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Jewish population by country
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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As of 2025,[update] the world's core Jewish population (those identifying as Jews to the exclusion of all else) was estimated at 15.8 million, which is approximately 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population.[1] However, the "core Jewish" criterion faces criticism, especially in debates over the U.S. Jewish population count, since it excludes the growing number of people who carry multiple ethnic and religious identities who may self-identify as Jews or qualify as Jewish under the Halakhic principle of matrilineal descent.[1] Israel hosts the largest core Jewish population in the world, with 7.2 million, followed by the United States with 6.3 million. Other countries with core Jewish populations above 100,000 include France (440,000), Canada (398,000), the United Kingdom (312,000), Argentina (171,000), Russia (132,000), Germany (125,000), and Australia (117,200).
In 1939, the core Jewish population reached its historical peak of 16.6 million.[2] Due to the murder of approximately six million Jews during the Holocaust, this number was reduced to 11 million by 1945.[3][4][5] The core Jewish population grew to around 13 million by the 1970s and then recorded almost no growth until around 2005, due to low fertility rates and interfaith marriage by Jews.[4] From 2005 to 2018, the world's core Jewish population grew 0.63% annually on average, while world's population overall grew 1.1% annually in the same period.[6] This increase primarily reflects rapid growth of Haredi and Orthodox populations.[7]
The number of Jews worldwide rises to 18 million with the addition of the "connected" Jewish population, including those who say they are partly Jewish or that have Jewish backgrounds from at least one Jewish parent, and rises again to 21 million with the addition of the "enlarged" Jewish population, including those who say they have Jewish backgrounds but no Jewish parents and all non-Jewish household members who live with Jews. Counting all those who are eligible for Israeli citizenship under Israel's Law of Return, in addition to Israeli Jews, raised the total to 25.5 million.[8][9]
Two countries account for 81% of those recognized as Jews or of sufficient Jewish ancestry to be eligible for citizenship in Israel under its Law of Return: the United States, with 53% and Israel, with 30%. An additional 17% is split between France (3%), Canada (3%), Russia (3%), UK (2%), Argentina (1%), Germany (1%), Ukraine (1%), Brazil (1%), Australia (1%), and Hungary (1%), while the remaining 3% are spread around approximately 98 other countries and territories with less than 0.5% each. With over 7 million Jews, Israel is the only Jewish-majority country and the only explicitly Judaic country.[10]
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Israel
Recent Jewish population dynamics are characterized by a continued steady increase in the Israeli Jewish population and flat or declining numbers in other countries (the diaspora). Aliyas to Palestine began in earnest following the 1839 Tanzimat reforms; between 1840 and 1880, the Palestinian Jewish population rose from 9,000 to 23,000.[11] In the late 19th century, 99.7% of the world's Jews lived outside the region, with Jews representing 2–5% of the Palestinian population.[12][13] Through the first five phases of Aliyah, the Jewish population rose to 630,000 by the rebirth of Israel in 1948. By 2014 this had risen to 6,135,000,[14] while the population of the diaspora has dropped from 10.5 to 8.1 million over the same period.[15] Current demographics of Israel are characterized by a relatively high fertility rate of 3 children per woman and a stable age distribution.[16] The overall growth rate of Jews in Israel is 1.7% annually.[17] The diaspora countries, by contrast, have low Jewish birth rates, an increasingly elderly age composition, and a negative balance of people leaving Judaism versus converting to Judaism.[15] Immigration trends also favor Israel ahead of diaspora countries. The Jewish state has a positive immigration balance (called aliyah in Hebrew). Israel saw its Jewish numbers significantly buoyed by a million-strong wave of Aliyah from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s,[18] and immigration growth has been steady (in the low tens of thousands) since then.[19]
Rest of the world
In general, the modern English-speaking world has seen an increase in its share of the diaspora since the Holocaust and the foundation of Israel, while historic diaspora Jewish populations in Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East have significantly declined or disappeared.[20] France continues to be home to the world's third largest Jewish community, at around 500,000,[21][22] but has shown an increasingly negative trend. As a long-term trend, intermarriage has reduced its "core" Jewish population and increased its "connected" and "enlarged" Jewries. More recently migration loss to Israel amongst French Jews reached the tens of thousands between 2014 and 2017 following a wave of antisemitic attacks.[23][24] According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey over the next four decades, the number of Jews around the world is expected to increase from 14.2 million in 2015 to 16.4 million in 2060.[25]
