ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the externals to enhance the understanding of internal developments in Israel's changing society. The increasing rate of intermarriage means erosion of the Jewish community, primarily through the prism of the segregated Orthodox who reject the Jewishness of non-Orthodox Jews and from the perspective of Israeli Jews who reject the possibility of Jewish continuity in the diaspora. The sociological response for voluntary communities is that membership is by self-definition, along with the normative consensus of the community. The state of Israel is a major source of Jewish culture, experience, identity, and history for American Jews, since it is their link to Jewish peoplehood, the quintessential form of political ethnicity. The administration of the territories since 1967 has influenced population, development, and ethnicity in Israel through the territories' impact on the economy, their connection to the Israeli Arab community, and their influence on stratification and inequalities in Israeli society.
