Jewish population by country

As of 2026,[update] the world's core Jewish population (those identifying as Jews to the exclusion of all else) was estimated at 16.5 million, which is 0.2% of the 8.28 billion worldwide population. However, the "core Jewish" criterion faces criticism, especially in debates over the American 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. Israel and the US host the largest Jewish populations of 7.76 million and 6.30 million respectively.[better source needed] Other countries with core Jewish populations above 100,000 include France (438,500), 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 or more. Due to the murder of almost six million Jews during the Holocaust, this number was reduced to 11 million by 1945. 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. From 2005 to 2018, the world's core Jewish population grew 0.63% annually on average, while the world's population overall grew 1.1% annually in the same period. This increase primarily reflects rapid growth of Haredi, Orthodox populations.

Trends

Israel and Palestine

Recent Jewish population dynamics are characterized by a continued steady increase in the Israeli population and flat or declining numbers in countries outside the Holy Land (the diaspora). Aliyah to Palestine began in earnest following the 1839 Tanzimat reforms; between 1840 and 1880, the Jewish population in Palestine rose from 9,000 to 23,000. 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. Through the 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, while the population of the diaspora had dropped from 10.5 to 8.1 million over the same period. Current demographics of Israel are characterized by a relatively high fertility rate of 3 children per woman and a stable age distribution. The overall growth rate of Jews in Israel is 1.7% annually. 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. 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, and immigration growth has been steady (in the low tens of thousands) since then.

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. France continues to be home to the world's third largest Jewish community, at around 438,500, 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" Jewish populations. More recently migration loss to Israel amongst French Jews reached the tens of thousands between 2014 and 2017 following a wave of antisemitic attacks.

Roughly 85% of the global Jewish population of 16,570,000 is concentrated in two countries: Israel and the United States, which are the only nations with Jewish populations exceeding one million. Jews constitute 0.2% of the world's population. Outside of these two primary countries, the nations with the largest Jewish populations, in descending order, are France (438,500), Canada (350,000), the United Kingdom (300,000), Argentina (170,000), and Russia (120,000). Even though Jewish birth rates are similar to the global average, the overall population has grown more slowly because it is older on average. By 2010, about one in three Jews worldwide was aged 50 or above, giving Jews the largest proportion of older adults among major religious groups.

Jewish communities are highly concentrated geographically: 96% live in the ten countries with the largest Jewish populations, totaling 15.73 million people. About 830,500 Jews live elsewhere in the world. Today, roughly 27,000 Jews reside in Muslim-majority countries, mainly in Turkey (14,200), Iran (9,100), and Azerbaijan (5,000). In the Arab world, the biggest Jewish populations are found in Morocco (2,000), Tunisia (1,000), and the United Arab Emirates (500). Regionally, the Jewish population increased in the Middle East and North Africa (up 18% to nearly 7 million), and grew slightly in Asia-Pacific (2%) and North America (1%). It declined in sub-Saharan Africa (down 37% to 50,000), Latin America–Caribbean (down 12% to 390,000), and Europe (down 8% to 1.3 million). Despite these shifts, Jews remained a small and generally stable share of regional populations.

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. 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. However, Pew noted that Hebrew University demographer Sergio Della Pergola, reviewing the same data and applying a narrower definition that 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. These numbers can be further complicated by applying the matrilineal descent principle from Halakha, with Pew noting that 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.

By country

1. United States (50.0%)
2. Israel (31.0%)
3. France (3.00%)
4. Canada (3.00%)
5. Russia (3.00%)
6. Palestine (2.00%)
7. United Kingdom (2.00%)
8. Argentina (1.00%)
9. Germany (1.00%)
10. Australia (1.00%)
11. Brazil (1.00%)
12. Mexico (1.00%)
13. Ukraine (1.00%)
14. Hungary (1.00%)
15. Other (-1.00%)

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. The figures are primarily based on national censuses combined with trend analysis. Della Pergola reports figures for the four following definitions:

• 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

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, particularly in the Islamic world, as their part and parcel of their reaction to the Israeli declaration of Independence was the Jewish persecution in most Muslim lands; these are often of historical interest as they represent the remnant of much larger Jewish populations. For example, Egypt had a Jewish community 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. 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 and October 2021, respectively.

In the Syrian Arab republic, another 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. The size of the Jewish community in Indonesia has been variously given as 65, 100, or 18 at most over the last 50 years. Due to the Yemenite civil war (2014–present), the Yemeni Jews have faced persecution by various radical Islamist, Jihadist organizations including Houthis, AQAP and ISIS-Yemen who have demanded they convert to Islam, pay the Jizya tax and survive or face execution. The Israel Defense Forces has conducted operations evacuating the population and moving them to Israel. On 28 March 2021, 13 Jews were forced by the Houthis to leave Yemen, leaving the last four elderly Jews in Yemen. 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).

See also

• Aliyah
• Historical Jewish population
• Historical Jewish population by country
• Jewish ethnic divisions
• Judaism
• Judaism by country
• Jewish population by city

External links

• 9 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute Annual Assessment 2004–2005: Between Thriving and Decline. Gefen Publishing House.
• Publications on at the
• , by YIVO Encyclopedia