Debate over American numbers
The number of Jews in the United States has been much debated because of differences in counting methodology resulting in recurring discrepancies of a million or more people in reports.[26] These methodology differences are detailed by Pew Research Center in a 2020 study which estimated there were 5.8 million adult Jews in the United States and 1.8 million children of at least one Jewish parent being raised as Jewish in some way, for a total of 7.5 million Jews, 2.5% of the national population.[27] However, Pew noted that Hebrew University demographer Sergio Della Pergola, reviewing the same data and applying a more narrower definition which counts children and adult Jews without religious affiliation only if they have two Jewish parents, determined that there were 4.8 million Jewish adults and 1.2 million Jewish children in the U.S. for a total of 6 million Jews, 2% of the national population.[27] These numbers can be further complicated by applying the matrilineal descent principle from Halakha with Pew noting while only 4.8 million of the 5.8 million adults classified as Jews reported having a Jewish mother, a further 1.3 million adults classified as non-Jews of Jewish background, reported that they did have a Jewish mother.[27]
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Definition
Below is a list of Jewish populations in the world by country. All data below, except for the National official population, are from the annual World Jewish Population (2020) report coordinated by demographer Sergio Della Pergola at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the American Jewish Year Book.[28] The figures are primarily based on national censuses combined with trend analysis. Della Pergola reports figures for the 4 following definitions:[28]
- Core Jewish population refers to those who consider themselves Jews to the exclusion of all else.
- Connected Jewish population includes the core Jewish population and additionally those who say they are partly Jewish or that have a Jewish background from at least one Jewish parent.
- Enlarged Jewish population includes the Jewish connected population and those who say they have a Jewish background but not a Jewish parent, and all non-Jews living in households with Jews.
- Eligible Jewish population includes all those eligible for immigration to Israel under its Law of Return.
Where available, the list additionally contains official statistics reported by individual nations and year of latest report as National official population.
Core, connected and enlarged population
Eligible population and national official
- pct = percent of total world Jewish population
- pmp = per million people in country
- Including East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
- Figures includes France and Monaco. See: History of the Jews in France and History of the Jews in Monaco.
- Figures include mainland China and Hong Kong SAR. See: History of the Jews in China and History of the Jews in Hong Kong.
- Including East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
- Figures includes France and Monaco. See: History of the Jews in France and History of the Jews in Monaco.
- Figures include mainland China and Hong Kong SAR. See: History of the Jews in China and History of the Jews in Hong Kong.
Remnant and vanished populations
The above table represents Jews that number at least a few dozen per country. Reports exist of Jewish communities remaining in other territories in the low single digits that are on the verge of disappearing, including in the Islamic/Muslim world, as their reaction to the birth of Israel in 1948 was the persecution of Jews in all Islamic/Muslim countries; these are often of historical interest as they represent the remnant of much larger Jewish populations. For example, Egypt had a Jewish population of 80,000 in the early 20th century that numbered fewer than 40 as of 2014, mainly because of the forced expulsion movements to Israel and other countries at that time.[69] Despite a 2,000-year history of Jewish presence, there are no longer any known Jews living in Afghanistan, as its last Jewish residents Zebulon Simintov and Tova Moradi, fled the country in September[70] and October 2021,[71][72] respectively.
In Syria, another ancient Jewish community saw mass exodus at the end of the 20th century and numbered fewer than 20 in the midst of the Syrian Civil War.[73] The size of the Jewish community in Indonesia has been variously given as 65, 100, or 18 at most over the last 50 years.[74][75] In Yemen due to the ongoing civil war, Yemen's Jews have faced persecution by Houthis, who have demanded they convert to Islam or face mandatory expulsion from the country. The Israeli military has conducted operations evacuating the population and moving them to Israel.[76] On 28 March 2021, 13 Jews were forced by the Houthis to leave Yemen, leaving the last four elder Jews in Yemen.[77][78] According to one report there are six Jews left in Yemen: one woman, her brother, three others, and Levi Salem Marahbi (who had been imprisoned for helping smuggle a Torah scroll out of Yemen).[79]
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