ABSTRACT
Significant ethnic differences continue to characterize social life in Israel, even as ethnic groups have been integrated into the national society and polity. National policy and cultural ideology favor not only the integration but the total assimilation of Jews from many countries of origin into the new Jewish state. Nation-building in the ideological and policy contexts of Israeli society is expected to remove the diversity of ethnic origins, as new forms of loyalty to the Jewish nation emerge. Demographic factors that mainly reflect origins and socioeconomic factors have diminished in importance over time in shaping ethnicity; factors that have emerged in Israeli society tend to perpetuate ethnic distinctiveness. The dynamics of the demographic processes characterizing Israeli society are well known, since they parallel demographic transitions in Western and Third World countries. The ethnic mosaic and the ethnic processes in Israeli society have been shaped directly by immigration patterns.
