Jewish population centers have shifted tremendously over time, due in modern times to large scale population movements, and in earlier times due to a combination of population movements, religious conversions and assimilation. Population movements have been caused by both push and pull factors, with the most notable push factors being expulsions and persecutions, in particular the pogroms in the Russian Empire and the Holocaust.
The 20th century saw a large shift in Jewish populations, particularly the large-scale migration to the Americas and Palestine (later Israel). The 1948 Palestine war sparked mass exodus of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries. Today, the majority of the world's Jewish population is concentrated in Israel and the United States.
Ancient times
thumb |left |The Flight of the Prisoners by [[James Tissot showing Babylonian captivity, deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon and the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple, 586 BCE.]]
The Torah contains a number of statements as to the number of (adult, male) Hebrews that left Egypt, the descendants of the seventy sons and grandsons of Jacob who took up their residence in that country. Altogether, including Levites, the number given is 611,730. For non-Levites, this represents men fit for military service, i.e. between twenty and sixty years of age; among the Levites the relevant number is those obligated in temple service (males between twenty and fifty years of age). This would imply a population of about 3,000,000. The Census of David is said to have recorded 1,300,000 males over twenty years of age, which would imply a population of over 5,000,000. The number of exiles who returned from Babylon is given at 42,360. Tacitus declares that Jerusalem at its fall contained 600,000 persons; Josephus, that there were as many as 1,100,000 slain in the destruction of Jerusalem in CE 70, along with 97,000 who were sold as slaves. However, Josephus also qualifies this count, noting that Jerusalem was besieged during the Passover. The majority of the 1,197,000 would not have been residents of the city, but rather were visiting for the festival. These appear (writes Jacobs) population of an estimated one million Jews, which increased to an estimated two million between the years 200 CE and 500 CE, both by natural growth and by immigration of more Jews from the Land of Israel, making up about one-sixth of the world Jewish population in that era. The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in the mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman.
However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens, the figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon. John R. Bartlett rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken.
Middle Ages
As regards the number of Jews in the Middle Ages, Benjamin of Tudela, about 1170, enumerates altogether 1,049,565; but of these 100,000 are attributed to Persia and India, 100,000 to Arabia, and 300,000 to an undecipherable "Thanaim", which were likely mere guesses with regard to the Eastern Jews, with whom he did not personally encounter. There were at that time probably not many more than 500,000 in the countries he visited, and probably not more than 750,000 altogether. The only real data for the Middle Ages are with regard to special Jewish communities.
The Middle Ages were mainly a period of expulsions. In 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England; in 1306, 100,000 from France; and in 1492, about 200,000 from Spain. Smaller but more frequent expulsions occurred in Germany, so that at the commencement of the 16th century only four great Jewish communities remained: Frankfurt, 2,000; Worms, 1,400; Prague, 10,000; and Vienna, 3,000 (Heinrich Grätz, Geschichte der Juden x. 29). Joseph Jacobs estimated that during the five centuries from 1000 to 1500, 380,000 Jews were killed during the persecutions, reducing the total number in the world to about 1,000,000. In the 16th and 17th centuries the main centers of Jewish population were in Poland and the Mediterranean countries, Spain excepted.
By the early 13th century, the world Jewish population had fallen to 2 million from a peak at 8 million during the 1st century, and possibly half this number, with only 250,000 of the 2 million living in Christian lands. Many factors had devastated the Jewish population, including the Bar Kokhba revolt and the First Crusade.
Cecil Roth estimated that by the year 1500, the number of the Historic Ashkenazim in Germany, France and Austria was about 150,000 combined; the majority of them were expelled to Poland and Lithuania where a few dozen thousand Jews already resided. Roth estimated the number of the Jews who predated the Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe to be at about 230,000 who lost their identities as Knaanim and Romaniotes in favor of the Ashkenazi liturgy. Based upon the estimation of Roth, Edgar Polomé and Werner Winter had questioned the number of the Eastern European Jews even further and estimated that prior to the arrival of the Ashkenazim, these Eastern Jews were at about 300,000. However, according to more recent research, mass migrations of Ashkenazim occurred to Eastern Europe, from Central Europe in the west, who due to high birth rates absorbed and largely replaced the preceding non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups of Eastern Europe (whose numbers the demographer Sergio Della Pergola considers to have been small). Genetic evidence also indicates that Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews largely descend from Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from west and central Europe to eastern Europe around the late Middle Ages and subsequently experienced high birthrates and genetic isolation.
It is estimated by some modern geneticists from Israel that modern Ashkenazi Jews descend from about 25,000 individuals who lived in 1300 A.D. A more recent study by Shai Carmi et al. indicated an even smaller population, where modern Ashkenazi Jews commonly descend from only approximately 350 individuals who lived around 1350 A.D., and who were of an even mix of Middle Eastern and European ancestry.
Modern era
Dutch researcher Adriaan Reland published an account of his visit to Ottoman Palestine in 1714. In his informal census, he relates the existence of significant Jewish populations throughout the country, particularly in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed and Gaza. Hebron also had a significant Jewish community. Together, these communities formed what would be called the Old Yishuv.
