 100,000 - and five with more than 200,000.
Israel has accomplishments galore - its democratic system, free press, independent judiciary, and high tech industry are the envy of much of the world. Its tremendous agricultural and medical innovations are shared around the world. Israel's ranks among the highest in literacy rates, computer ownership, book purchasing, college degrees and symphony subscriptions. Israel boasts a mighty military that has retained its humanity despite facing a decades long terror war. Underpinning all these achievement is an almost unprecedented willingness and capacity for self-examination and self-criticism.
But population figures have their own compelling logic.
In the last part of the 20th Century, overpopulation was an idée fixe among social scientists. Fear of running out of resources - food, fuel, water - led to predictions of famine and led China and India to adopt radical population policies.
In the first part of the 21st Century, declining and aging populations have become the norm. AIDS has decimated large swaths of Africa; Japan and the Western European countries face declining and aging populations as people have one child - or none. The birthrate line in the Muslim world is downward - including in the West Bank and Gaza.
Demographer Nicholas Eberstadt drew a devastating picture of the current and future decline of the Russian population, owing to disease, drink and abortion. China's one-child policy coupled with the availability of abortion has led to a dramatic imbalance in the male and female populations that will have a major societal impact when they reach adulthood. In the United States, it is not uncommon to hear couples talk about children as a strain on the ecology.
During the large Russian immigration of the early 1990s, an Israeli parliamentarian was asked if Israel would prefer that there be fewer immigrants to ease the social and financial strain on the country. "Give me another million," he said. "More people working, thinking, building and creating." They fueled the high-tech boom.
Even more than immigration, it takes a certain general optimism and faith in one's country to have a baby.
Over the past two years, Israel has seen a happy spike in the numbers of births per thousand as well as a spike in immigration. It is a testament to Israel and its people that, under relentless threat (and some cheap shots from those who should be its allies), Israelis are growing their country.
Happy Birthday, Israel and many more.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment