Israeli Jews

Israeli Jews, also known as Jewish Israelis, can refer to:

• The legal Israeli citizens or residents of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity with origin in the Levant or Land of Israel.
• Descendants of Israeli-Jewish emigrants.

Israeli Jews are found mostly in Israel and Western world countries, as well as many other countries worldwide, not necessarily only in Jewish communities. Israeli Jews mostly speak Hebrew and most practice Judaism in some form. Israel, the Jewish state, currently has almost half the world's Jews.

The Jewish community in Israel is composed from all Jewish ethnic divisions, including Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Beta Israel, Bene Israel, and some converts. The Israeli Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of religious observance, from the Haredi communities to the Hilonim Jewish communities who live a secular lifestyle.

Despite the ongoing debate over the question of who is a Jew among Israeli Jews, the Jewish status of a person, which is considered a matter of 'nationality' by the Israeli authorities, is registered and controlled by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, which requires a person to meet the halakhic definition to be registered as a 'Jew'. Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the Israeli Jewish population was 6,015,000 in December 2012 (75.4% of the total population). Depending on religious definitions and varying population data, Israel is home to the largest or second largest (after the United States) Jewish community in the world.

An IDI Guttman Study of 2008 shows that a plurality of Israeli Jews (47%) identify themselves first as Jews and Israeli second, and that only 39% consider themselves first and foremost Israeli.

Jews living in the region prior to the establishment of the State of Israel are commonly referred to in English as Palestinian Jews and in Hebrew as "HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el (The Jewish Community in the Land of Israel).