Is There Room in Israel for All the Jews?

The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics reports that the population of Israel has increased to almost 9.5 million, more than seven million of whom are Jews. (These numbers include Jewish settlers in the West Bank, but not the millions of Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank). Can these numbers keep going up?

Visitors to the Holy Land in the 18th and 19th centuries noted that it was almost empty of people. In “Innocents Abroad,” Mark Twain described it as“a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land” while the Swedish traveler Frederick Hasselquist (“Voyages and Travels in the Levant in the Years 1749, 50, 51 52, 1766”) referred to it as an “uncultivated and uninhabited country.”

Incredulously, in 1930 Chaim Weizmann was told by Lord Passfield (a British official assigned to investigate the capacity of Palestine to absorb Jewish immigrants) that there was not room in Palestine “to swing a cat”; this when the total population was one million (200,000 Jews and 800,000 Arabs).

For most of the more than 70 years since the existence of the State of Israel, the growth of its Jewish population was dependent on immigration: 3.3 million immigrants since 1948. Immigration (aliyah) is still important. The number for 2021 is 27,000, an impressive number given the difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the primary reason for Israel’s recent population growth is fertility. The birth rate for Jews in Israel is by far the highest of the OECD countries, with a value of more than three children per family, higher than for Arabs in Israel and the West Bank. Moreover, the high birth rate is true both for orthodox and secular families.

This trend shows no sign of abating. At this point about half of all the Jews in the world live in Israel. With the exception of orthodox families (ten percent of American Jews), birth rates for Jews in the Diaspora are much lower; it is estimated that three quarters of all Jewish babies born annually are born to Israelis. Moreover, aliyah numbers may mushroom in response to increased antisemitism in Europe and North America, as well as economic turmoil in places such as Brazil and Argentina.

This trend shows no sign of abating. At this point about half of all the Jews in the world live in Israel.

Is there room in Israel for all or almost all of the Jews in the world?

Tova Cohen and Steven Scheer think not. In 2015 they noted in Reuters World News that Israel’s high birth rate is leading to a quality of life disaster. Alon Tal, who suggested in a 2017 Jerusalem Post piece that a new kind of thinking is required to prevent Israel’s collapse from too large a population, seems to agree. But Barbara Sofer, on the other hand, is an optimist who sees the high Israeli birthrate as an expression of positive values as indicated in her 2021 article in The Jerusalem Post.

The late Israeli author Amos Oz was an optimist as well. In 2005 he was the subject of a BBC documentary (“Amos Oz: the Conscience of Israel”). In the final segment, Oz shows the producer, Alan Yentob, around his home, the town of Arad, located in the northern Negev Desert. As they sit in the main square Oz proudly points to the diversity of the passersby, noting that Arad, population 27,000, was built on empty land. He goes on to say that there is enough land for all the Jews in the world, from Arad to Eilat on the Red Sea, 200 kilometers of empty land.

Can the Negev, which represents 60 percent of Israel, support a large population? After all, it is one of the most arid and desolate regions in the world. NASA uses the Negev when training for Mars missions.

Yet there are cities and towns such as Beersheva (population more than 200,000), Dimona and Mitzpe Ramon that have shown that it is indeed possible to live and thrive in the desert. Kibbutzim in the barren Arava Valley of the southern Negev have been remarkably successful as well. Kibbutz Yotvata is one of Israel’s largest milk and dairy product operations (700 hundred cows in the desert), while Kibbutz Ketura produces microalgae valuable to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.

In a 1963 address, “The Renewed State of Israel,” the founding Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, said that “the Negev is a desolate area which is currently empty of people … What it lacks is water and Jews. It has the potential to be densely populated.”

Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor in the School of Optometry, University of Waterloo.