There are now 12,915,000 Jews in the world, living in 122 lands, a new survey of global Jewish population, compiled by the World Jewish Congress, revealed here today. Carried out by the WJC’s Institute of Jewish Affairs, the survey reported that 10,000,000 Jews live in three countries: 5,500,000 in the United States, 2,200,000 in Israel and about 2,300,000 in the Soviet Union. (The Russian figure was based on the 1959 Soviet census.)
With the recent influx of Jews from North Africa, particularly Algeria, France has moved ahead, becoming the fourth largest Jewish community in the world with a population of 500,000 Jews. Next are Argentina and Britain, with 450,000 each; Canada, 250,000; Rumania, 150,000; Brazil, 140,000; Morocco, 125,000; and the Union of South Africa, 110,000.
The 11 largest communities, in which 12,175,000 Jews live, comprise 93 percent of the total world Jewish population. There are communities of between 20,000 and less than 100,000 in 14 lands, totaling in all 570,000, the largest of these being Iran, with about 80,000 Jews; Hungary, 75,000; Australia, 70,000; and Uruguay, about 50,000. Fourteen other countries have Jewish communities of between 5,000 and 20,000; while Jewish populations of between 1,000 and 5,000 live in 18 lands. Jews in numbers ranging between just a few and several hundred live in 64 countries and regions.
In announcing completion of the new statistical survey, Dr. Nehemiah Robinson, director of the Institute of Jewish Affairs, said that no basic changes had occurred in the geographic distribution of the Jewish people in 1962, with the exception of a move on the part of North African Jews into France. Algerian Jewry was reduced from an old-established, prosperous community of about 130,000 to between 10,000 and 15,000. There were also reductions in the numbers of Jews in Morocco and Tunisia, many of whom, with Algerian Jews, moved to France, boosting that country’s community to become the fourth largest in the world.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
