What Israeli Jews Are Made Up Of; Comparing People to USA

Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

Jews who survived the attack  in 70 CE taken as slaves, forced to carry the spoils of war from the Temple in Jerusalem to Rome.  This is on the arch of Titus in Rome today.    Arch of Titus, Rome, after 81 C.E., marble, 7 feet,10 inches high.      The start of living in the Diaspora.  

                                                       

These people above could have some Jewish genes.  We've scattered throughout the world, just now finding Pashtuns of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India who have the oral history pointing to being the Lost Ten Tribes.  We've been in China but I don't know about Japan.  We've been in South Africa and Northern Africa, but the center?  Yes, we have found some from there, too.  

                                                  

The big question has always been, what is a Jew?  Is it a religion, race or a nationality.  It is both.  It started being told by G-d through Moses to live in Canaan, which was what Eretz Yisrael was first called.  They probably came there from Egypt in 1151 BCE as Moses died in 1271 BCE at age 120.  They had arrived in Egypt from Canaan some 400 years earlier as the  family of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. 

                                                   

 According to DNA's autosomal DNA testing today, we are finding out that we are an endogamous society, having done a lot of intermarrying among our family members throughout time due to societal circumstances. Our marrying has mainly been happening with cousins, not siblings like Egypt had practiced.   

                                                  

 Israel is 73 years old,  born May 14, 1948.    In 2019, those from 0 to age 14 made up 27.89% of the population,  Those from 15 to 64 made up 59.91% and from age 65 up made up 12.21% of the population.   

The demographics also show us that the population as of July of last year, 2020, was 9,227,2000 with 74.2% being Jews.  That amounts to 6,829,000 of Israel are Jews, which is why Israel came into being in the first place.  In 1948, there were 101,828 immigrants in Israel of which 758,702 were Jews and 126,000 were non-Jews with a total of 872,000.  That's coming into Israel made up of about 8,000 sq miles.  By 1971, immigration was 42,000 of which 2,636, 600 were Jews and 458,500 were Jews  with a total of 3,095,100.  Jewish immigrants continue to enter.  Israel must keep the 80%-20% Jewish identity of the country.  After 3,000 some years of history, we find that the past 2,000 without a home has been destructive.  If we are to continue, so must our country. That's why I'm a nationalist.  Our society has value.

                                             

Albert Einstein was a German Ashkenazi Jew from Germany with an IQ of 180. 

Albert Einstein and all other Ashkenazi Jews can trace their roots to a group of about 330 people who lived during the Middle Ages, a new study finds.

(Associated Press)

                                                   

 Sephardi Jews (Hebrew: סְפָרַדִּי, Modern Sfaraddi Tiberian Səp̄āraddî) is a general term referring to the descendants of Jewish settlers who trace their origins to the Israelite tribes of the Middle East, who lived in the Iberian Peninsula until the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy, or would otherwise define themselves in terms of Jewish customs and traditions from the Iberian Peninsula.

As of 2010, there were about 14 million Jews around the world, representing 0.2% of the global population. In 2050, the Jewish population is expected to number about 16 million. The share of the world’s population that is Jewish – 0.2% – is expected to remain about the same in 2050 as it was in 2010.

By continents, from 1919 Jews making aliyah were mainly from from the Americas, Europe and Oceanica in the amount of 385,066, and from Asia and Africa were 44,809 with a total of 452,158.  From 1965 to 1969, immigration from the Americas, Europe and Oceania was 48,609; and from Asia and Africa were 56,035 with a total of 104,955,  

                                                        

You'd have to study the "Old Testament" carefully to understand our history of being one of the Jewish people.  Those are our ancestors.  We'll look at what has happened to Jews of today. We're a people, a family, and  a religion differing from all others in the world.  

   Both are Jews in Israel.  Both could be Orthodox. Jews make up only 0.02% of the world population. One could be Ashkenazi, the other Sephardi.  They could find that they share segments of their DNA.   

                                                  

 Israel was created as a haven in 1948 for the scattered Jews of the world of which most were  under threat of extinction by their host countries, for very few of them had allowed Jews citizenship by 1920, the time after World War I. Zionists, that is, people believing that Jews needed to return to their ancestral original home that was now Palestine but had been Israel. In the past it was called Judah, the southern part of Israel, and even that went through name changes as Rome overcame Judah and renamed it Judah or Judaea in 70 CE.  From then on, Jews have been scattered,  with a large group having being led to Rome, while others headed for Spain which gives us the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi groups of Jews.                          