Again following Jacobs,
The global Jewish population is shaped by contrasting demographic trends in Israel and the Jewish diaspora. In Israel, the Jewish population has experienced significant growth, increasing from approximately 630,000 in 1948 to nearly 6.9 million in 2021. Conversely, the Jewish population in the diaspora, which began at around 10.5 million in 1945, remained relatively stable until the early 1970s, when it began to decline, reaching an estimated 8.2 to 8.3 million by 2000, and subsequently stabilizing. As of 2021, over 85% of the global Jewish population resided in two countries: Israel and the United States. Additionally, 23 countries with Jewish populations exceeding 10,000 accounted for another 14%, while 77 countries, each with fewer than 10,000 Jews, comprised the remaining 1%. World core Jewish population estimates (1945-2020):
!data-sort-type="number" | Jews, %<br />(1900)
!data-sort-type="number" | Jews, %<br />(1942)
!data-sort-type="number" | Jews, %<br />(1970)
!data-sort-type="number" | Jews, %<br />(2010)
|
| 441,000
|
| 2,582,000
| 86.82%
| 5,413,800
| 74.62%
| 6,940,000
| 74.2%
|-
| align="left" | Russian Empire/RSFSR/Russian Federation <small>(Asia)</small>
| 89,635
| 0.38%
|
|
| 254,000
| 0.57%
| 18,600
| 0.02%
|
|
|-
| align="center" | Africa
| 372,659
| 0.28%
| 593,736
|
| 195,000
| 0.05%
| 76,200
| 0.01%
| 72,000
|
|-
| align="left" | Algeria
| 51,044
| 1.07%
| 120,000
| 1.7%
| 2,000
| 0.01%
| 0
| 0.00%
| 0
| 0.00%
|-
| align="left" | Egypt
| 30,678
| 0.31%
|
|
|
|
| 100
| 0.00%
| 9
| 0.00%
|-
| align="left" | Ethiopia
| 50,000
| 1.00%
|
|
|
|
| 100
| 0.00%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Libya
| 18,680
| 2.33%
|
|
|
|
| 0
| 0.00%
| 0
| 0.00%
|-
| align="left" | Morocco
| 109,712
| 2.11%
|
|
|
|
| 2,700
| 0.01%
| 2,100
| 0.00%
|-
| align="left" | South Africa
| 50,000
| 4.54%
|
|
| 118,000
| 0.53%
| 70,800
| 0.14%
| 67,500
| 0.11%
|-
| align="left" | Tunisia
| 62,545
| 4.16%
|
|
|
|
| 1,000
| 0.01%
| 1,000
| 0.00%
|-
| align="center" | Americas
| 1,553,656
| 1.00%
| 4,739,769
|
| 6,200,000
| 1.20%
| 6,039,600
| 0.64%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Argentina
| 20,000
| 0.42%
|
|
| 282,000
| 1.18%
| 182,300
| 0.45%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Bolivia/Chile/Ecuador/Peru/Uruguay
| 1,000
| 0.01%
|
|
|
|
| 41,400
| 0.06%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Brazil
| 2,000
| 0.01%
|
|
| 90,000
| 0.09%
| 95,600
| 0.05%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Canada
| 22,500
| 0.42%
|
|
| 286,000
| 1.34%
| 375,000
| 1.11%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Central America
| 4,035
| 0.12%
|
|
|
|
| 54,500
| 0.03%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Colombia/Guiana/Venezuela
| 2,000
| 0.03%
|
|
|
|
| 14,700
| 0.02%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Mexico
| 1,000
| 0.01%
| 18,299
| 0.09%
| 35,000
| 0.07%
| 39,400
| 0.04%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | Suriname
| 1,121
| 1.97%
|
|
|
|
| 200
| 0.04%
|
|
|-
| align="left" | United States
| 1,500,000
| 1.97%
| 4,228,529
| 3.00%
| 5,400,000
| 2.63%
| 5,275,000
| 1.71%
| 6,700,000
| 2.04%
|-
| align="center" | Oceania
| 16,840
| 0.28%
| 26,954
|
| 70,000
| 0.36%
| 115,100
| 0.32%
| 125,600
| 0.3%
|-
| align="left" | Australia
| 15,122
| 0.49%
|
|
| 65,000
| 0.52%
| 107,500
| 0.50%
| 118,000
| 0.48%
|-
| align="left" | New Zealand
| 1,611
| 0.20%
|
|
|
|
| 7,500
| 0.17%
| 7,500
| 0.15%
|-
! Total
! 11,273,076
! 0.68%
! 15,371,822
!
! 12,633,000
! 0.4%
! 13,428,300
! 0.19%
!
!
|}
a. Albania, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Syria, Turkey<br />
b. Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Belarus, Moldova, Russia (including Siberia), Ukraine.<br />
c. Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan).
See also
- Aliyah
- Estimates of historical world population
- Expulsions and exoduses of Jews
- Genetic studies on Jews
- Historical Jewish population by country
- Historical Armenian population
- Jewish diaspora
- Jewish ethnic divisions
- Jewish history
- Yerida
References
External links
- Jewish Population in the World and Israel at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics