Population of Israel
As of July 2002, Israel’s population was 6.03 million. This figure includes approx. 187,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, c. 20,000 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, over 5,000 in the Gaza Strip and fewer than 177,000 in East Jerusalem. Compared with 1995, the population increased by 11.6% by 2003. Birth rate – 18.91%, mortality 6.21%, infant mortality 7.55 people. per 1000 newborns; average life expectancy – 78.86 years (men – 76.82, women – 81.01) (2002 estimate).
Sex and age structure: 0-14 years – 27.1% (men 838 thousand; women 799 thousand); 15-64 years – 63% (men 1906 thousand; women 1890 thousand); 65 years and older – 9.9% (men 257 thousand; women 341 thousand).
The urban population is 91.2%, rural – 8.8%. Retirement age: 65 for men and 60 for women. Those who can read and write at the age of 15 and older – 95%, among men – 97%, among women – 93% (1992 estimate). The number of students in all three levels of education in 1997/98 was 1,499,000.
Ethnic composition: Jews make up 80.1% of the population (born in Europe and America – 32.1%, in Israel – 20.8%, in Africa – 14.6%, in Asia – 12.6%), non-Jews ( mostly Arabs) – 19.9%. Recently, there has been a trend towards a decrease in the share of the Jewish population.
Languages: Hebrew (official), Arabic (officially used for the Arab minority), English is the most widely spoken foreign language. In recent years, due to the large immigration from the CIS countries, the Russian language has been widely used.
Judaism is practiced by 80.1%, Islam (mainly Sunni) – 14.6%, Christianity – 2.1%, others – 3.2% of the population (1996 estimate).
Science and culture of Israel
According to searchforpublicschools, scientific research and technological development is carried out in 7 universities, as well as in dozens of public and private institutions and in hundreds of civil and military enterprises and in some firms. St. 1/2 of the total amount of research is financed by the government and public organizations. Research and development spending in 1994 was St. 2% of GDP (almost at the level of Japan).
Prose and poetry draw motifs, richness of images and expressive means from the Bible, the Talmud and Kabbalah, as well as the cultural heritage of the Jews of the Diaspora and the language of everyday life. The authors of the first works in Hebrew were repatriates and had their roots in the traditions of European Jewry: Joseph Chaim Brenner and Shmuel Yosef Agnon are considered the founders of modern Hebrew prose. From a later time, the names of A.B. Yegoshua, Amos Oza, Yakov Shabtai, David Grossman. The most significant poets: Chaim Nachman Bialik, Shaul Chernihovsky, Abraham Shlensky and others. The most famous artists: Mordechai Ardon, Yakov Steingardt (headed the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Applied Arts), who brought up a new generation of artists. In addition to painters and sculptors, in artistic life
Israel is attended by a large number of craftsmen (masters of ceramics, silver, glass, textiles, etc.).
In terms of the number of attractions per unit area, Israel, perhaps, has no equal. First of all, these are monuments of the origin and early history of the three world religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the eastern part of Jerusalem, the Western Wall has been preserved – the surviving part of the retaining wall that protected the Second Jerusalem Temple, built in 516 BC. This wall is the shrine of believing Jews all over the world. A place of prayer and a symbol of their hopes. In the northwestern part of the Old City in Jerusalem is the Christian Quarter with the Sorrowful Way (Via Dolorosa), along which the Savior’s path ran from the Garden of Gethsemane, where he was captured by the guards, to Golgotha, the place of execution, as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus Christ was buried. The Muslim Quarter is located in the northeastern part of the Old City. Here is the square – the garden of Haram ash-Sherif (“Holy Court”) with the famous mosques of Omar and Al-Aqsa (in the northern part of the mosque, the place from where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven is marked). Many museums, incl. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which includes the Bezalel Museum of Fine Arts, Jewish Studies and Ethnography, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and others. There are buildings of the 2nd century BC. BC. in Jaffa, remnants of a 9th c. BC. near Sebastia, the “city of the Crusaders” in Akko, the city of childhood and youth of Jesus Christ Nazareth and Bethlehem, where he was born. The most famous synagogues in Jerusalem are Hurva and Rambam. Lots of other attractions.
