The Nazi holocaust, inter-marriage and a declining birth rate are the factors responsible for the diminution of the world’s Jewish population according to a demographic study published here. Uziel O. Schmelz and Paul Glikson, authors of "Jewish Population Studies, 1961-68," said the Nazis destroyed about a third of the world’s Jewish population causing a heavy loss of young adults. They said that since the war there has been an increasing proportion of marriage to non-Jews and withdrawal from Jewry and that Jews make greater and more efficient use of birth control and usually favor small families. The study by the two demographers and statisticians was conducted under the auspices of the institute of Contemporary Jewry in Jerusalem. The authors dispute the current estimate of the world Jewish population at 13.6 million as too high. They say only 11 million were left after World War II out of a pre-war world Jewish population of 16.5 million.
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