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.

1: Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society; 1: Fertility; 2: The Modern Shift to Below-Replacement Fertility: Has Israel's Population Joined the Process?; 3: Religiosity, Nationalism and Fertility in Israel; 4: Innovation and Adaptation in Fertility Transition: Jewish Immigrants to Israel from Muslim North Africa and the Middle East; 5: Fertility Behavior of Recent Immigrants to Israel: A Comparative Analysis of Immigrants from Ethiopia and the Former Soviet Union; 6: The Predecline Rise in Israeli Muslim Fertility; 2: Nuptially and Contraception; 7: Age at Marriage, Sex-Ratios, and Ethnic Heterogamy; 8: Insight into Ethnic Flux: Marriage Patterns Among Jews of Mixed Ancestry in Israel; 9: Religiosity and Contraceptive Method Choice: The Jewish Population of Israel; 10: Socioeconomic and Cultural Determinants of Abortion Among Jewish Women in Israel; 3: Mortality; 11: Old-Age Mortality in Israel: Analysis of Variation and Change; 12: Does Religious Observance Promote Health? Mortality in Secular vs. Religious Kibbutzim in Israel; 13: Death Rests a While: Holy Day and Sabbath Effects on Jewish Mortality in Israel; 14: Mortality Differentials among Women: The Israel Longitudinal Mortality Study; 15: Mortality after Spousal Loss: Are There Socio-Demographic Differences?; 16: Mortality in Two Jewish Populations-Montreal and Israel: Environmental Determinants of Differences; 4: Related Issues; 17: The Extra Burden of Muslim Wives: Clues from Israeli Women's Labor Supply; 18: From Pronatalism to Social Welfare? Extending Family Allowances to Minority Populations in France and Israel; 19: Jerusalem's Population, 1995-2020: Demography, Multiculturalism, and Urban Policies