Interestingly, in a world generally trying to drive down population rates, the Jewish community are still celebrating a surge in their birth rate. Yoram Ettinger, a member of the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG), happily records that on the eve of the 5772nd Jewish New Year, September 2011, the Jewish fertility rate is 2.97 births per woman and trending upward. His article notes that from 80,400 births in 1995, the number of Jewish births surged by 56% to 125,500 in 2010.
It is not difficult to understand that the reason for this happiness is that the Jewish people wish to secure Jewish demography – something that they have been trying to do for a long time:
From a minority of 8% and 33% – west of the Jordan River – in 1900 and 1947 respectively, the six million Jews in Israel have become a solid majority of 66% in 2011, in the combined area of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and pre-1967 Israel. The current demographic tailwind should further expand the Jewish majority.
It is interesting that this small displaced population should wish desperately to expand their numbers, and is perhaps an example that when one does not have power or position in this world, it is vitally important to have positive fertility. How does this bode for the shrinking West? If we continue to have negative fertility, in the long term we too might find ourselves fighting for land and for our values.