Mazkeret Batya's Great Synagogue on 1 Eliyahu Boulevard, designed by architect Pinhas Nit, is one of the most beautiful temples in Israel. It was built almost 100 years ago and is located in a dramatic place – the entrance to the central Israeli town.  The building has a beautiful entrance with a large arch welcoming its visitors. It is an interesting building with beauty marking the end of the 19th century. It has an atmosphere of the past and a lot of simplicity. The place is reminiscent of synagogues in Europe, with towers on the sides – almost as if it was brought in from Poland, but with a local flavor. Its compactness resembles the spirit of the rural houses of the baron's colony.  A Temple usually signifies being a Reform Synagogue.  Mazkeret Batya is a local council in central Israel located southeast of Rehovot and 25 kilometres from Tel-Aviv. Mazkeret Batya spans an area of 7,440 dunams. In 2019 it had a population of 14,837. The mayor of Mazkeret Batya is Gaby Gaon.

                                                                              

This is the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem.  I was in it and was wowed!  As early as 1923 the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Abraham Kook and Jacob Meir, mooted plans for a large central synagogue in Jerusalem. It was over 30 years later in 1958 when Heichal Shlomo, seat of the Israeli Rabbinate, was founded, that a small synagogue was established within the building. As time passed and the need for more space grew, services were moved and held in the foyer of Heichal Shlomo. Soon afterwards, when the premises could not hold the number of worshippers attending, it was decided that a new, much larger synagogue be built. Here it is.  

it is not important today in Israel whether you are Ashkenazi or Sephardi, Conservative or Orthodox.  Today, being religious or secular seems to be the dividing measuring stick of more use in matters.  It's something important to Prime Ministers as to how to budget for a coming year.      

In Israel, very few Jews identify with Conservative (2%) or Reform (3%) Judaism, while half (50%) identify with Orthodoxy – including many Jews who are not highly religiously observant but may still be most familiar with Orthodox Judaism.   Therefore, at least half of the Jewish population may have identified 

themselves with thereligious.                                         

  Our apartment building across the street from my junior high in Safed; with my German Shepherd that we flew there with us, and our new Fiat shipped from Italy.  We bought it out of a catalogue at the dealer's store.  I loved it.  After going a year without a car, this spoiled American was so grateful to finally have it.  As I said, Israel is very conscious of whether you were religious or not, and my head-scarf shows that I am religious-a learning one, as in the USA we were conservative.  We moved to Israel after a scare of real anti-Semitism that had hit in my husband's high school in Adrian, Oregon and to help help Israel being English-speaking teachers.  Danny was very helpful as in high school, English is a priority to get into many colleges or universities.  Israeli pilots have to have such a degree.  Though he was an outstanding teacher in Oregon, teaching was too difficult for Danny. He had only been an Oregon teacher for a few years in Oregon, and didn't have enough skills needed in handling such situations where he was limited verbally.  I think the change was hardest on men.  At least it was in our small group of immigrants of 40  attending classes in Hebrew.  

All men and women have to serve in the IDF, the Israel Defense Force. They do this from age 18 to possibly age 55. Danny had been in the Air Force in Florida and guarded planes but didn't pass the physical in Israel with his lung condition.                                            

    Our apartment in Safed with bars on the windows-ground floor apartment.  I had the use of the building's merapeset, the outside patio.  Here I am in 1981 waiting for my lift to be delivered with our furniture from Oregon.  I'm sitting on an Israeli cot-bed that I have thrown a throw over, using it as the living-room sofa temporarily.  

 During times of stress, though they may have already served their time, can be called in to serve for that period of stress.  This happened when I lived in Safed (Tzfat) when all available teachers were called back in.  I as an American newbie, ran to my junior high and replaced those called in without even being told to do so.  The children were showing signs of great stress, curling up in corners of the classroom and crying, telling me to keep talking, while we could hear the helicopters overhead landing on the roof of the hospital across the street of David Eleazar, delivering their fathers, uncles, brothers and even the injured enemy to be made whole again.  

Part of my duty as a new immigrant was to give blood soon after arrival, an insurance to receive if ever I needed some.  My older students in the  (Zion, Khet Tet)  group acted as linguists, translators from Arabic to Hebrew for the doctors.  They returned to me, telling me all about their experience as best as they could.  I got the idea that they saw some shocking cases. 9th graders in the USA would have had such an experience.  That group of 9th (Tet) graders was the lowest in English but the highest in behavior.  They were so patient and quiet, made up mostly of Circassian Arabs.    

