The State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medinat Yisra’el from יִשְׂרָאֵל Yisra’el, “Struggled with God”) is a nation located in the Middle East. It is the world’s only Jewish state, having emerged from Zionism in Europe and the U.S. in the 1880s-1940s. It grants citizenship to anybody considered to be Jewish, although this does not apply to anyone suspected or convicted of serious crimes or who the state otherwise considers a serious threat to its welfare. It also contains Arab Muslim and Arab Christian minorities who are remnants of the pre-1948 Arab majority, along with a small Druze community. It is the location of most Biblical events.
Israel occupies an area along the eastern Mediterranean Sea, with Jordan and Syria to the east; Lebanon on the north; and Egypt to the south. The territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are currently controlled by Israel, but disputed. The terrain varies from a temperate, coastal climate to desert conditions. Israel shares with Jordan the shoreline of the Dead Sea, at 1,378 feet below sea level.
People
Of the approximately 6.43 million Israelis in 2007 about 76% were counted as Jewish, though some of those are not considered Jewish under Orthodox Jewish law. Since 1989, nearly a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union have arrived in Israel, making this the largest wave of immigration since independence. In addition, an estimated 105,000 members of the Ethiopian Jewish community have immigrated to Israel, 14,000 of them during the dramatic May 1991 Operation Solomon airlift. 32.9% of Israelis were born outside of Israel. Under Israel’s Law of Return, any person of Jewish ancestry (with extremely few exceptions, such as those with a criminal background) have a legal right to make Aliyah (immigrate) to Israel.
The three broad Jewish groupings are the Ashkenazim, or Jews who trace their ancestry to Central Europe; the Sephardim, who trace their origin to Spain, Portugal, southern Europe, and North Africa; and Eastern or Oriental Jews, who descend from ancient communities in Islamic lands. Of the non-Jewish population, about 68% are Muslims, about 9% are Christian, and about 7% are Druze.
