Israeli Jews

Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis (Hebrew: יהודים ישראלים Yêhūdīm Yīśrāʾēlīm) comprise Israel's largest ethnic and religious community. The core of their demographic consists of those with a Jewish identity and their descendants, including ethnic Jews and religious Jews alike. About 46% of the global Jewish population resides in Israel; yerida is historically uncommon and offset by aliyah, (although in 2024 and 2025 Israel experienced net negative migration: yerida was higher than aliyah.); those who do emigrate from the country typically move to the Western world. As such, the Israeli diaspora is closely tied to the broader Jewish diaspora.

Israel is widely described as a melting pot for the various Jewish ethnic divisions, primarily consisting of Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews, and Mizrahi Jews, as well as many smaller Jewish communities, such as the Beta Israel, the Cochin Jews, the Bene Israel, and the Karaite Jews, among others. Over 25% of Jewish children and 35% of Jewish newborns in Israel are of mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic or Mizrahi descent, and these figures have been increasing by approximately 0.5% annually: over 50% of Israel's entire Jewish population identifies as having Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi admixture. The integration of Judaism in Israeli Jewish life is split along four categories: the secularists (33%), the traditionalists (24%), the Orthodox (9%), and the Ultra-Orthodox (7%). In addition to religious influences, both Jewish history and Jewish culture serve as important aspects defining Israel's Jewish society, thereby contributing significantly to Israel's identity as the world's only Jewish-majority country.

In 2018, Israel's Knesset narrowly voted in favour of Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. As the Israeli government considers a person's Jewish status to be a matter of nationality and citizenship, the definition of Jewishness in the Israeli Law of Return includes patrilineal Jewish descent; this does not align with the stipulations of Judaism's halakha, which defines Jewishness through matrilineality. As of 1970, all Jews by blood and their spouses automatically qualify for the right to immigrate to the country and acquire Israeli citizenship.

According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the Israeli Jewish population stood at 7,208,000 in 2023, comprising about 73% of the country's total population. Including non-Jewish relatives (e.g., spouses) raises this figure to 7,762,000, about 79% of the country's population. A 2008 Israel Democracy Institute study found that a plurality of Israeli Jews (47%) identify as Jews first and as Israelis second, and that 39% consider themselves Israelis first and foremost.

Upon the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, the Palestinian Jews of the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine became known as Israeli Jews due to their adoption of a new national identity. The former term has since fallen out of common use.