This is the time of Return of Jews to Israel from all over the world.  It was prophecized to happen at just about this time, surprisingly to most of us, amazed that prophecy was correct.  The USA has always stood as the MELTING POT OF THE WORLD.  Now, it appears, that Israel has also become the JEWISH MELTING POT, and the pot is ever so much tinier!  

So now we have a multiplicity of languages being spoken which are highlighted by speaking basically  either Yiddish or Ladino who are all using Hebrew as their day to day language of their newly revitalized Israel.  My paternal grandparents who made it from Lithuania/Poland to the USA could only speak Yiddish and that was that.  Neither could read nor write.  Such was their life.  They were among the poor who made it to the USA on or before 1905.  

 Arriving at Ben Gurion Airport in September 1980 from Portland, OR

I made Aliyah in 1980.  So who else returned besides us?  Right across the street in another building, a couple from Portland had moved in, and his father had known my father, but we had never met.    They were in the same business!  Of course we had the Sam Singers over for dinner and he was already in the Israeli IDF.  Later on, in another apartment building across the street moved in people that were Black Ethiopians.  We shared the same supermarket.  This was such an exciting period.  I even wrote a book about it all.  

Update: 6/7/2021  I found my 3rd cousin in Jerusalem, Stanley Goldfoot, who had been in Israel since before 1948.  In fact, he was the chief of Intelligence for the Stern group.  We met in the King David Hotel.  He had written, A Letter To The World.  He gave me inspiration.  

Golda Meir announcing the birth of their nation, Israel.  

So we have strong Zionists who made it to Palestine starting in the 1880's who arrived through 5 Aliyah groupings.  They were mostly Ashkenazis.  Palestine still had Jews living there that stayed on after 70 CE and kept things going through many attacks from different groups, with the Ottoman Empire taking the land and holding it for 400 years, a time that ended with World War I after they lost with their axis Germany by 1918.  These people would be the Mizrachi group who knew how to read and write Arabic as well as Hebrew and had come from the surrounding area in and beyond Palestine in the Middle East.

                                               

 Out of a POW camp and into Israel, fighting another war

Israel would never have appeared on the scene again after 2,000 years of hoping, waiting and praying 3 times a day without a drastic reason to leave host countries, and the impossible happened with the Holocaust.  It's like an island set aside for an endangered species, the Jews.  The difference between an animal's life and the Jews' lives in Israel is that they forgot to take out the people who wanted to destroy them, the Palestinians, who were used as the main ammunition to use against them.  Now , the ones who stayed and didn't leave when their leaders ordered them to have left their descendants who are learning to live together in peace.  That still allows our refuge to be about 80% Jewish and 20% Arab Israelis.   

                                   Hamas hitting Israel :  By 22 September 2005, Israel's withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip to the 1967 Green Line, and the eviction of the four settlements in Samaria, was completed. In June 2007 Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority.

It doesn't consider the Palestinian Gazans  who have been making war on Israel ever since Jews expelled themselves from the area to allow Arabs to live there.  The act gave no peace at all to the Israelis who only wound up giving the enemy a closer place in which to fire their rockets from.  All the while in the background, the other nations call out, create a Palestine, as if that will change their minds after signing onto an agreement to not ever make peace with Jews.  This is what Jews of Israel have to deal with.  Already an enemy, hateful Palestinians on their border who keep on shooting led by Hamas, terrorists.   What kind of Jew in Israel is all for this distorted state of affairs?  Note that there are 20% Arabs who also vote in elections.  

The USA was born through discovery of the continent and then later knowing that all that land was there for the picking.  Any overcrowded and disturbed or unhappy person was free to take their chances and enter as long as they were healthy enough.  The United States became a country in 1776 and had enough of a population by then, starting with 13 colonies.  They have grown to have 50 states.  Israel's size can be compared with their smallest state of Rhode Island.  

The religion of the USA was started by Christians who were dissatisfied with Christianity in England and had moved to Holland with their own branch of Christianity.  Though they don't announce it, the USA is a Christian state just by % of the people.  Following them were all the other branches of Christianity while Islam stayed in the Middle East.  In the early days when New York was called New Amsterdam, a small boat-load of Jews arrived and were denied entrance.  Finally, that was cleared up and Peter Stuyvesant had to allow them entrance, though they were Jews, a people he hadn't much contact with, since Jews had not been allowed to live in England from 1290 until 1655, a total of 365 years, and we all know that the Mayflower sailed to America in 1620 with the Puritans and a few others. 

