In many prayerbooks that follow the traditions of Middle Eastern Jewry, as well as of some Ḥasidim, it is common to find a diagram of a seven-branch menorah (like the one found in the two temples) inscribed with biblical or liturgical verses. Such pictures go back to the Middle Ages, when early Jewish mystics began to ascribe kabbalistic significance to one of the oldest and most enduring Jewish symbols. Naturally, as Chen Malul explains, many focused on the mystically meaningful number seven and its relation to the s’firot, or divine emanations connecting God’s essence to the world:

Rabbi Asher Ben-David, a kabbalist who lived in the first half of the 13th century in Provence, suggested that the menorah’s candles “hint at the seven edges,” referring to the seven lower s’firot.

The seven branches of the menorah were interpreted as the seven lower divine emanations, divided into two groups of three. At their center is the s’firah of tiferet (glory), . . . the middle branch that divides the two halves. Whereas [the Castilian] kabbalist, Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, focused on the materials from which the menorah was made, the kabbalists who interpreted the menorah as a symbol of the s’firot focused on the material that lights it—the oil. The oil and the light of the menorah provided a solution to the great question of the Kabbalah: how do we reconcile the [unity of] God with the ten s’firot of the kabbalists?

With their characteristic love of metaphors, the kabbalists saw the image of abundant oil being poured into the finite vessels on each branch, and then being lit aflame, as the perfect symbol of God’s infinite essence being “constricted” in the more finite forms of the s’firot.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.