Jews

=== Population centers ===
{{main list|Jewish population by city}}
[[File:Purim 2012 Williamsburg Brooklyn 01.jpg|thumb|[[New York City]] is home to 1.1 million Jews, making it the [[Jews in New York City|largest Jewish community]] outside of Israel.]]
Although historically, Jews have been found all over the world, in the decades since World War II and the establishment of Israel, they have increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries.<ref>Johnson (1987), pp. 529, 560–62.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-jew/|title=Jews|date=18 December 2012}}</ref> In 2021, [[Israel]] and the [[United States]] together accounted for over 85 percent of the global Jewish population, with approximately 45.3% and 39.6% of the world's Jews, respectively.<ref name="JDB" />

According to the [[Israel Central Bureau of Statistics]] there were 13,421,000 Jews worldwide in 2009, roughly 0.2% of the world's population at the time.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton61/st02_27.pdf|title=Jewish population in the world and in Israel|publisher=Israel Central Bureau of Statistics|access-date=18 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111026202909/http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton61/st02_27.pdf|archive-date=26 October 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to the 2007 estimates of [[The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute]], the world's Jewish population is 13.2&nbsp;million.<ref name="haaretz.com">{{cite news|title=Percent of world Jewry living in Israel climbed to 41% in 2007|first=Anshel|last=Pfeffer|url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/percent-of-world-jewry-living-in-israel-climbed-to-41-in-2007-1.236675|newspaper=Haaretz|date=6 January 2008|access-date=10 October 2012}}</ref> This statistic incorporates both practicing Jews affiliated with [[synagogue]]s and the Jewish community, and approximately 4.5&nbsp;million unaffiliated and [[Jewish secularism|secular Jews]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2016}}

According to [[Sergio Della Pergola]], a demographer of the [[Jewish population]], in 2021 there were about 6.8 million Jews in Israel, 6 million in the United States, and 2.3 million in the rest of the world.<ref name="JDB" />

==== Israel ====
{{main|Israeli Jews}}
[[File:Mahane Yehuda Market P1020256.JPG|thumb|Jewish people in [[Jerusalem]], Israel]]
[[Israel]], the Jewish nation-state, is the only country in which Jews make up a majority of the citizens.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=257112|title=Iran must attack Israel by 2014|date=9 February 2012|newspaper=The Jerusalem Post|access-date=3 April 2012}}</ref> Israel was established as an independent [[Parliamentary democracy|democratic]] and Jewish state on 14 May 1948.<ref name="cia">{{cite web|url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/israel/|publisher=Central Intelligence Agency|work=The World Factbook|access-date=20 July 2007|date=19 June 2007|title=Israel}}</ref> Of the 120 members in its parliament, the [[Knesset]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.knesset.gov.il/description/eng/eng_mimshal_beh.htm|publisher=The Knesset|access-date=8 August 2007|title=The Electoral System in Israel}}</ref> {{as of|2016|lc=y}}, 14 members of the Knesset are [[Arab citizens of Israel]] (not including the Druze), most representing Arab political parties. One of Israel's [[Supreme Court of Israel|Supreme Court]] judges is also an Arab citizen of Israel.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/israel|title=Israel|work=Freedom in the World|publisher=Freedom House|year=2009|access-date=5 April 2012|archive-date=19 August 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120819061301/http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/israel|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/shnaton/templ_shnaton_e.html?num_tab=st02_01&CYear=2006 |publisher=Israel Central Bureau of Statistics |access-date=7 August 2007 |year=2006 |title=Population, by Religion and Population Group |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930033403/http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/shnaton/templ_shnaton_e.html?num_tab=st02_01&CYear=2006 |archive-date=30 September 2007}}</ref> Currently, Jews account for 75.4&nbsp;percent of the Israeli population, or 6&nbsp;million people.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4280028,00.html |title=Jewish New Year: Israel's population nears 8M mark |newspaper=Ynetnews |publisher=Ynetnews.com |date=20 June 1995 |access-date=12 April 2013|last1=Drukman |first1=Yaron }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/israel-jewish-population-six-million |title=Israel's Jewish population passes 6 million mark |work=Guardian |date=1 January 2013 |access-date=12 April 2013}}</ref> The early years of the State of Israel were marked by the [[Aliyah|mass immigration]] of [[Holocaust survivors]] in the [[aftermath of the Holocaust]] and Jews [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries|fleeing Arab lands]].<ref name="persecution">{{harvnb|Dekmejian|1975|p=247}}. "And most [Oriental-Sephardic Jews] came... because of Arab persecution resulting from the very attempt to establish a Jewish state in Palestine."</ref> Israel also has a large population of [[Ethiopian Jews]], many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s.<ref>{{cite web|title=airlifted tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ejhist.html#operation1/|access-date=7 July 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/ethiopian-israelis-decry-separation-from-relatives-as-discriminatory/ |title=Ethiopian-Israelis decry separation from relatives as discriminatory |newspaper=Times of Israel |date=10 March 2018 |access-date=20 February 2024 |last1=Goldenberg |first1=Tia }}</ref> Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/books/alexeewa/|script-title=ru:История инакомыслия в СССР|first=Lyudmila|last=Alexeyeva|author-link=Lyudmila Alexeyeva|location=Vilnius|year=1983|language=ru|trans-title=History of Dissident Movement in the USSR|access-date=5 April 2012|archive-date=9 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309152800/http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/books/alexeewa/|url-status=dead}}</ref> This period also saw an increase in [[Aliyah|immigration to Israel]] from [[Western Europe]], [[Latin America]], and [[North America]].<ref>Goldstein (1995) p. 24</ref>