 I'd say that we Jews have entered a land already conditioned not to accept us, and our ancestors had to win them over.  Jews have faced discrimination in the US ever since in different degrees.

                                                  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed an IDF officers' course graduation ceremony today at IDF Training Base #1.

Israelis seem to have identified with Netanyahu's brand of seeing what Jews were for the past 12 years, and are now going for a change and are leaning away from the more dominant Orthodox view of themselves.  Netanyahu had coalesced with the more orthodox though he isn't himself.  He had to do a lot of appeasing, in my opinion to last for 12 years straight under dire conditions.   We shall see what the future has in store with a new coalition formed under Bennett and Yapid who are pasting together quite a diversity. They sound a little like the old Labor group to me.  I think anyone against Netanyahu today gives the whole voting scene a superficial scan.  So far the paste has only been the dislike of Netanyahu.  That may turn out to be a very weak paste. We await the results for many things, the respite  in the Gazan War, Netanyahu's chances to stay in government and etc.   

Jews in the USA, South Africa, England, etc, have to think of themselves and ask the question of what's important:  Are they religious or secular and where does Israel fit into their picture of themselves. So are we Zionists or not?  Another question:  What do you think will happen if Israel disappeared or was not a Jewish state anymore?  All this depends on the make-up of today's Israelis.  

The question of being religious or secular comes from our beginnings which were religious history, recorded by Moses himself for the first 5 books.  Judaism is on the line, defended only by our handful of Jews and our friends.   

Jews born and raised in Israel are called "Sabras".  It a tough cactus.  They are on the outside, but they are soft inside.  

Watch the news about Israel on TV:  There's more to us than being just a Democratic Society like England or the USA.  

ILTV Israel News - YouTube

i24NEWS English - YouTube

TV7 Israel News YouTube Channel

- 12 minutes daily

Resource

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/roman/early-empire/v/arch-of-titus-relief

https://www.statista.com/statistics/526596/age-structure-in-israel/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stuyvesant

http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/religions/jews

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel

Letters From Israel, by Nadene Goldfoot

How A Failing Population Became the Best In The World

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

                    John Robinson, Reverend (1575-1624) who sent Puritans over to America on          the  ship, The Mayflower.  He died in Holland.

The USA is unlike any established European country.  It was created by the failures of the world.  What was going on in Europe in the 1600s was that the eldest son inherited the land, property, the estates of his fathers.  The other sons received none of this.  They had to make do some other way. "In law, primogeniture is the rule of inheritance whereby land descends to the oldest son. Under the feudal system of medieval Europe, primogeniture generally governed the inheritance of land held in military tenure (see knight)".  Real estate (land) passed to the eldest male descendant by operation of law.

The Puritans were unwanted in England as they didn't want to follow the established religion of the king's choice.  They had moved to Holland for a better life but found their children speaking Dutch as their 1st language. They moved because their religious views weren't allowed.   They realized that with the discovery of a new land, they had a chance to live the life they wanted and needed. Another group arrived earlier and made it to the South, Jamestown in Virginia.  They were more business centered, and wanted a start in life.  

 There was more enthusiasm within the young sons of the establishments of Europe.  A fleet of ships went over to America in 1630.  This continued.  They saw they  could make their own fortunes in this new land.                                                     

                           Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) Jewish poet

 By 1886 France sent over a gift;  the Statue of Liberty, that said,   "Give me your tired, your poor,  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!". This was written by Emma Lazarus, part of her poem entitled, The Colossus.                                    

 The statue was built in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe's Island. The statue's completion was marked by New York's first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

Emma Lazarus was born in New York City, July 22, 1849, into a large Sephardic Jewish family. She was the fourth of seven children of Moses Lazarus, a wealthy Jewish merchant and sugar refiner, and Esther Nathan. One of her great-grandfathers on the Lazarus side was from Germany; the rest of her Lazarus and Nathan ancestors were originally from Portugal and resident in New York long before the American Revolution, being among the original twenty-three Portuguese Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam fleeing the Inquisition from their settlement of Recife, Brazil. Lazarus's great-great-grandmother on her mother's side, Grace Seixas Nathan (born in New York in 1752) was also a poet. Lazarus was related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Her siblings included sisters Josephine, Sarah, Mary, Agnes and Annie, and a brother, Frank.

