ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the links among population processes, economic developments, nation-building, and emergent ethnicity. Demographic principles focus attention on the examination of how population processes are at the core of nation-building, development, and national political integration in Israel's changing society. Communities shape the national demographic profile, and families are the building blocks of communities. The chapter reviews several indicators of social and economic development in Israel over time. The state of Israel is one of the oldest new societies to have been established in the post-World War II era. Demography plays a powerful role in understanding the formation of Israeli society and the changes that it has experienced over time. The chapter examines demographic processes and social-economic-political developments to describe the changes that Israel has experienced and to provide clues about the sources of these changes and their consequences.
