The Settler versus the Native: Why Demographic Trends in the City Don’t Bode Well for Israel

On May 28, 2025, Israeli Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Meir Porush delivered a speech in the Knesset during a plenary session held in observance of Israel’s “Jerusalem Day.”1 This year, Jerusalem Day—on which Israelis celebrate the supposed “reunification” of Jerusalem in 1967—fell on May 27.

Porush’s speech was described as “impactful” and focused on the challenges faced by Israeli authorities regarding the so-called negative migration of Jews from Jerusalem. He stated: “At the current pace . . . Jerusalem will no longer have a Jewish majority.”

Porush described the ongoing phenomenon of Jews leaving Jerusalem as “the greatest challenge,” citing demographic data to illustrate the trend. He noted that when Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, Jews comprised 72 percent of the city’s population compared to 28 percent non-Jews. By 2022, their numbers had declined to 60 percent, and according to the latest figures from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, that number has now fallen to 57 percent.2

Commenting on the most recent figures, Porush said: “The number of Jews in Israel’s capital barely exceeds half the population, and that number should keep us all awake at night.”

In his speech, Porush highlighted that ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jewish families tend to have significantly higher birth rates than other Jewish groups. He argued that the growing presence of these families in Jerusalem strengthens efforts to offset the trend of negative migration from the city.

He also questioned the reasons behind the migration, asking: “Perhaps there aren’t enough decent places in Jerusalem for the devout and ultra-Orthodox to go to? Perhaps they’re not provided with the necessary funding? Perhaps there aren’t enough playgrounds for children in the neighborhoods where religious communities live? Or maybe too many children are studying in unregulated buildings?”

These questions prompted Jerusalem Story to examine the annual report published by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research on “Jerusalem Day.” The report, Jerusalem: Facts and Trends 2025—The State of the City and Changing Trends, noted that Jerusalem remains the most populous among cities in the areas over which Israel claims sovereignty. At the end of 2023, the city (including both West and East Jerusalem) was home to 980,700 residents—589,300 “Jews and others” and 391,400 Palestinians.3 The number of Jews alone was 577,000. The “others” are non-Arab Christians and those who did not declare a religion. Looking at the city through the lens of “Jews and others,” the percentage of Jews fell for the first time since 1967 below 60 percent, reaching 58.8 percent.4 The report also notes that the birth rate among Arabs in the city was 2.2 percent whereas for Jews it was only 0.6 percent.5

Jerusalem is also home to the largest number of Haredi Jews. According to estimates derived from data compiled by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, there were approximately 290,100 Haredim residing in the city in 2022, representing 26 percent of the total ultra-Orthodox population in Israel.6

On religious identity, the authors noted that in 2023, 47 percent of Jews identified as Haredi (ultra-Orthodox but not nationalist), 24 percent as religious or very religious (nationalist religious), 12 percent as traditional (not secular but only minimally observant), 15 percent as secular (nonreligious and nonobservant), and 2 percent belonged to mixed households.7

Researchers noted that due to significant differences in household size among the various groups, a different picture emerges when looking at the distribution of religious identity among Jewish households in the city: 32 percent of Jewish households in Jerusalem are Haredi, 26 percent religious or very religious, 15 percent traditional, 24 percent secular, and 2 percent mixed.8

The Jerusalem Institute also revealed migration trends to and from Jerusalem, reporting that in 2023, 13,600 new Jewish residents moved into the city, while 24,900 left, including 5,200 who emigrated abroad. By comparison, in 2022, 12,200 Jews moved into the city and 27,700 left during the same year. Negative migration resulted in a net loss of 11,300 Jews from the city’s population in 2023 and 15,500 in 2022.

Thus, despite the incentives offered to Jews in Jerusalem and the substantial government funding directed toward Haredi families—seen as key to tipping the city’s demographic balance in favor of a Jewish majority—negative migration among settlers continues unabated.

Meanwhile, racist policies targeting Palestinians (see Children at High Risk: “After Gaza, the Most Dangerous Place for Palestinians Right Now Is East Jerusalem”) in the holy city have escalated. Since the onset of the Gaza genocide on October 7, 2023, these measures have escalated on all fronts (see “Raise Your Hands and Give Us Your Phones!” Palestinian Jerusalemites Silenced in Their Private and Public Spaces), including forcible home expulsions (see Forcible Home Expulsions), home demolitions (see Home Demolitions Spike in East Jerusalem as Ongoing War Averts Attention), arbitrary fines, and punitive taxation (see Palestinian Jerusalemites Caught between the Hammer and the Anvil). Nevertheless, Jerusalemites remain resolute, holding on to their land and affirming their right to live in the city.

The questions raised by Israel’s minister of Jerusalem and heritage prompted Jerusalem Story to visit Fakhri Abu Diab, a longtime resident of the al-Bustan area in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan who is active in the Committee for the Defense of Silwan Lands. Abu Diab’s home has been demolished twice in the past 18 months. After he rebuilt a modest tin structure (a caravan) on his land, an Israeli court issued yet another demolition order this May. Abu Diab now awaits the execution of the order, having refused to carry out the demolition himself.