Privately educated by tutors from an early age, she studied American and British literature as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian. She was attracted in youth to poetry, writing her first lyrics when eleven years old.

Emma was fortunate to have come from a wealthy Jewish family, as later 

Ashkenazi Jews of Europe who were of a poor lot came over and had 

no one to help them except themselves which they did.  

Emma's Sephardic background was also one of fear and hunger ever since 1492

and the Spanish inquisition with Jews leaving Spain, forced to leave as

unwanted people.  

Jews have settled in New York state since the 17th century. In August 1654, the first known Jewish settler, Jacob Barsimson of Dutch or German origin, arrived a month before the 1st group of 23 Jews in 1654, came to New Amsterdam. The Dutch colonial port city was the seat of the government for the New Netherland territory and became New York City in 1664.  One thing about Jacob was that he was a champion of equal rights for the Jews in New Amsterdam.  He insisted upon his right to render guard duty in place of paying a fine or tax.  

The first significant group of Jewish settlers came in September 1654 as refugees from Recife, Brazil to New Amsterdam. Portugal had just conquered Brazil from the Dutch Republic and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews there promptly fled. A group of 23 Jewish immigrants in New Amsterdam was greeted by director general Peter Stuyvesant who was at first unwilling to accept them.

The Jewish population in New York City went from about 80,000 in 1880 to 1.6 million in 1920. By 1910, more than 1 million Jews made up 25 percent of New York's population and made it the world's largest Jewish city. As of 2016, about 1.1 million residents of New York City, or about 12 percent of its residents, were Jewish. New York state has about 1.75 million Jews, comprising approximately 9 percent of its total population.  Many Ashkenazi Jews came over in the late 1800s and early 1900s till about 1920 when the door closed to them. 

  This period of immigration came to an end with the passage of restrictive laws in 1921 and 1924. Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe to the United States never again reached the levels that it did before 1920.  In 1921 and 1924, the US Congress passed immigration laws that severely limited the number and “national origin” of new immigrants. These laws did not change in the 1930s, as desperate Jewish refugees attempted to immigrate from Nazi Germany.  Jews had problems entering the USA at this time  and Palestine in the 30s; with Palestine by the English who held the mandate and who were allowing Arabs in instead.  Other countries kept them out for reasons that they had no baptism certifications, needed to enter.  

My grandfather, Nahum Abraham Goldfus/foot came over from Lithuania and was found on the 1910 census in Portland, Oregon, but was killed accidently with his horse and wagon in an accident in July 1912.  He may have entered around 1905, as a son was born here in 1906.  

All sorts of Robinsons followed John.  Robinson became the 16th most popular surname, but John never made it over.  He did send his son, Isaac over, though.  Frank Hugh Robinson was born to an Abiathar Smith Robinson of Vermont or New York, since Vermont had been formed out of New York and Frank had lost track of his original ancestor who arrived from Great Britain.  His father was a teamster, a popular choice of work since men of those days were so used to handling horses and Abiathar had a farm with horses and cattle, so was a farmer first.  Frank became a teamster, too.  All immigrants who first came over were farmers.  They wanted land.  

New England had been settled first by the English.  There were plenty of French, Spanish, Dutch and even Russian colonial outposts on the American continent–but the story of those 13 colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia) is an important one. It was those colonies that came together to form the United States.

The United states grew from the first 13.  it became a melting pot, a mixture of all sorts of people from all corners of the world.  The only other country following in these footsteps now, is Israel, a  protective habitat for Jews from all corners of the world.  It's the time of the prophesized Ingathering. Just as people chose America, Jews are choosing to return to Israel.                                           

Israel has been the #1 leading nation of Start Ups, the starting up of new industry.  In fact, there is a book out about it.  "Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle is a 2009 book by Dan Senor and Saul Singer about the economy of Israel".  Israel was the country in the waiting for 2,000 years since 70 CE that was rebirthed on May 14, 1948, a very new nation making waves of success with the aid of its big brother, the USA another new nation only 245 years old on July 4, 2021. Both are made up of immigrants and some native peoples.  The immigrants were fighting for their lives to succeed as they had nowhere else to go.  So were the natives.  

it's important for the USA to remember why it has been a leader and are a country of leadership.  They need not follow Europe, as Europe needs the USA to lead us into the future.  What we need Europe for is to remember our past and not make similar mistakes that they have made, and to remember those efforts that were successful.  

