The Jewish population of Palestine totalled 460,000 in the middle of 1939, according to figures published here by the Jewish National Fund, Zionist land purchasing agency. The figures, for the first time, include illegal Jewish immigrants in Palestine.
The figure represents a growth of 23,000 since the end of 1938, including a natural increase of 4,000 and 19,000 immigrants, legal as well as illegal. This is more than the increase for the whole of the year 1938, which was 21,000, according to the fund’s figures.
The total population of the country at midyear was 1,503,000, according to the Fund’s estimate, including 1,015,000 Arabs and 28,000 others, most of whom are Druse. The Arab population increased by 184,000 since 1931, while the Jewish increase in the same period was 288,000. Aside from the Jews, the religious division of the population was as follows: Moslems, 915,000, Christians, 116,000; others, 112,000.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
