Jew

The word Jew (Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity; and often a combination of these attributes. This article discusses the term as describing an ethnic group; for a consideration of Jewish religion, please refer to Judaism.

Population

:Main article: Jewish population

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Prior to World War II the world population of Jews was approximately 18 million. The Holocaust reduced this number to approximately 12 million. Today, there are an estimated 13 million {{ref|jppistudy}} to 14.6 million{{ref|jewsbycountrypage}} Jews worldwide in over 134 countries.

Related Topics:
World War II - The Holocaust

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Significant geographic populations

:Main article: Jews by country

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Please note that these populations represent low-end estimates of the worldwide Jewish population. Higher estimates place the worldwide Jewish population at over 14.5 million.

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† = This includes the Russian Federation, all former Eastern Bloc nations, and any other nations that have formed within the areas controlled by the former Soviet Union.

Related Topics:
Russian Federation - Eastern Bloc - Soviet Union

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State of Israel

:Main article: Israel

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Israel, the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens, although the United States has a larger number of Jews. It was established as an independent democratic state on May 14, 1948. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset, 9 members are Israeli Arabs and 2 are Israeli Druses. At the time of its independence, approximately 600,000 Jews lived in Israel. Since then, the country's Jewish population has increased by about one million over each decade as more immigrants arrived and more Israelis were born, resulting in one of the most significant global Jewish population shifts in over 2,000 years.

Related Topics:
Israel - Democratic - May 14 - 1948 - Knesset - Arabs - Druses

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All the Arab Israeli Wars have not slowed Israel's growth. Israel opened its doors to the Holocaust survivors. It has absorbed a majority of the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews from the Islamic countries. It has taken in hundreds of thousands of Jews from the former USSR, and has airlifted tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews{{ref|www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.856}}to Israel. In the past decade nearly a million immigrants came to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Many Jews who emigrated to Israel have moved elsewhere, known as yerida ("descent" ), due to its economic problems or due to disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Related Topics:
Arab Israeli Wars - Holocaust - Sephardic - Mizrahi Jew - Islamic - USSR - Yerida - Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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Diaspora (outside of Israel)

:Main article: Jewish diaspora

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The waves of immigration to the United States at the turn of the 19th century, massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the foundation of the state of Israel (and subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands) all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry during the 20th century.

Related Topics:
The Holocaust - Jewish exodus from Arab lands

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Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with around 5.6 million Jews. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada and Argentina, and smaller populations in Brazil, Mexico , Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America).

Related Topics:
Brazil - Mexico - Uruguay - Venezuela - Chile - History of the Jews in Latin America

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Western Europe's largest Jewish community can be found in France, home to 600,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African Arab countries such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (or their descendants). There are over 265,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. In Eastern Europe, there are anywhere from 500,000 to over two million Jews living in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus and the other areas once dominated by the Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside of Israel, is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Related Topics:
Algeria - Morocco - Tunisia - United Kingdom - Eastern Europe - Russia - Ukraine - Hungary - Belarus - Soviet Union - Germany - Berlin - Eastern Bloc - Berlin Wall

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The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Systematic persecution after the founding of Israel caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s. Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in Arab nations. Iran is home to around 25,000 Jews, down from a population of 100,000 Jews before the 1979 revolution. After the revolution some of the Iranian Jews emigrated to Israel or Europe but most of them emigrated (with their non-Jewish Iranian compatriots) to the United States (especially Los Angeles).

Related Topics:
Iran - United States - Los Angeles

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Outside of Europe, Asia and the Americas, significant Jewish populations exist in Australia and South Africa.

Related Topics:
Australia - South Africa

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Population changes: Assimilation

Since at least the time of the ancient Greeks, a proportion of Jews have assimilated into the wider non-Jewish society around them, by either choice or force, ceasing to practice Judaism and losing their Jewish identity. Some Jewish communities, for example the Kaifeng Jews of China, have disappeared entirely, but assimilation has remained relatively low over much of the past millenium, as Jews were often not allowed to integrate with the wider communities in which they lived. The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment (see Haskalah) of the 1700s and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 1800s, changed the situation, allowing Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community. Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States they are just under 50%{{ref|www.ujc.org.857}}, in the United Kingdom around 50%, and in Australia and Mexico as low as 10%{{ref|www.worldjewishcongress.org.858}}{{ref|www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.859}}, and in France they may be as high as 75%. In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish practice. Additionally, since non-religious Jews generally tend to marry later and have fewer children than the general population, the Jewish community in many countries is aging. The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.

Related Topics:
Kaifeng Jews - Haskalah - Interreligious marriage - Diaspora

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Population changes: Wars against the Jews

Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations, or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed have ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. Some examples in the history of anti-Semitism are: the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire; the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the Spanish Inquisition led by Torquamada and the Auto de fe against the Marrano Jews; the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine; the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars; as well as expulsions from Spain, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled. The persecution culminated in Adolf Hitler's Final Solution which led to the Holocaust, and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1939 to 1945.

Related Topics:
History of anti-Semitism - Great Jewish Revolt - Roman Empire - First Crusade - Spanish Inquisition - Torquamada - Auto de fe - Marrano - Bohdan Chmielnicki - Cossack - Ukraine - Pogrom - Tsars - Adolf Hitler - Final Solution - The Holocaust

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Population changes: Growth

Israel is the only country with a consistently growing Jewish population due to natural population increase, though the Jewish populations of other countries in Europe and North America have recently increased due to immigration. In the Diaspora, in almost every country the Jewish population in general is either declining or steady, but Orthodox and Haredi Jewish communities, whose members often shun birth control for religious reasons, have experienced rapid population growth, with rates near 4% per year for Haredi Jews in Israel, and similar rates in other countries.

Related Topics:
Orthodox - Haredi - Birth control

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Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytization to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order to increase the number of Jews. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples. There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger Jewish identity so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past twenty-five years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the Baal Teshuva movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown. Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.

Related Topics:
Baal Teshuva - Jews by Choice - Gentiles

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