A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including [[Indian Jews]] and others, as well as some descendants of [[Ashkenazi]] Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the [[United States]], [[Argentina]], [[Australia]], [[Chile]], and [[South Africa]]. Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, because of economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing [[Arab–Israeli conflict]]. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as [[Yerida|yordim]].<ref name="Dosick 2007, p. 340">Dosick (2007), p. 340.</ref>

==== Diaspora (outside Israel) ====
{{main|Jewish diaspora}}
[[File:Happynewyearcard.jpg|thumb|upright|In this [[Rosh Hashana]] greeting card from the early 1900s, Russian Jews, packs in hand, gaze at the American relatives beckoning them to the United States. Over two million Jews fled the [[pogroms]] of the [[Russian Empire]] to the safety of the U.S. between 1881 and 1924.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gurock|first=Jeffrey S.|title=East European Jews in America, 1880–1920: Immigration and Adaptation|year=1998|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|isbn=0-415-91924-X|page=54}}</ref>]]

[[File:Birobidjan mainsquare.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[Menorah (Temple)|menorah]] dominating the main square in [[Birobidzhan]]. An estimated 70,000 [[History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union|Jews]] live in [[Siberia]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=136974 |title= Planting Jewish roots in Siberia |publisher= Fjc.ru |date= 24 May 2004 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090827113526/http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=136974 |archive-date= 27 August 2009 |df= dmy-all}}</ref>]]
The waves of [[immigration to the United States]] and elsewhere at the turn of the 19th century, the founding of [[Zionism]] and later events, including [[pogroms]] in Imperial Russia (mostly within the [[Pale of Settlement]] in present-day Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and eastern Poland), the massacre of European Jewry during [[the Holocaust]], and the founding of the [[state of Israel]], with the subsequent [[Jewish exodus from Arab lands]], all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the 20th century.<ref>Gartner (2001), p. 213.</ref>

More than half of the Jews live in the Diaspora (see Population table). Currently, the largest Jewish community outside Israel, and either the largest or second-largest Jewish community in the world, is located in the United States, with 5.2&nbsp;million to 6.4&nbsp;million Jews by various estimates. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in [[Canada]] (315,000), [[Argentina]] (180,000–300,000), and [[Brazil]] (196,000–600,000), and smaller populations in [[Mexico]], [[Uruguay]], [[Venezuela]], [[Chile]], [[Colombia]] and several other countries (see [[History of the Jews in Latin America]]).<ref name="JPPI2007">{{cite web|title=Annual Assessment|url=http://jppi.org.il/uploads/Annual%20Assessment%202007.pdf|year=2007|publisher=Jewish People Policy Planning Institute ([[Jewish Agency for Israel]])|page=15}}, based on {{cite book|title=Annual Assessment 2007|publisher=[[American Jewish Committee]]|url=http://www.ajcarchives.org/main.php?GroupingId=10142|volume=106|year=2006}}</ref> According to a 2010 [[Pew Research Center]] study, about 470,000 people of Jewish heritage live in [[Latin America|Latin-America]] and the [[Caribbean]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/jews/ |title= Jews – Pew Research Center|website= Pew Research Center|date= 2 April 2015|access-date= 28 March 2018}}</ref> Demographers disagree on whether the United States has a larger Jewish population than Israel, with many maintaining that Israel surpassed the United States in Jewish population during the 2000s, while others maintain that the United States still has the largest Jewish population in the world. Currently, a major national Jewish population survey is planned to ascertain whether or not Israel has overtaken the United States in Jewish population.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishjournal.com/demographic_duo/item/israel_may_be_main_topic_in_next_national_jewish_population_survey_of_the_u |title=Israel May Be Main Topic In Next National Jewish Population Survey of the U.S. |publisher=Jewish Journal |date=14 March 2013 |access-date=12 April 2013}}</ref>

[[File:DAVID BEN GURION WITH MEMBERS OF JEWISH ZIONIST YOUTH MOVEMENT IN TALLIN IN ESTONIA. דוד בן גוריון וחברי תנועת הנוער הציונית, בטאלין, אסטוניה.D683-119.jpg|thumb|upright|The Jewish [[Zionism|Zionist]] Youth Movement in [[Tallinn]], [[Estonia]] on 1 September 1933]]
[[Western Europe]]'s largest Jewish community, and the third-largest Jewish community in the world, can be found in [[France]], home to between 483,000 and 500,000 Jews, the majority of whom are immigrants or refugees from North African countries such as [[Algeria]], [[Morocco]], and [[Tunisia]] (or their descendants).<ref>Gartner (2001), pp. 410–10.</ref> The [[United Kingdom]] has a Jewish community of 292,000. In [[East Europe|Eastern Europe]], the exact figures are difficult to establish. The number of Jews in Russia varies widely according to whether a source uses census data (which requires a person to choose a single nationality among choices that include "Russian" and "Jewish") or eligibility for immigration to Israel (which requires that a person have one or more Jewish grandparents). According to the latter criteria, the heads of the Russian Jewish community assert that up to 1.5 million Russians are eligible for [[aliyah]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mskagency.ru/materials/2716461 |title=Исследование: Около 1,5 млн людей с еврейскими корнями проживают в России |trans-title=Study: About 1.5 Million People with Jewish Roots Live in Russia |date=20 October 2017 |publisher=Moscow Urban News Agency |access-date=28 October 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=57988 |title=В России проживает около миллиона иудеев |trans-title=In Russia, There Are About a Million Jews |date=26 February 2015 |publisher=[[Interfax]] |access-date=28 October 2017}}</ref> In [[Germany]], the 102,000 Jews registered with the Jewish community are a slowly declining population,<ref>{{Cite web|date=4 December 2013|title=Mitgliederstatistik der jüdischen Gemeinden und Landesverbände: Zu und Abgänge 2012|url=http://www.zwst.org/cms/documents/178/de_DE/ZWST-Mitgliederstatistik-2012-web.pdf|access-date=20 August 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131204213637/http://www.zwst.org/cms/documents/178/de_DE/ZWST-Mitgliederstatistik-2012-web.pdf |archive-date=4 December 2013 }}</ref> despite the immigration of tens of thousands of Jews from the former [[Soviet Union]] since the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jppi.org.il/uploads/Annual%20Assessment%202007.pdf|title=Annual Assessment 2007|access-date=3 July 2008|last=Waxman|first=Chaim I.|year=2007|publisher=Jewish People Policy Planning Institute ([[Jewish Agency for Israel]])|pages=40–42}}</ref> Thousands of [[Israelis]] also live in Germany, either permanently or temporarily, for economic reasons.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jg-berlin.org/en/service/israelis-in-berlin.html|title=Israelis in Berlin|publisher=Jewish Community of Berlin|access-date=11 October 2012}}</ref>

Prior to 1948, approximately 800,000 Jews were living in lands which now make up the [[Arab world]] (excluding Israel). Of these, just under two-thirds lived in the French-controlled [[Maghreb]] region, 15 to 20&nbsp;percent in the [[Kingdom of Iraq]], approximately 10&nbsp;percent in the [[Kingdom of Egypt]] and approximately 7&nbsp;percent in the [[Kingdom of Yemen]]. A further 200,000 lived in [[Pahlavi Iran]] and the [[Republic of Turkey]]. Today, around 26,000 Jews live in Arab countries<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rosenberg|first=Jerry M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bdAdAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44|title=The Rebirth of the Middle East|date=28 September 2009|publisher=Hamilton Books|isbn=978-0-7618-4846-2|language=en}}</ref> and around 30,000 in [[Iran]] and [[Turkey]]. A small-scale exodus had begun in many countries in the early decades of the 20th century, although the only substantial [[aliyah]] came from [[Yemen]] and [[Syria]].<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Simon |editor1-first=Reeva Spector |editor2-last=Laskier |editor2-first=Michael Menachem |editor3-last=Reguer |editor3-first=Sara |year=2003 |title=The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-50759-2 |page=327 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VxEJrEY22egC&pg=PA327 |quote=Before the 1940s only two communities, Yemen and Syria, made substantial aliyah. }}</ref> The [[Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries|exodus from Arab and Muslim countries]] took place primarily from 1948. The first large-scale exoduses took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily in [[Iraq]], Yemen and [[Libya]], with up to 90&nbsp;percent of these communities leaving within a few years. The peak of the exodus from [[Egypt]] occurred in 1956. The exodus in the Maghreb countries peaked in the 1960s. [[Lebanon]] was the only Arab country to see a temporary increase in its Jewish population during this period, due to an influx of refugees from other Arab countries, although by the mid-1970s the Jewish community of Lebanon had also dwindled. In the aftermath of the exodus wave from Arab states, an additional migration of [[Iranian Jews]] peaked in the 1980s when around 80&nbsp;percent of Iranian Jews left the country.{{Citation needed|date=March 2016}}

Outside [[Europe]], the [[Americas]], the [[Middle East]], and the rest of [[Asia]], there are significant Jewish populations in [[Australia]] (112,500) and [[Jewish population of South Africa|South Africa]] (70,000).<ref name="JVIL2010" /> There is also a 6,800-strong community in [[New Zealand]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Congress|first=World Jewish|title=World Jewish Congress|url=https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/NZ|access-date=20 August 2022|website=World Jewish Congress|language=EN}}</ref>