I like what our 35th President John Fitzgerald Kennedy reminded us of:  "Ask not what can the country do for you, but what you can do for your country."  We need to remember our Constitution and what it stands for-and have some self control and use our heads and think about our actions.       

In 1790 we had 3,929,214 people.  

In 2020 we had 330,000,000 people.  A lot of people have immigrated to this country.  They have wanted to be Americans for many reasons.  It continues to be the grand young country and is just going through a growing pains period right now, but it will mature quickly and be better than ever for it, for it learns from its experiences.  Remember, on July 4th it will only be 245 years old !  Compared to Europe, that's a baby, but a baby genius!                          

Now that land has been spoken for, and there is no more left like there was in the 1600s, we are facing a new frontier-outer space.  That's where future dare-devils; people needing to explore and discover, will be going next.  We even have a space program set up and have been doing some explorations already.  We have NASA.  

Resource:

updated: 1/13/21 at midnight

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/united-states-immigration-and-refugee-law-1921-1980

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_colonization_of_the_Americas#Southern_Colonies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_inheritance_systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture#:~:text=In%20law%2C%20primogeniture%20is%20the,military%20tenure%20(see%20knight).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty

https://poets.org/poem/new-colossus?gclid=Cj0KCQiArvX_BRCyARIsAKsnTxO52dqUdstKzLtYEjlW-ILBBLxecELx5MN8hhKx0uJl-GjTkLx1Oq4aAsBrEALw_wcB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html

https://2020census.gov/en/focus/years-counting.html

Sephardi Beauty Who Sings As Well: Yasmin Levy

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

Yasmin Levy -Turkish Jew b: December 23, 1975

Yasmin Levy  יסמין לוי‎  is a superstar from Israel.  She is a singer and songwriter who is Sephardim with a father from Izmir, Turkey.  Yasmin was born in Jerusalem. 

 Her father, Yitzhak "Isaac" Levy (1919-1977) was a composer and Hazzan (Cantor) in the synagogue.  He was also a pioneer researcher into the long and rich history of the Ladino music and culture of Spanish Jewry and its diaspora, being the editor of the Ladino language magazine, Aki Yerushalyim.  Ladino is the language of the Sephardim, a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish.  They were not Yiddish speakers of the Ashkenazi which was a mixture of Hebrew and German.  
                                                                         

Me, the flamenco dancer in 1949 in Oregon who studied with Therese Stopper, had no idea it was connected to our Jewish roots.  It just reached my heart, and I'm Ashkenazi!  

Spanish music is my favorite.  When I was around 13 years old I took up Spanish dancing after having studied tap, ballet and toe dancing.  I did the classical and flamenco dancing.  After dancing to this music, nothing else matches its intensity and rhythm.  It's in my heart forever.  
                                                                           

2008 Yasmin Levy, vocalist of Judeo-Spanish music: yasminlevy.net

                                                                                  

Ofra Haza (November 19, 1957-February 23, 2000, Israeli singer from Yemen, messo-soprano

Yasmin has a distinctive and emotive style, just as Ofra Haza did with her music reflecting Yemen.  Yasmin had a debut album called Romance & Yasmin in 2000, which earned her a nomination as "Best Newcomer" for the Roots BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards 2005.  She then followed that up in 2005 with her 2nd album called "La Juderia" (Spanish:  The Jewish Quarter).  
                                                                            

Yasmin singing La Alegria (Happiness)

In 2006 she was nominated again, then in the category of "Culture Crossing."  Levy's work earned her the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation Award for promoting cross-cultural dialogue between musicians from 3 cultures.  In her own words, she said, "I am proud to combine the 2 cutures of Ladino and flamaenco, while mixing in Middle Eastern influences.  I am embarking on a 500 year old musical journey, taking Ladino to Andalusia and mixing it with flamenco, the style that still bears the musical memories of the old Moorish and Jewish-Spanish world with the sound of the Arab world.  In a way, it is a "Musical reconciliation" of history.  

