A report published in the American Foreign Policy Magazine has raised eyebrows in the Israeli media, stating that by 2030, the Israeli secular population will be a minority in Israel among draft age young adults and in the nation’s schools.

According to the study, based on data provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the chareidi community’s children will comprise 60% of the nation’s elementary school students as well as 40% of the eligible voting population. Interestingly, in 1960, Arab and chareidi children comprised only 15% of the elementary school population nationwide. That number today is about 46%.
 
“Meanwhile, the hope that fertility levels between Israel’s different populations would even out has already largely been fulfilled. Although women arriving from traditional North African, Middle Eastern, and Asian Jewish communities averaged well over five children in the 1950s, their granddaughters now average fewer than three. Israeli Arab fertility, too, has dropped, albeit at a slower pace, from more than seven children per woman in the 1950s to about 3.6 today.
 
“Among Israeli Arabs, who now make up 20 percent of Israel’s 7.1 million resident citizens, Muslims (83 percent of Israeli Arabs) are estimated by the CBS at 3.9 children per woman. Arab Christians currently make up just over 8 percent of Israeli Arabs, with fertility at about 2.1 children per woman.

“But there’s one major outlier: the charei population. While official statistics are unavailable, academics report that ultra-Orthodox women bear, on average, about 7 children per woman — in other words, there has been no decline in their fertility since Israel’s establishment. That the chareidim — 7 to 11 percent of Israel’s population, and growing at an estimated 4 percent annually — are expanding faster than either Israeli Arabs or the rest of Israel’s Jewish population should be no surprise.”

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)