Number of Israeli Christians small, but growing

JERUSALEM — The Christian community in Israel is small but continues to grow, according to recent figures compiled by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and reported by The Jerusalem Post.

According to the data bank, there are 137,000 Christian Israeli citizens, up from 120,000 in 1995. The overwhelming majority — about 115,000 — of Christians are Arab, and about 17 percent are recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The figures also showed that the largest bloc of Israeli Christians — 18 percent — live in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, where they constitute one-third of the city’s population, and smaller pockets are found in Haifa, Jerusalem, Shfaram, Maghar and Tel Aviv.