Published: 23 May 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Haredim make up 13% of Israel's population. By 2048, that number will have almost doubled, an increase that will change the socio-political character of the state. COLIN SHINDLER ask whether Israel can survive its demographic trajectory.
In 1970, Soviet dissident Andrei Amalrik published his famous essay, “Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984?”
Amalrik was killed in a car crash in Spain in 1980, so didn’t live to see the collapse of the USSR in 1991. His essay, however, has become more prescient in a wider international sense — and with the growth of authoritarianism and the first war in Europe since 1945, all too many have suddenly become aware, and indeed appalled, by the words and actions of “strong leaders” who marginalise the rule of law and denigrate independent thought.
The scales have dropped from the eyes of those who were previously so short-sighted. The lessons of recent history, and in particular Jewish history, have come flooding back. Moreover, Amalrik did not choose Orwell's year, 1984, by chance.
While we wave flags and put out the bunting for Israel's 75th birthday, it is a salient exercise to imagine what the country will look like in 2048 —100 years after the proclamation of a Hebrew republic in the Land of Israel by David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues.
Will the State of Israel survive until 2048?
In December, the Central Bureau of Statistics in Jerusalem estimated that the population of Israel was 9.66 million — this included the population of East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Area C of the West Bank. These are contested areas whose status may change by 2048.
There has been a remarkable increase from the population of 1948 — a mere 806,000, of whom 670,000 were Jews. The prediction for 2048 is that there will be just under 12.5 million Israeli citizens.
