World Jewish Population Estimated at 13,000,000 in W.j.c. Survey

There are now about 13,000,000 Jews living in 130 countries and territories according to a survey conducted by the World Jewish Congress, the results of which were made public here today.

The survey, carried out by the Institute of Jewish Affairs, reports 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 according to figures available following the 1959 Russian census.

With the recent influx of Jews from North Africa, particularly from Algeria, France has moved ahead to become the fourth largest Jewish community in the world with a population of 500,000 Jews. Next are Argentina and Britain, 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 93.7 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 being Iran, about 80,000; Hungary, 75,000; Austria, 70,000 and Uruguay about 50,000. Another 14 countries have Jewish communities of between 5,000 and 20,000. Jewish populations of between 1,000 and 5,000 live in 18 lands. Jews ranging between just a few families and several hundred live in 64 other countries.

The new statistical survey reveals that no basic changes have occurred in the geographic distribution of the Jewish people in 1962, with the exception of the migration of North African Jews to France.

Algerian Jewry was reduced from an old-established prosperous community of 130,000 to about 10,000. There were also reductions in the numbers of Jews in Morocco and Tunisia, many of whom also moved to France. Other Jewish migration was on a minor scale in 1962, involving only modest movements from Eastern Europe to Israel.

The strife in the former Belgian Congo led to the destruction of Jewish life and a veritable exodus, reducing the number of Jews to some 600, as compared to the former community of about 2,400. The Jewish population of Cuba, numbering between 8,000 and 10,000 before the establishment of the present regime, has been reduced to under 2,500.

In giving details of the communities in the various Moslem lands, the WJC survey established that, within 15 years, the 85,000 Jewish population of Egypt has been reduced to about 4,000, with emigration still continuing. There are only about 5,000 Jews left in Iraq of a community numbering more than 120,000 before the start of the Arab-Israeli hostilities.

Similarly, Syrian Jewry is down to about 3,000, or a tenth of its peak some years ago, while the Jewish community of Lebanon has been reduced to about 5,000. Only a handful of its original 50,000 Jews now remain in Yemen. The Moroccan Jewish community, numbering 250,000 in 1947, is down to about 125,000, while Tunisian Jewry continues to decrease and today is estimated at about 35,000.