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Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Jews Remaining in Jerusalem, Their Holy City, Defying Fake News

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  


"In 1859 in Jerusalem the Jews were a majority and the Muslims did not exceed a fourth of the entire population.
A census was taken in 1864 and found Jerusalem to be 80% Jewish.

Starting in 1878, due the Muslim immigration programs, enormous waves of Muslim immigrants started arriving into Ottoman Syria (part of which became part of the British mandate after the Ottoman empire fell) from a wide range of places across North Africa, Middle East and even Russia and the Balkans. According to historian, Joan Peters, they came looking for jobs with the Jews. It is obvious that a vast majority of Arabs/Muslims calling themselves "Palestinians" today do not have 1000s of years of roots in the land."
Golda Meir making the announcement of the new state of Israel

In 1948, 101,828 immigrated to Israel. 758,702 were Jews. 126,000 were non-Jews. = Total 872,000.

In 1971, 42,000 immigrated to Israel. 2,636,600 were Jews= Total 3,095,100.
Israel had 19 centuries of foreign rule, and the character of the population underwent several changes.
Ottoman Turks

The Ottomans ruled the land from 1516 to 1917. The land was divided into separately administered districts of Sanjalks and Vilayets.

The Ottoman rule and particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries, conditions of insecurity and oppression prevailed throughout the Land. There were incursions by marauding Beduin tribes. There was internal strife between rival local alliances. The number of villages was reduced by about 1/2 between the 16th and the early 19th century. The population of the Land dwindled and at the beginning of the 19th century probably did not exceed 250,000.

During the 2nd half of the 19th century, both communities, Arabs and Jews, began to grow. By 1914, the population of the Land west of the Jordan River was estimated at 680,000 of whom 86,000 were Jews.
Bad times ahead: Sir Edmund Allenby, British military leader,  (1861-1936)enters Jerusalem’s Old City on December 9, 1917 (Photo: 2013 Culture Club): He returned to Jerusalem in 1925 to attend the opening of the Hebrew University.  

Selfish imperial agreements between Britain and France, combined with the publication of the contradictory Balfour Declaration of 1917, fueled hostilities in the Middle East.  

British ruled with the 30 year mandate from 1918 to 1948. In 1922, Britain partitioned the Mandated territory into Palestine (west of the Jordan River,) and Transjordan (east of the Jordan River.) That was a big surprise, not in the original deal.

Palestine became British territory after the First World War under a mandate from the League of Nations; from 1920 Palestine was ruled by a British High Commissioner reporting to the Government’s Colonial Office. Britain’s authority to rule was derived from a League of Nations mandate, written by the British and which included the controversial Balfour Declaration of 1917 which proffered British support for a Jewish National Home in Palestine.
Haifa, the main port of Israel, where I lived for the 1st year. I did enough walking here to last me a life-time. We brought our German shepherd with us, so I walked for an hour with her every day. Everyone wanted to buy her. She was my baby. We were in a 10 month program of learning Hebrew in order to teach English, as we were English teachers. We studied 6 days a week.

Since Israel's birth of May 14, 1948, it's population has grown nearly 5-fold from 650,000 to 3,164,000 by May 1972. Moses arrived at Canaan after the Exodus walk of 40 years with 601,730. They had lost 1,820 during the 40 years walk. Of this new addition, 1,400,000 were immigrants (in Hebrew, Olim). So far, there have been 4 major waves of immigration; between them immigration continued but in reduced volume. The major waves were:

1. May 1948-end of 1961: 754,800 Olim, doubling population-Refugees from Holocaust, high volume from Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia.
2. Entire Jewish communities from Arab countries, including 121,000 out of 130,000 of Jews in Iraq, 44,000 out of 45,000 of Jews of Yemen, 30,500 of Jews of Libya.
3. 1955-1957: 165,000 Jews came from Morocco, Tunisia, Poland, etc. A large number of Jews from Romania arrived under a family reunification scheme.
1961-1964: 215,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe and North Africa.
4. 1967 (6 Day War) there has been a new wave of immigration, principally from countries in North and South America, Western Europe and the Soviet Union.