Behind a gray iron gate, visitors are met with a mix of scenes at Abu Diab’s home. To the right of the plot lie two large piles of rubble left behind by the Israeli municipality’s bulldozers during the first and second demolitions. Around the debris, Abu Diab carefully planted small trees to replace those that had been uprooted. Nearby, tall fruit-bearing trees that survived both demolitions still stand, but he fears they may not escape a third.

On one of the young trees, this elderly man hung an old lantern that belonged to his mother, who used to light it every night. He had managed to recover it from under the rubble. On the window of the caravan, he hung the cane she used in her old age.

Beneath the shade of two large walnut and mulberry trees, Abu Diab rebuilt his home, barely 40 square meters in size, after the original 250-square-meter house was demolished by Israeli authorities. Yet even this humble structure has not escaped demolition orders; the demolition could be carried out at any moment.

We sat with Abu Diab outside the caravan, accompanied by the clucking of chickens and ducks wandering the yard, under the canopy of trees planted by his mother, who was born in Silwan in the 1920s.

The first question Jerusalem Story asked Abu Diab was drawn from Porush’s speech, in which he attributed negative Jewish migration from Jerusalem to several factors, including the lack of recreational spaces for Haredim and the fact that many children study in unregulated buildings.

In stark contrast, Palestinian homes are demolished by the city on a daily basis; they face expulsion orders all around the city; their neighborhoods lack parks or recreational spaces; and the available schooling is overcrowded and substandard. Yet, they remain steadfast. Among them is Abu Diab. How, then, does he make sense of this contradiction?

The elderly man replied: “They seek a life of comfort. We, on the other hand, are not chasing luxury when it comes to our land, our identity, our roots, our culture, and our homeland. We live to resist and foil their plans that aim to erase our existence.”9

When asked whether he had other options for housing instead of awaiting a third demolition of his home, Abu Diab replied: “I have the financial means to live elsewhere, outside Jerusalem. But my roots are here, and they have none. So how could I abandon this place to them? I’ve accepted the heavy price of living in Jerusalem.”

In February 2024, Abu Diab’s home was demolished for the first time, under the pretext that he lacked the necessary permits from the Israeli municipality to build it, although it had been in his family for generations, since long before Israel occupied the city in 1967. After he partially rebuilt it, Israeli bulldozers returned in November and razed it again. Now, he awaits the demolition of the modest caravan where he and his wife live; their five children have all married and left home.

“I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life beside my memories. When they demolish the caravan, I’ll weave a tent from the leaves of my trees and live on the rubble for the third time,” the elderly Jerusalemite said, gently turning his prayer beads in his hands.

As his gaze moved between the fruit-bearing trees—some newly planted, some mature—the rubble of his home, and the remains of a kitchen that the bulldozers hadn’t been able to reach and destroy, Abu Diab fell silent for a moment. Then, returning to comment on the minister’s speech, he said:

“It’s clear they’re just passing through. A transient person doesn’t hold on to the land; they demand recreational spaces to stay in the city. But we have history and civilization. All their settlement projects and excavations have not succeeded in proving their right to this land.”

Abu Diab provided us with some information about al-Bustan before we left. He said its area is estimated at 70 dunums, and it is home to approximately 1,500 residents living in 115 houses, of which 32 have already been demolished.

Israeli authorities are working to accelerate the demolition of homes in al-Bustan in order to replace them with a “national park” named the “King’s Garden,” meant to commemorate and preserve what their Judeo-centric biblical narrative describes as “the garden of King David.”

Khaldoun Barghouti, a researcher specializing in Israeli affairs, also weighed in on the discourse surrounding negative migration. Speaking to Jerusalem Story, he noted that the issue of demographic balance extends beyond Jerusalem.10 The number of Palestinians in all of historic Palestine now equals or even surpasses that of Jews, and this poses a significant concern for the Israeli political establishment.

Regarding Jerusalem specifically, Barghouti explained that the city has become increasingly inhospitable to secular Jews, primarily due to the dominance of the Haredi population, who impose their strict religious way of life on others, which secular Jews find difficult to adapt to. At the same time, the Haredim themselves often feel marginalized. In reality, Barghouti noted, their insular communities and high birth rates have contributed to strained and uncomfortable living conditions, as the minister himself acknowledged.

As a result, both secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews have been leaving the city, contributing to a steady decline in Jerusalem’s Jewish population since 1967. Barghouti warned that if this trend continues, Israel could ultimately lose its Jewish majority in the city—a scenario he called a “political catastrophe” for the Jewish state, which adamantly claims Jerusalem as its unified capital in perpetuity.

This growing demographic anxiety, he added, pushed the Israeli political establishment to respond by working to fulfill the so-called Greater Jerusalem plan (see Israel’s Vision of a Greater [Jewish] Jerusalem), which aims to enfold nearby Jewish settlements into the city (see New Israeli Bill Seeks to Annex Israeli Settlements and Expand Jerusalem’s Municipal Borders). At the same time, earlier proposals to exclude certain Palestinian neighborhoods from municipal jurisdiction have stalled due to significant obstacles.

“Israel,” Barghouti concluded, “has already begun to lose the demographic battle, and its concern is now focused squarely on Jerusalem.”