Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society

For over a hundred years, demography has been at the heart of the Zionist project, refl ected in the goal of creating and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and in ensuring the physical continuation of the Jewish people. Demography continues to be an essential issue in the current struggle between Israel and Palestine. Yet in academic discourse, demography is treated as a minor, largely technical side-issue in the social sciences, with little theoretical consideration given to population processes as social processes. Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society brings together important recent work in this area. The contributions to Israel's Destiny focus on the infl uence of religion, religiosity, nationalism, and ethnicity on fertility and mortality in Israel.