The demographic balance in Jerusalem is changing. Jerusalem scholar Nadav Shragai presents disturbing data and a possible vision to resolve the problem
Writer and journalist Nadav Shragai has focused on the future of Jerusalem for over forty years. He does this in his role as a scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and as a journalist and activist for the unity of Jerusalem and to strengthen Israel’s sovereignty and the Jewish presence in its capital. He has written numerous books and studies about the city's past and future. He talked to us about some of the challenges facing the State of Israel and Jerusalem.
In his view, the demographic battle over the future of the city is far from settled. “Although Israel has managed to maintain a Jewish majority within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, this majority has diminished since the Six Day War from 74% to only about 60%. ”The good news is that the demographic forecast of the Jerusalem Transportation Master Plan predicts a decline of only 1% in the Jewish majority by 2040 (59%) – and this is considered a halt in the Jewish majority’s decline."
This optimistic forecast is based on a relatively new trend. “There has been a dramatic change in the fertility rate of Jewish women, which since 2012 has exceeded that of Arab women. The latest figures show that in 2020, the fertility rate of Jewish women in Jerusalem, 4.3%, was higher than that of Arab women in the capital, 3%. The impressive fertility rate among Jewish women in Jerusalem is mainly due to the high fertility rate among the Haredi and other Jewish religious populations in the city.
But there is also "bad news", as Shragai puts it. "The increase in fertility among Jews should bring us in 2040 not only to curbing the decrease, but to a reversal, that is, to a process whereby the Jewish majority increases. But this will probably not happen mainly because of one reason: a consistent negative balance in migration, because more Jews leave Jerusalem every year than come to live in it."
More than half a million Jewish residents have left Jerusalem
“Anyone who reviews the data published over the past 30 years and more (since 1991) in the statistical yearbooks published by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research and the Jerusalem Municipality will find that over the past three decades, 530,000 people have left Jerusalem, almost all of them Jewish, but only 323,000 have moved to the capital. This amazing figure of over half a million Jews leaving the city within three decades explains everything," he says. "If only half of those who left had remained in Jerusalem, the demographic balance in favor of the Jews would be far higher and their proportion of the city's population would be approximately 70%, that is, ten percent more than it is today."
Surveys show that there are two reasons why Jews are leaving the capital – housing and employment. "About 2,500 apartments per year have been built in Jerusalem over the past few years, at a time when the demand has doubled and more," says Shragai. He notes that while fertility is decreasing on the Arab side, "There is unsupervised entry of Arabs from the Judea and Samaria into Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. This happens mainly in the northern Arab neighborhoods that are beyond the security fence, in the areas of the Shoafat refugee camp and the village of Aqab. This is Jerusalem’s soft underbelly, demographically and in many other respects."
When he says “soft underbelly," Shragai really means Jerusalem's bellyache. "Approximately one – third of the Arab population of East Jerusalem lives in the city’s north beyond the fence, in places that have been neglected for many years by the Israeli authorities in every imaginable area: poverty, drugs, crime, illegal weapons, terrorism, construction violations, physical infrastructures and services, welfare and community and more. About 140,000 people live in this “wild east.” Most of the people living there, like the other residents of East Jerusalem, have Jerusalem resident documents, but in practical terms, these areas ceased to function as part of Jerusalem’s urban fabric many years ago. In many respects, there is a large governmental vacuum in these areas and a great deal of influence is wielded by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and other organizations."
"Due to the inexpensive and available housing in these huge neighborhoods, further to the lack of a border or barrier between them and the areas of Judea and Samaria, many Palestinians from Judea and Samaria who marry residents of Jerusalem are constantly moving into Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. Many of the families there are “mixed” with one family member from Jerusalem and the other from Judea and Samaria.
An Arab majority in the capital of the Jewish people – Unthinkable
The demographic crisis in Israel’s capital can have several possible consequences and Shragai mentions the conceptual – values – driven one first and foremost. “The Jewish people returned to Zion, established a state in it and made Jerusalem its capital. From a Zionist and Jewish point of view, the thought that after 2,000 years of exile, an Arab majority could be created in the capital of the sovereign state of Israel is unthinkable."
In his view, it is important to respect the presence of the Arabs of Jerusalem and grant them full civil and municipal rights like all other residents of Israel's capital, but this must be accompanied by "zero tolerance for any manifestations of terrorism, violence or incitement, which some East Jerusalemites have become part of in recent years".
Shargai is also troubled by the possibility that the day will come when East Jerusalem’s Arabs, perhaps inspired by Raam party leader Mansour Abbas, will choose to end their boycott of the municipal elections, present their own city council list and candidate for mayor and come out en masse to vote for him. He says he has already heard talk about this.
“The resident status they hold gives them the right to vote and be elected to the capital's municipal council, a right that most of them have chosen not to exercise. East Jerusalem Arabs carry considerable weight in the municipal ballot, over a third of the seats on the city council, that is, about 12 of the 31 seats. Theoretically, they could also run a candidate for mayor. The candidate must also be a citizen, not just a resident. They can look for a candidate of this kind, someone who has received Israeli citizenship, and there are several tens of thousands of such people out of the approximately 400,000 residents of East Jerusalem, and run him as a candidate for mayor."
Is this preventable? Shragai says that there are steps that can be taken to increase the Jewish majority in Jerusalem and thereby diminish the relative strength of the city's Arabs. "I am talking, for example, about the possibility of establishing an umbrella municipality for the capital and de facto annexing Jewish communities from the Jerusalem metropolitan area to Jerusalem, placing them inside the capital’s municipal boundaries. If you take Beitar Illit, Maale Adumim, Givat Ze'ev, Efrat and the communities of the Gush Etzion Regional Council and turn them into daughter municipalities of the Jerusalem Municipality, you’ll get an additional 150,000 Jews more or less, many of whom will be able to participate in the elections for the umbrella Municipality, thereby reducing the proportion of potential Arab voters, residents of the capital, in the total number of voters.
Shragai explains that the plan he has described here in brief has already been raised in the discussions in the context of the Defender of Jerusalem plan, which he led together with a group of experts on Jerusalem affairs led by Haim Silverstein. In fact, he says, the plan is part of several bills submitted to the Knesset over the years.
Another option Shragai has suggested as part of a study he conducted for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and that was adopted by Minister Ze'ev Elkin is to exclude the large Arab neighborhoods beyond the fence from Jerusalem, and establish a separate local council or councils for them. Shragai underscores that this initiative does not involve transferring the neighborhoods to the Palestinian Authority, but would rather keep them within Israel’s borders under Israeli sovereignty, but outside Jerusalem’s jurisdiction. This could restore the situation to 70:30, instead of the current majority of 60% Jews. It is noteworthy that this plan has quite a few opponents who fear a precedent that could be interpreted as an actual division of Jerusalem.
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About two – thirds of Jerusalem’s residents, 63%, currently – 55 years after the unification of Jerusalem – reside in the areas known as "East Jerusalem," to the north, south and east of the old, i.e. pre – 1967, jurisdictional borders. Thirty – seven percent live in West Jerusalem.
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While in the city’s western part, 99% of the residents are Jewish, in “East Jerusalem,” only 39% of the residents are Jewish and 61% are Arab.
According to the data provided in Jerusalem’s statistical yearbook, last updated to December 2020, 361,700 thousand Arab residents and 233,900 Jews live in what is known as East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem’s total population is 951,100, and it is Israel’s largest city in terms of population. The population of Jerusalem constitutes 10% of Israel’s total population. Jerusalem is also home to Israel’s largest Jewish population – approximately 584,000 residents – and Israel’s largest Arab population – approximately 367,000 residents.