Israel says world’s Jewry is still 2 million shy of 1939 numbers
Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Central Bureau of Statistics says global Jewish population has increased by 26% since 1948, to 14.5 million
In numbers released Tuesday ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced that world Jewry numbers 14,511,000 people, some two million fewer than on the eve of the Nazi destruction of European Jewry.
In 1939 there were 16.6 million Jews in the world, 449,000 of which lived in Israel.
A 2015 report by an independent Jerusalem-based think tank indicated that the worldwide Jewish population was approaching the size it was before the Holocaust.
At the time, the Jewish People Policy Institute said there were 14.2 million Jews worldwide. When factoring in people with one Jewish parent and others who identify as partially Jewish, the figure approached the Jewish population on the eve of World War II. The Nazis and their collaborators killed about 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
In 2018 there are 6.45 million Jews living in Israel, more than in any other country. The United States has the world’s second largest Jewish population, with 5.7 million people, France has 456,000 Jews, and Canada has 390,000.
Further down the list, Britain has some 290,000 Jews, Argentina is home to 181,000, Russia has 176,000, Germany has 117,000 and 113,000 Jews live in Australia.
The statistics show that since 1948, the world’s Jewish population has increased by 26 percent, while the general population of the globe has increased from 2.5 billion to 7.5 billion — a threefold increase.
AP contributed to this report.
