page_title: Languages of Israel
section_title: Policy towards immigrants' languages
hierarchical_section_title: Languages of Israel / Other languages / Policy towards immigrants' languages
caption_attribution_description: עברית: שלט במשרד הפנים/המשרד לקליטת העלייה בקרית הממשלה, חיפה. מלמעלה למטה: עברית, ערבית, אנגלית ורוסית. English: A sign at the Ministry of the Interior/Ministry of Immigrant Absorption at the Government Village, Haifa. From top to bottom: Hebrew, Arabic, English, and Russian.
context_page_description: The Israeli population is linguistically and culturally diverse. Hebrew is the country's official language, and almost the entire population speaks it either as native speakers or proficiently as a second language. Its standard form, known as Modern Hebrew, is the main medium of life in Israel. Arabic is used mainly by Israel's Arab minority which comprises about one-fifth of the population. Arabic has a special status under Israeli law.
  Russian is spoken by about 20% of the Israeli population, mainly by the large immigrant population from the former Soviet Union, and English is a known foreign language by a significant proportion of the Israeli population as English is used widely in official logos and road signs alongside Hebrew and Arabic. In addition, the 19th edition of Ethnologue lists 36 languages and dialects spoken through Israel.
  According to a 2011 Government Social Survey of Israelis over 20 years of age, 49% report Hebrew as their native language, Arabic 18%, Russian 15%, Yiddish 2%, French 2%, English 2%, 1.6% Spanish, and 10% other languages. This study also noted that 90% of Israeli Jews and over 60% of Israeli Arabs have a good understanding of Hebrew.
context_section_description: The melting pot policy, which governed the Israel language policy in its early days, was gradually neglected during the late 1970s.  While in the 1950s Israeli law banned Yiddish-language theaters and forced civil servants to adopt Hebrew surnames, the new policy allowed immigrants to communicate with the authorities in their language of origin and encouraged them to keep their original language and culture. This new practice has become evident since the early 1990s with massive immigration from the former Soviet Union and the additional immigration from Ethiopia (Ethiopian Jews in Israel). Israeli authorities began to use Russian and Amharic extensively when communicating with these new immigrants. During the 1991 Gulf War, warnings and instructions were issued in at least seven languages. In 1991, a new radio station was erected, called "REKA", which is a Hebrew acronym for "Aliyah Absorption Network". At first, it broadcast exclusively in Russian, also containing programming aimed at teaching Hebrew, which included veteran Israel radio broadcasters recapping news in "easy Hebrew"; some years later, Amharic and Tigrinya time slots were introduced. Just as news in Arabic existed on Arutz 1, news programmes appeared in Russian, Amharic and Tigrinya. Several newspapers and magazines were published in Russian and easy Hebrew with Niqqud. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, the first Russian-language TV channel was created.
caption: A sign at the Ministry of the Interior/Ministry of Immigrant Absorption at the Government Village, Haifa. From top to bottom: Hebrew, Arabic, English, and Russian. English and Russian are the most popular unofficial languages in Israel.
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