Approximately 46% of the global Jewish population resides in Israel;[18] yerida is uncommon and is offset exponentially by aliyah, but those who do emigrate from the country typically relocate to the Western world.

Decades later their descendants were led out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron, given the Tablets of Stone, returned to the land of Canaan and conquered it under the leadership of Joshua.

Zionism remained a minority movement until the rise of Nazism in 1933 and the subsequently attempted extermination of the Jewish people in Nazi-occupied areas of Europe in the Holocaust.

The reasons for this are disputed, and range from claims that the major cause of Palestinian flight was military actions by the Israel Defense Forces and fear of events such as the Deir Yassin massacre to an encouragement to leave by Arab leaders so that they could return when the war was won.

Over the following years approximately 850,000 Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews fled or were expelled from surrounding mostly due persecution in Arab countries, and in smaller numbers from Turkey, India, Afghanistan, and Iran.

[31] Among them, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim (Jewish immigrants to Israel)—22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.

The CBS traces the paternal country of diaspora origin of Israeli Jews (including non–Halachically Jewish immigrants who arrived on the Law of Return) as of 2010 is as follows.

[57] Recently several thousand conversions conducted by the Chief Rabbinate under the leadership of Rabbi Chaim Drukman have been annulled, and the official Jewish status over several thousand people who converted through the conversion court of the Chief Rabbinate since 1999 hangs in limbo as the proceedings continue regarding these individuals Jewish status.

They have played a prominent role in various fields including the arts, entertainment, literature, sports, science and technology, business and economy, media, and politics of Israel since its founding, and tend to be the most affluent of Israeli Jews.

During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict existed between Mizrahi, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim).

The roots of this conflict, which still exists to a much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, stem from the many cultural differences between the various Jewish communities, despite the government's encouragement of the "melting pot".

In a survey that attempted to be representative, 44.9% percent of the Israeli Jewish sample identified as either Mizrahi or Sephardi, 44.2% as Ashkenazi or Russian Jews, about 3% as Beta Israel and 7.9% as mixed or other.

Cultural and/or racial biases against the newcomers were compounded by the fledgling state's lack of financial resources and inadequate housing to handle the massive population influx.

Some believe that even worse than the housing discrimination was the differential treatment accorded the children of these immigrants, many of whom were tracked by the largely European education establishment into dead-end "vocational" high schools, without any real assessment of their intellectual capacities.

Mizrahi Jews protested their unfair treatment, and even established the Israeli Black Panthers movement with the mission of working for social justice.

Scattered over border areas of the Negev Desert and the Galilee, far from the bright lights of Israel's major cities, most of these towns never had the critical mass or ingredients to succeed as places to live, and they continue to suffer from high unemployment, inferior schools, and chronic brain drain.

[citation needed] While the Israeli Black Panthers no longer exist, the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition and many other NGOs carry on the struggle for equal access and opportunity in housing, education, and employment for the country's underprivileged populace—still largely composed of Sephardim and Mizrahim, joined now by newer immigrants from Ethiopia and the Caucasus Mountains.

In recent generations, however, the barriers were lowered by state-sponsored assimilation of all the Jewish communities into a common Sabra (native-born Israeli) identity, which facilitated extensive "mixed marriages".

[92] Even earlier allusions to the "demographic threat" can be found in an internal Israeli government document drafted in 1976 known as the Koenig Memorandum, which laid out a plan for reducing the number and influence of Arab citizens of Israel in the Galilee region.

[93] The Population Administration is a department of the Demographic Council, whose purpose, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics is: "to increase the Jewish birthrate by encouraging women to have more children using government grants, housing benefits, and other incentives.

Contrary to Baalei teshuva, the Orthodox Jews whom wish to embrace a secular lifestyle have very few organizations whom assist them in parting from the Haredi world, and often they end up finding themselves destitute or struggling to complete the educational and social gaps.

[115] Much of the Israeli Jewish population seek education as a passport to a decent job and a middle class paycheck in the country's competitive high-tech economy.

[115] Israel's Jewish population maintains a relatively high level of educational attainment where just under half of all Israeli Jews (46%) hold post-secondary degrees.

After his immigration to Israel, and due to the impetus of the Second Aliyah (1905–1914), Hebrew prevailed as the single official and spoken language of the Jewish community of mandatory Palestine.

[124] Some prominent Israeli politicians such as David Ben-Gurion tried to learn Arabic, and the Mizrahi Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic although most of their descendants in Israel today only speak Hebrew.

Israel's Declaration of Independence specifically called for the establishment of a Jewish state with equality of social and political rights, irrespective of religion, race, or sex.

In addition, in the recent decades a growing minority from within the Israeli Jewish conscripts have denounced the mandatory enrollment and refused to serve, claiming that due to financial insecurities they feel that they need to be spending their time more productively pursuing their chosen studies or career paths.

Hebrew is the standard language of communication at places of work except inside the Arab community, and among recent immigrants, foreign workers, and with tourists.

This rich tapestry of Jewish diaspora communities contributes to the genetic composition of Israeli Jews, reflecting the diverse ancestral origins of those who immigrated to Israel.

[189] Jews of diverse ancestries exhibit genetic connections to neighboring non-Jewish populations in the Levant, such as the Lebanese, Samaritans, Palestinians, Bedouins, and Druze.