I have a  Pashtun friend in Pakistan about the same age as Yasmin.  I saw the picture of Yasmin and didn't know who she was.  My Pashtun friend identified her for me, so her music has reached very far.  He also has a positive feeling for Israel, maybe to her credit.  Music does jump across barriers.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYgcBo802ro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPOpcAp_qnU  La Alegria by Yasmin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cshqbi871Gc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdcusOXh_f8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P64JVWSXbts  
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasmin_Levy#Biography

Land of Israel and How It Grew and How Many Had to Leave

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

Moses left Egypt with a mixed multitude of 600,000 Jews of the 12 tribes of Jacob and others who were all slaves.  They headed for Canaan in 1311 BCE, and it took them 40 years to get there, so they entered Canaan in 1271 BCE.    Led by Joshua by then, they were to  establish Israel. Israel would be divided into Israel and Judea in 921 BCE and Babylonia's attack in 597 and 586 BCE would bring about an end to their independence.  Jerusalem would be taken by the Romans in 70 CE.
                                                                     

Chaim Weizmann before becoming Israel's first President and Emir Feisal in Agreement about Israel.
                                                                             

 Moshe Dayan (1915-1981) Haganah member, Palmah, Fought in War of Independence
                                                                           

                                                 David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)

Jump to May 14, 1948, 3,219 years later,  and Israel was again created with David Ben Gurion as its first Prime Minister and state's main founder after 1,878 years of waiting.  It started at that time with 650,000 Jews.  Jews still lived on the land, but many families formerly exiled started to return once again after almost  painful  2 millennium of being parted from their homeland..

In 1948, there was an exchange of peoples.  Almost 700,000 Jewish immigrants, almost half the total of the 1,400,000 immigrants that would return in the next 24 years,  came as destitute refugees from Muslim countries.  At the creation of Palestine they were kicked out of their adopted countries.  There, they had been treated as dhimmis, a 2nd class citizen.

The number matches that of the Palestinian Arabs, 700,000 people who had come from nearby countries looking for jobs from the Jews who were building Tel Aviv in the late 1800's as well as other places.  A few had been there longer, but not many.  Then there were Bedouins who wandered about the lands, as well and had stayed.  They chose not to stay at the beginning of the War of Independence 1947-1949 and at the insistence of their leadership, had left and became refugees, a problem to this very day, 700,000 refugees who have grown to several million.

By May 1972, Israel's population had grown to 3,164,000, or 5 times what it was at the start in those 24 years.  1,400,000 were immigrants or Olim.  There were 4 waves of immigration with people coming in between the waves:
1. May 1948 to 1951---754,800 Olim entered Israel including:
     a. Refugees from Holocaust in Europe, Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia
     b. Entire Jewish communities from Arab countries:
          (1) 121,000 out of 130,000 of Jews in Iraq
          (2)  44,000 out of 45,000 of Jews of Yemen
         (3) . 30,500 out of 35,000 of Jews of Libya

2. 1955 to 1957---165,000  Jews came from Morocco, Tunisia, Poland and other places
                              A large number came from Romania under a family reunification scheme as many had                                  come in late 1800's.

3. 1961 to 1964---215,056 Jew came mainly from Eastern Europe and North Africa.

4. 1967 and Six Day War to 1972 ---Jews came from North and South America, Western Europe and Soviet Union. Finally about 200,000 immigrants had arrived.

In 24 Years, 1,400,000 Immigrants Had Immigrated to Israel.

1. On October 6, 1973, hoping to win back territory lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war, in 1967, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a coordinated attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Besides being faced with the problems of integration, both culturally of coming from the Middle East or of Europe, the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim, they were hit with a major war.  
2.                                                                        
   

   
3.                                           Population Density of Israel 2014
4. Immigration to Israel ended several of the ancient Jewish communities in the Middle East.  Jews had lived in Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Libya for over 2,000 years.  In several countries in Eastern Europe, immigration  removed what was left if anything after the Holocaust.  Poland, Hungary and Romania were countries where Jews had been a large minority.  Their immigration left only a small number that chose to remain.  The result was that Israel had over 2 1/2 million Jews and became the 3rd largest Jewish center in the world.  First was the USA who still had 6 million Jews and the Soviet Union with 3 million.  
5. Israel faced the problems of providing housing.  In the first 3 years, Israel was an infant state, and had a poor economy.  Most immigrants had to live in tent camps or ma'barot.  Living conditions were difficult.  They needed jobs.  Many had to live on welfare grants or on subsistence wages for work on public welfare projects.  Oregon had such things going on which is how Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood was built.  By 1972, immigrants were taken directly to new homes or to absorption centers where they studied Hebrew.  Most found gainful work quickly.  

I made aliyah in 1980 and as a teacher, lived in an absorption center for 10 months in Haifa, whereas other people only had to stay for 3 months in their absorption centers.  My husband and I had to take a test at the end of the 10 months in Hebrew.  We took a course for teachers of the USA to teach in Israel and passed, and received out teaching certificates; he for high school and me for jr high.  We found jobs in Safed in the northern Galilee.  

