Number of Holocaust survivors in Israel down to 180,000

Israel’s state statistics bureau says that there were 180,000 officially recognized Holocaust survivors living in Israel as of the end of 2020.

The number is 12,000 lower than the 192,000-survivor tally announced in January 2020, which included for the first time Jews from North Africa and the Middle East who also faced Nazi-linked persecution.

According to the bureau, as of 2019, there were 14.8 million Jews worldwide, some 1.8 million fewer than were alive in 1939, on the eve of the Holocaust.

The number is only 3.3 million more than the number of Jews tallied in 1948, the announcement says.

Illustrative: Joseph Kleinman, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who survived Auschwitz and Dachau Nazi death camp wearing a face mask and holding an Israeli flag at his porch in Jerusalem, during the Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 21, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israel remains the country with the most Jews (6.8 million) followed by the US (5.7 million), France (448,000) and Canada (393,000).

Israel on Wednesday night marks the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day.