Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Facts About Israel - The People
Facts About Israel - The People
THE PEOPLE
Jewish Society 128
Courtesy of the
Israel Museum,
Jerusalem
127
THE PEOPLE
)' א: (תהלים קל"ג.הנה מה טוב ומה נעים שבת אחים גם יחד
... Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers
to dwell in unity. (Psalms 133:1)
128 | The People
JEWISH SOCIETY
The Long Road Home
Following the expulsion of most of the Jews from the Land
of Israel some 2,000 years ago, they 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.
129
Ethiopian
immigrants Continued Ingathering
arriving on
"Operation Over the years, Israel has continued to receive new
Solomon" from
Addis Ababa immigrants in larger and smaller numbers, coming from
•
G.P.O. / Ts. Israeli the free countries of the Western world
as well as from areas of distress. The
most recent wave of mass immigration
was comprised of members of the large
Jewish community of the former Soviet
Union which struggled for years for the
right to emigrate to Israel. While some
100,000 managed to come in the 1970s,
since 1989 over one million have settled
131
Religious Diversity
Since biblical times, the Jews have been a people with a Jerusalem:
Hassic Jews in an
monotheistic faith, Judaism, embodying both a religious ultra-Orthodox
neighborhood
and a national component. By the 18th century most of •
The Ministry
the world’s Jews lived in eastern Europe, of Tourism
where they were confined to ghettos and
had little interaction with the societies
around them. Within their communities,
they managed their own affairs, adhering to
the body of Jewish law (Halakha) which had
been developed and codified by religious
scholars over many centuries.
132 | The People
133
Inter-Jewish Dynamics
As there is no clear separation of religion and state, a
central inter-community issue has been the extent to
which Israel should manifest its Jewish religious identity.
While the Orthodox establishment seeks to augment
religious legislation beyond the scope of personal
status, over which it has exclusive jurisdiction, the non-
observant sector regards this as religious coercion and an
infringement on the democratic nature of the state. One
of the ongoing issues focuses on the elements required to
define a person as a Jew. The Orthodox sector advocates
determining a Jew as one born of a Jewish mother or
who converts in strict accordance with Jewish law, while
secular Jews generally support a definition based on the
civil criterion of an individual’s identification with Judaism.
These conflicts of interest have given rise to a search for
legal means to define the demarcation between religion
and state. Until an overall solution is found, authority
lies in an unwritten agreement, reached on the eve of
Israel’s independence and known as the status quo,
which stipulates that no fundamental changes would
be made in the status of religion.
Kibbutz Society
A unique social and economic framework based on
egalitarian and communal principles, the kibbutz grew
136 | The People
Old City of
Jerusalem: Via MINORITY COMMUNITIES
Dolorosa (Way of
the Cross) and the
souq (market) in Some 1.7 million people, comprising some 24 percent
the Muslim Quarter
• of Israel’s population, are non-Jews. Although defined
The Ministry
of Tourism collectively as Arab citizens of Israel, they
include a number of different, primarily
Arabic-speaking, groups, each with distinct
characteristics.
Arab-Jewish Dynamics
Arab citizens, who constitute more than one-sixth of
Israel’s population, exist on the margins of the conflicting
worlds of Jews and Palestinians. However, while remaining
a segment of the Arab people in culture and identity
and disputing Israel’s identification as a Jewish state,
they see their future tied to Israel. In the process, they
have adopted Hebrew as a second language and Israeli
culture as an extra layer in their lives. At the same time,
they strive to attain a higher degree of participation in
national life, greater integration into the economy and
more benefits for their own towns and villages.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
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
Holy Places
Each site and shrine is administered by its own religious
authority, and freedom of access and worship is ensured
by law. Major holy places are:
I. Sztulman
Mount of Beatitudes: church exterior, Haifa: The Bahai Shrine of the Bab and gardens
traditional site of the Sermon on the Mount •
• The Ministry of Tourism
The Ministry of Tourism