Israel, Middle East
Population: 6,426,679
Christians: 1-2%
Dominant Religion: Judaism
Persecution Ranking: Not Ranked
Political Leader: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Religious Freedom in Constitution: N/A, provided by law
Israel's population of about six million is very diverse. Ethnically, roughly 79% are Jewish, 20% Arab, and 1% other people groups. Consequently, church fellowships worship in many languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Amharic (the primary language of Ethiopia) and English. Some use more than one language in a service. Christians, especially priests, are frequently harassed by the ultra-Orthodox-Jewish community. Israel's government also has an uneasy relationship with Christian organizations. A visa policy change in 2004 excluded their professional and administrative staff from being able to acquire a religious visa. This affected many churches and Christian ministries, and one Catholic hospital was threatened with closure. Several thousand ethnically Jewish people choose to believe Jesus as the Messiah, often referred to as Messianic Believers. For some, this causes little, if any, problems. For others it can be very serious. Some who have settled in Israel risk having their citizenship revoked, leaving them stateless and extremely vulnerable, because their claim to be Jewish is undermined.
