On the eve of Rosh Hashana 5774, the population of the State of Israel stands at 8.081 million people according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

75.1% of the population is Jewish, at 6.066 million people. 20.7% are Arabs at 1.67 million people, and 4.2% or 345,000 people fall into the category of ‘Other’ (Non-Arab Christians, and other minority religions).

It is estimated that there are 1.66 million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria.

The Israeli population rose since last year by 142,000 people, or 1.8% similar to previous years.

163,000 babies were born in 5773, and 40,000 people died.

19,000 people immigrated to Israel.

Shana Tova!

Millions of adults in Israel are unusually happy today as 2,129,562 children return to school for the start of the school year.

1,700,535 children will be going to grade school, and another 429,177 will be going to nurseries and kindergartens.

A whopping 148,774 children will be starting first grade.

The breakdown of students in each of the major, recognized school system streams is as follows:

Public School:   678,161

Religous Public School:  217,137

Private School:  248,364

Talmud Torah:  50,470

Non-Jewish Schools:  437,503

There are 4,561 schools with  62,962 classrooms, and approximately 15,000 kindergartens/nursery schools in Israel.

For many Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox), the school year started 3 weeks ago, on Rosh Chodesh Elul. It’s estimated that Haredi students make up approximately 30% of the students in Israel.

More statistics can be found on the Ministry of Education’s website.

As one parent told this reporter this morning, “We’re meeting in the park at 10 to throw a party”.

I’ll be there.

Are you overwhelmed by seeing too many numbers? If so, help is at hand. Professor Michael Starbird comes back to Goldstein on Gelt to speak about statistics. Many times, statistics seem overwhelming and incomprehensible. How do we apply them to our decisions, whether financial or not? Find out by tuning into this week’s episode of the Goldstein on Gelt show.

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