Israeli Jews Jews, Bene Israel, Karaite Jews, and many other groups. The Israeli Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of religious observance, from the haredi communities to the hilonim Jewish communities who live a secular lifestyle. Among the Jewish population, over 25% of the schoolchildren and over 35% of all newborns are of mixed ancestry of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi/Mizrahi descent and increases by 0.5% each year. Over 50% of the Jewish population is of at least a partial Sephardi/Mizrahi descent. Despite the ongoing debate over the question of who is
Ashkenazi Hebrew eastern, e.g. Eastern Syriac "Peshitta" as against Western Syriac "Peshito". Ashkenazi Hebrew in its written form also resembles Palestinian Hebrew in its tendency to "male" spellings (see Mater lectionis). Others, including Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, believed that the distinction is more ancient, and represents the distinction between the Judaean and Galilean dialects of Hebrew in Mishnaic times (1st−2nd centuries CE), with the Sephardi pronunciation being derived from Judaean and the Ashkenazi from Galilean. This theory is supported by the fact that Ashkenazi Hebrew, like Samaritan Hebrew, has lost the distinct sounds of many of the guttural letters, while there are references