Danny wearing an Israeli tallit, a much larger one than those used in the USA. I'm on the left in our Safed apartment on ground floor, so they had it furnished with steel bars on windows for protection.We're waiting for our lift to arrive from the States with some furniture.

1972: About 200,000 immigrants had arrived by end of year.
1980: My husband and I made Aliyah. We were of a few Americans, and a lot of Russians. Our Hebrew class in Haifa had over 40 Olim, and had to divide into 3 separate groups. Russians could not return to Russia, so Israel helped them a great deal. I discovered Jews from England, Australia, USA, Holland, South America, every country imaginable, even India and Egypt. My boss, head of the English Dept in Safed was Moroccan. It was the most exciting experience I had ever had.

Mizrachi Jews were mixed in with Sepharic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews, and we saw a cultural gap in education.

Asia and African Jews 13% secondary school in 1956; 44% in 1969-1970
Europe and America: 41% secondary school in 1956; 77% in 1969-1970

The communities of Israel by 1972 were:
Jews: 85.2%; 2,636,600
Moslems; 11.1%; 343,900
Christians: 2.4% 77,300
Druzes, etc. 1.3% 37,300
The State of Israel has a population of approximately 9,227,700 inhabitants as of July 2020.  Out of this number, over 6 million were Jews as of 2015.
 OriginPopulationPercentage
Share2015[28]2008[26]Share20152008
Total
Increase
6,276,8005,523,700
-
100%100%
In 2019, the official number of Arab residents in Israel was 1,890,000 people, representing 21% of Israel's population. 
                                            

This figure includes 209,000 Arabs (14% of the Israeli Arab population) in East Jerusalem, also counted in the Palestinian statistics, although 98 % of East Jerusalem Palestinians have either Israeli residency or Israeli citizenship.  About 82 % of the Arab population in Israel are Sunni Muslims, a very small minority are Shia Muslims, another 9 % are Druze, and around 9 % are Christian (mostly Eastern Orthodox and Catholic denominations).

The Arab Muslim citizens of Israel include also the Bedouins, who are divided into two main groups: 
1. the Bedouin in the north of Israel, who live in villages and towns for the most part, and 
2. the Bedouin in the Negev, who include half-nomadic and inhabitants of towns and Unrecognized villages
                                                 
  Tourists getting a ride on a camel from a Bedouin Arab

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as of 1999, 110,000 Bedouins live in the Negev, 50,000 in the Galilee and 10,000 in the central region of Israel. The vast majority of Arab Bedouins of Israel practice Sunni Islam.

The Maronite Christian community, originally from Lebanon, now in Israel of around 7,000,  resides mostly in the Galilee, with a presence in Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem. It is largely composed of families that lived in Upper Galilee in villages such as Jish long before the establishment of Israel in 1948. In the year 2000, the community was joined by a group of Lebanese SLA militia members and their families, who fled Lebanon after 2000 withdrawal of IDF from South Lebanon.  Their former general had been Israel's good friend, helping to guard the border.  Israel promised to take care of his children if he were killed, and they did.  

In Israel, there are also a few thousand Circassians, living mostly in Kfar Kama (2,000) and Reyhaniye (1,000). These two villages were a part of a greater group of Circassian villages around the Golan Heights. The Circassians in Israel enjoy, like Druzes, a status aparte. Male Circassians (at their leader's request) are mandated for military service, while females are not.  When I lived in Safed (1981-1985) I had several Circassian boys in my Jr. High English class, and they were the best behaved.  Their ancestors have a history as horsemen who rode, keeping watch for the Olim.  They spoke Arabic.  

Religious makeup, 2019
GroupPopulation%
Jews6,697,00074.2%
Muslims1,605,70017.8%
Christians180,4002.0%
Druze143,0001.6%
Other/unknown394,9004.4%
Updste; 10/15/2021---Kurdish Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the Kurdish Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They number between 200,000 to 300,000.



Resource:
Advocates For Israel-Jonah Elshout
Facts About Israel, published by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
Tanakh, Stone Edition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel
https://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/palestine/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_Jews_in_Israel#:~:text=Kurdish%20Jews%20in%20Israel%20are,number%20between%20200%2C000%20to%20300%2C000.

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