Cultural integration is a basic ongoing problem.  All of us Jews have come from different cultural environments.  Half came from Muslim countries in North Africa and Asia where most had to live in conditions of poverty and basic values were of the Muslim society.  Most came with large families.  These were the Sephardim or actually Mizrachim Jews.  Half were the Ashkenazim or coming from European and American countries.  Their basic values were those of a modern democratic and technological society.  This created a cultural gap and gave Ashkenazim a starting advantage over the Sephardim from Muslim countries.  A lot of effort has been devoted to narrowing this gap.

                                                                        

   Me in front of my apartment, 1981 in Safed with my German shepherd and my red Fiat.

                                                                                  

Housing in 1960:  10.3% of all families lived with 3 or more persons per room and most were from Muslim countries.

1972:  About 5.1% of all families still lived in such conditions.  At least they were out of the tents!  

Most all Israelis live in high rise apartment houses.  Some homes are found in Judea and Samaria more, though high rises are there as well.  

Education: Secondary School Attendance

1956: Asia and Africa  ---13%                       1969-70   44%

   Europe and America---41%                                         77%

2014--- Literacy Rate for Israel is 95%; PA is 85.4%;  Egypt is 51.4%.  

Marriages:  Since 1970, 18.5% of marriages taking place in Israel were of couples of mixed cultural origins.  This is the best means of closing the cultural gaps.  

Urbanization:  In 1948, 28% of the population lived in villages and 72% lived in towns.  

                        By 1972, 17.5% lived in villages and 82.5% lived in towns.  

Moshav Over Kibbutz

1948 to 1971, 448 new villages were established.  97 were kibbutzim and 286 were moshavim (collective and cooperative villages).  Immigrants into agriculture preferred the moshav, a type of village where families own and manage their own farm over the kibbutz where property is owned by the commune.  

Kibbutz population in 1948 was 7.6%.  1972 population was 2.8%.  

New Towns and Development Areas had been planned to prevent an excessive concentration of population in the coastal region between Tel Aviv and Haifa.  A large part of their population are immigrants. 

   1. New Towns:  Eilat, Dimona and Arad In Negev;    Kiryat Gat, Ashkelon and Beit Shemesh in the  center of country;     Karmiel and Kiryat Sh'mona in the Galilee.  

   2. The Development Regions:  Lachish Region which is half-way between Jerusalem and Ashkelon; Ta'anach Region in the southern part of the Jezreel Valley;  B'sor Region in the Negev.  

After 1967's Six Day War

The ancient states of Judea and Samaria (Israel) came into Israel's hands because Israel won the war in defense when Jordan, Egypt and Syria attacked.  Gaza and east Jerusalem also were a part of land gained.  Gaza had been in Egypt's hands, and of course Jordan had taken east Jerusalem before.  Jerusalem is now one city undivided.  Jews had been living in Gaza for centuries, but left at the insistence of Israel in 2005 for the sake of a lasting peace with the Palestinians.  They left businesses for the Arabs who tore them apart and commenced to shoot rockets, mortars and missiles into Israel in earnest starting in 2001, before gaining the land.  By 2006 Hamas, a terrorist organization won the power in Gaza and refused to be peaceful.  They would not recognize Israel as a state which has great meaning.  Their charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews.   They are so intent on this, so Israel has continued to build in Judea and Samaria, the area that the PLO, now Fatah, want to have as their state of Palestine. 

                                                                            

 Since 1.7 million Arabs live in Israel as citizens,  they feel it is only right that Jews can also live in Judea/Samaria, their ancient homeland which is now referred to as "The West Bank."   The world disagrees with obvious international decrees and wants the Palestinians to have both Gaza and Judea/Samaria as their state and are allowing it to be Judenrein--no Jews living there.  Because once Israel moved all Jews out of Gaza, they expect the same deal for Judea/Samaria.  Wherever the Arabs are, they have been destroying artifacts of ancient Jewish history; both on the Temple Mount where the Temple once stood and in other places that are holy sites.  

Today the population of Israel 8.2 million with 75% being Jewish and 20.7% being Arab.  Since last year it has grown by 157,000 people.  

Reference: From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters

facts about Israel, published by the Division of information, ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem, 1973

Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot

The New Standard Jewish Encyhclopedia

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ben_gurion.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/weizmann.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel