According to a new report by Hebrew University demographer Sergio de Pergula, the number of Jews in the world has risen for the first time in three decades. The report is here in Hebrew.
The worldwide Jewish population stands at 13,428,300 -- a rise of 1.25 per cent over 2000. That's about 80,000 more Jews.
He may be slightly underestimating, tho, because he puts the number in the US at only 5.275 million, while American Jewish demographers put it closer to 6 million.
According to de Pergula and the Israeli government, the number of Jews in Israel is 5.7 million -- 42 per cent of the total Jewish population. Here in the UK, the number is estimated at 292,000. I was shocked that there are only 250,000 Jews left in Russia and 70,000 or so in South Africa.
One note of caution, however: the percentage of Jews between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean was put at 49.8 per cent of the total population.
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