The number of Jews in the world is still less than before the Holocaust — report of the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel.
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel presented updated data on the Jewish population both in Israel and around the world. Today, there are 15.7 million Jews worldwide, of which 7.1 million, or about 45%, live in Israel.
For comparison: in 1939, just before the start of World War II, there were 16.6 million Jews in the world, with only 449 thousand (3%) of them living in the territory of the then British Mandate for Palestine, the territory of modern Israel. In 1948, when the state of Israel was declared, there were 11.5 million Jews left in the world, of which 650 thousand (6%) were already residing in Israel.
The distribution of the largest Jewish communities by country is as follows:
- Israel: 7.1 million (45%)
- USA: 6.3 million (40%)
- France: 440 thousand (3%)
- Canada: 398 thousand (2.5%)
- United Kingdom: 312 thousand (2%)
- Argentina: 171 thousand (1.8%)
- Russia: 132 thousand (1.1%)
- Germany: 125 thousand (0.8%)
- Australia: 117 thousand (0.7%)
Among the residents of Israel, there are 133 thousand Holocaust survivors. Of them, 43% were born between 1939 and 1945 and are now aged between 78 and 84 years. About a third of the survivors are aged between 85 and 89 years, and 20% are over 90 years old.
