Jews were the dominant religious group in the Israel-Palestine region at the beginning of the first millennia CE, and are the dominant religious group there today, however, there was a period of almost 2,000 years where most of the world's Jews were displaced from their spiritual homeland. Antiquity to the 20th century Jewish hegemony in the region began changing after a series of revolts against Roman rule led to mass expulsions and emigration. Roman control saw severe persecution of Jewish and Christian populations, but this changed when the Byzantine Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion in the 4th century. Christianity then dominated until the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate (the first to succeed Muhammad) took control of the Levant. Control of region split between Christians and Muslims intermittently between the 11th and 13th centuries during the Crusades, although the population remained overwhelmingly Muslim. Zionism until today Through the Paris Peace Conference, the British took control of Palestine in 1920. The Jewish population began growing through the Zionist Movement after the 1880s, which sought to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Rising anti-Semitism in Europe accelerated this in the interwar period, and in the aftermath of the Holocaust, many European Jews chose to leave the continent. The United Nations tried facilitating the foundation of separate Jewish and Arab states, yet neither side was willing to concede territory, leading to a civil war and a joint invasion from seven Arab states. Yet the Jews maintained control of their territory and took large parts of the proposed Arab territory, forming the Jewish-majority state of Israel in 1948, and acheiving a ceasefire the following year. Over 750,000 Palestinians were displaced as a result of this conflict, while most Jews from the Arab eventually fled to Israel. Since this time, Israel has become one of the richest and advanced countries in the world, however, Palestine has been under Israeli military occupation since the 1960s and there are large disparities in living standards between the two regions.

The world's Jewish population has had a complex and tumultuous history over the past millennia, regularly dealing with persecution, pogroms, and even genocide. The legacy of expulsion and persecution of Jews, including bans on land ownership, meant that Jewish communities disproportionately lived in urban areas, working as artisans or traders, and often lived in their own settlements separate to the rest of the urban population. This separation contributed to the impression that events such as pandemics, famines, or economic shocks did not affect Jews as much as other populations, and such factors came to form the basis of the mistrust and stereotypes of wealth (characterized as greed) that have made up anti-Semitic rhetoric for centuries. Development since the Middle Ages The concentration of Jewish populations across the world has shifted across different centuries. In the Middle Ages, the largest Jewish populations were found in Palestine and the wider Levant region, with other sizeable populations in present-day France, Italy, and Spain. Later, however, the Jewish disapora became increasingly concentrated in Eastern Europe after waves of pogroms in the west saw Jewish communities move eastward. Poland in particular was often considered a refuge for Jews from the late-Middle Ages until the 18th century, when it was then partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and persecution increased. Push factors such as major pogroms in the Russian Empire in the 19th century and growing oppression in the west during the interwar period then saw many Jews migrate to the United States in search of opportunity.

In 1995, Israel had a Jewish population of approximately 4.5 million people, of whom approximately 1.75 million were born abroad. Over one million of these immigrants were born in Europe, with over 650,000 of these born in the former Soviet Union. Despite Poland having the largest Jewish population in the world in the pre-WWII years, the number of Polish Jewish migrants and descendents in Israel was relatively small in 1995 when compared to the USSR due to the impact of the Holocaust.

Outside of Europe, Morocco had the largest number of Jewish immigrants and descendents in Israel by 1995. Morocco had the largest Jewish population in the Muslim world when Israel was founded in 1948, with over 250,000 people. Many Moroccan Jews sought to emigrate to Israel at this time, but often faced resistance from authorities and local populations who believed the Jews would join in the fight against the Arab forces seeking to establish a Muslim state in Palestine. The government of Morocco then officially prohibited emigration to Israel after gaining independence from France in 1956, however this policy was reversed in 1961 whereby the Moroccan government began facilitating Jewish emigration to Israel in return for payments from Jewish organizations in the U.S. and Israel. By the 1970s, Morocco's Jewish population had fallen to less than 15 percent of its size in 1948.

Palestine: Shia Muslims as percent of the total population: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.0 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for Palestine from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

As of 2024, the population of Israel reached about 9.8 million permanent residents in total. About 7.7 million were registered as Jews or other non-Arab populations. Furthermore, some 2.1 million Arabs lived in the country.

The Bahá’í faith is one of the world's youngest major religions, having been founded in 19th century Persia (now Iran) by the prophet Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’u’lláh had been a follower of a merchant called the Báb, who had developed a substantial following in Persia after claiming to be a manifestation of god. This small but growing religion was brutally suppressed by the Shia Muslim authorities in Persia, with the Báb himself being executed in 1850. Following this, Bahá’u’lláh fled into exile in Baghdad, in present-day Iraq, where he began to preach that he was the next in the line of God's messengers after the Báb. Both of the prophets claimed the lineage of all Abrahamic religions, combining beliefs from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Bahá’u’lláh was eventually forced to settle in the coastal city of ‘Akká, Palestine (now Acre, Israel) where he died in 1892. The site of his death became the central place of pilgrimage in the Bahá’í faith, and is why the center of the religion is today in the nearby city of Haifa. Beliefs of the Bahá’í The Bahá’í are perhaps unique for a major religion, as rather than emphasizing the correctness of their own beliefs over other religions, followers of Bahá’í believe that there is truth in all world religions and that there should be peace and harmony among the different faiths. Bahá’ís recognize the prophets and messengers of the different world religions as all part of the same process of revelation by God to humanity. While they believe in plurality among those who bring God's message, the Bahá’í are monotheistic and believe in only one god, rather than multiple. Bahá’u’lláh taught that the different religions developed to convey the same message of God, but in different societies and time periods, meaning that the message has been delivered in different ways to suit the needs of the time and place. The key teachings of the Bahá’í faith include the unity of science and religion, equality between different peoples and religions, the importance of education and tolerance, and the unity of world religions due to the oneness of God. Today it is estimated that over five million people follow the teachings of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh worldwide.