๐ How Rare Are You in Israel?
๐ฎ๐ฑ Genetic Landscape of Israel
Israel's genetic landscape is extraordinary โ Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Russian, and Arab Israeli populations create one of the world's most genetically diverse small nations. Ashkenazi Jews show European admixture over a Levantine foundation, while Mizrahi Jews retain more Middle Eastern markers. Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) carry distinct East African genetics. This diversity means national averages hide dramatic variation, and trait rarity depends heavily on community background.
Which community a family belongs to is often written into a surname โ or hidden by one. After 1948 the state pressed newcomers to Hebraise their names, so an origin that took centuries to accumulate could disappear in a single registry office. The waves themselves are easier to trace than the names. Holocaust survivors arrived first, followed through the 1950s by Jews leaving Iraq, Yemen and Morocco; Ethiopian Jews came by airlift in the 1980s and early 1990s; close to a million people arrived from the former Soviet Union as it came apart and in the years after. Each wave brought its own languages, foods and naming habits, which is why Russian shop signs, Amharic radio and Judeo-Arabic songs all belong to the same small country.
๐ The Day That Starts Twenty Minutes After Sunset
Israel's Population Registry Law, 5725-1965 defines "date of birth" as the day of birth both by the Hebrew calendar and by the Gregorian one — two dates, not one. And it fixes the first by the sun: section 1(a) defines a day on the Hebrew calendar as the period beginning twenty minutes after sunset and ending twenty minutes after sunset the next day. So a baby born half an hour after sundown already has tomorrow's Hebrew date and today's Gregorian one. Another section of the same law lets a person ask that their date of birth be recorded by the Gregorian calendar alone.
Both dates stay in circulation. The Use of the Hebrew Date Law, 5758-1998 requires a public authority — the state and its institutions, local authorities, state schools, recognised higher-education institutions, statutory corporations and government companies — to note the Hebrew date on official Hebrew-language letters it sends and Hebrew-language public notices it publishes, with the Gregorian date noted in addition. Section 5 then carves out exceptions: the law does not apply to a local authority most of whose residents are not Jewish, or to a school or recognised higher-education institution whose language of instruction is not Hebrew. The statistics office keeps a foot in the same calendar — one of its annual round-ups, Israel in Figures – Rosh Hashana: Selected Annual Data, is timed to Rosh Hashana. Which calendar is counting changes how rare your birthday is.
๐๏ธ Eye Color
| Brown | 48% |
| Hazel | 15% |
| Green | 12% |
| Blue | 15% |
| Dark Brown | 10% |
๐ Hair Color
| Dark Brown | 30% |
| Brown | 25% |
| Black | 25% |
| Blonde | 10% |
| Red | 3% |
| Gray | 7% |
๐ฉธ Blood Type
| O+ | 32% |
| A+ | 34% |
| B+ | 12% |
| AB+ | 6% |
| O- | 5% |
| A- | 6% |
| B- | 3% |
| AB- | 2% |
Trait frequencies on this page come from public and institutional datasets โ see Data Sources.
🧮 Calculate Your Rarity in Israel
Pick your eye colour, hair colour and blood type. The calculator uses Israel's own figures from the tables above, not world averages.
This is an estimate, not a measurement. It multiplies three national frequencies as if they were independent, and they are not: eye and hair colour share pigmentation genes, so a combination that tends to run together, such as blue eyes with blonde hair, is more common than the multiplication suggests, while one that rarely does, such as blue eyes with black hair, is rarer. Blood type is independent of both. The frequencies are national averages from public datasets — see Data Sources.
That number describes the body you were born with. Fraeon, our other site, does the same arithmetic for the part you chose: the films, series, games, books, anime and manga you have actually finished. Start your log →
๐ Thirteen Things the State Writes Down About You
Section 2 of that same 1965 law lists, in thirteen numbered items, the details the population register records about a resident: surname, given name and previous names; parents' names; date and place of birth; sex; le'om and religion; marital status; spouse's name; children's names, birth dates and sex; citizenship; address, postal and digital; date of entry to Israel; and the date of becoming a resident. None of them is a physical description. No eye colour, no hair colour, no height, no blood group.
That split explains this page. What the register records — names, birth dates — can be counted rather than sampled. What it does not record has to come from somewhere else, which is why the eye and hair figures above are estimates rather than counts. Section 3 adds a further wrinkle: the entry is prima facie evidence only for items (1) to (4) and (9) to (13), so le'om, religion, marital status and a spouse's name are recorded but are not prima facie evidence that they are correct.
๐ค What 2024's Newborns Were Actually Called
The statistics office takes names straight from the population register rather than a survey, so these are counts rather than samples. In its release on children born in 2024 — publication 391/2025 — the most common name given to any child born in Israel was Muhammad: 2,257. Among Jewish boys the leader was David, 1,842, or 2.7%. For Jewish girls, Avigail, 1,437, ahead of Ayala (1,182) and Sarah (1,151). Among Muslim girls, Maryam, 566. Even a count has edges, though: CBS notes the names of 2.2% of 2024's births had not reached the register file when it was produced, so the totals will move. Try your own name.
Muhammad is drifting: one in seven Muslim boys was given it in the early 2000s (15%), one in nine in 2024 (11.4%). CBS also found the national list hides city-level splits — Esther and Sarah common in cities with a large Haredi population, Maya mainly in central cities, Adam common in Tel Aviv-Yafo. And it publishes a third top ten beside boys and girls, for names given to both; Ariel and Uri/Ori are in it.
โญ Rare Facts About Israel
Which of these numbers has an institution behind it
The population count is the Central Bureau of Statistics'. The blood figures come from donations, not a census: Magen David Adom, responsible under the Magen David Adom Law (1950) for collecting, processing, testing and supplying blood units and components to the country's hospitals and to the IDF, collects about 270,000 units a year and tests every donation to identify blood type (A, B, O, Rh) — but about 75% of donors are aged 17 to 40 and over 75% are men. Eye colour, hair colour and height are estimates — the population register does not record them. Last checked September 2026.