The Israel
Jewish community, which compromises approximately 75 percent of the total
population outside of Judea and Samaria, now is the largest in the world,
depending on one’s definition of “Who is a Jew?”
According to
most sources, the American Jewish population is estimated of being 5.5 million,
while it is up to 2 million larger if one includes as Jewish those who were
born to Jewish fathers but not to Jewish fathers and those who were not
converted according to Jewish tradition.
The largest
American Jewish population center is in New York City, with approximately 2
million, followed by nearly half a million in Paris.
There are
approximately 380,000 Jews in Canada, with most of them living in metropolitan
Toronto. Next in line is Britain’s 290,000 Jews.
“In the
world today there are 13,800,000 Jews,” Hebrew University Professor Sergio
Della Pergola told the Yediot Acharonot newspaper.
“Israel has
indeed experienced a growth in the number of Jews last year, but world Jewry
outside Israel did not fare so well. On the contrary, world Jewry has
experienced negative growth,” reflecting assimilation.
Although
most of the world’s Jews live outside Israel, Israeli historian and author Tom
Segev told the London Daily Telegraph, “Within five, seven or 10 years, you
might be able to say that most Jews in the world live inside Israel, and it
will be legitimate to use the clichי that for the first time in 2,000 years,
the Jews are in Israel. Then the question will be, what do you do with the
Zionist ideology?”
Israelis are
attracted to metropolitan Tel Aviv, but massive government programs, including
new highways and rail links, are trying to reverse the trend and encourage Jews
to settle in the Negev and the Galilee.