(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Days before Israel’s 66th Independence Day, the Israeli population reached 8.18 million people, according to a report by the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics. This is more than 10 times the size of the population (806,000) when independence was declared in 1948.
Israel’s Jewish population numbers about 6.14 million, roughly 75 percent of the total population. There are 1.7 million Arab citizens in Israel, making up 20.7 percent of the population. Those in the “other” category, including non-Jewish immigrants to Israel and their descendants, comprise 351,000 people—4.3 percent of the total population.
Some 178,000 babies were born in Israel since last year’s Independence Day, marking an all-time high in the birth rate. About 40,000 people died over the last year, and 24,000 new immigrants moved to Israel. Israel’s population had a net growth of about 137,500 people since Independence Day in 2013.
