Nearly half of the world’s Jews live in Israel

 (JNS) At the start of 2022, there were a total of fifteen point three million Jews in the world, seven million of whom, roughly forty-six percent of all Jews worldwide, resided in Israel, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics revealed on Sunday.
In 1939, on the eve of World War Two, Jews numbered sixteen point six million, and four-hundred-forty-nine thousand (three percent) resided in the Land of Israel. Just under ten years later, in 1948, the world’s Jewish population had diminished to eleven point five million; of them, six-hundred-fifty thousand (six percent) lived in Israel.
Among Diaspora Jews, about six million live in the United States, four-hundred-forty-two thousand in France, three-hundred-ninety-two thousand in Canada, two-hundred-ninety-two thousand in Britain, one-hundred-seventy-three thousand in Argentina, one-hundred-forty-five thousand in Russia, one-hundred-eighteen thousand in Germany and another one-hundred-eighteen thousand in Australia, according to the report.
Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins on the evening of April 17, the CBS also revealed that one-hundred-forty-seven thousand, one-hundred-ninety-nine Holocaust survivors or victims of antisemitic actions during the Holocaust are currently living in Israel.
Of those survivors, sixty-one percent are women and thirty-nine percent are men.
A small number, four point five percent, immigrated to Israel before the establishment of the state, between 1933 to 1947; thirty-one point seven percent immigrated during the large aliyah wave following the state’s establishment (1948 to 1951); twenty-nine point seven percent immigrated between 1952 and 1989 and thirty-four point one percent came since the 1990s, during the wave of aliyah from the former Soviet Union.
In a 2021 survey, eighty-seven percent of Israel’s survivors said they were either “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their lives, similar to the eighty-eight percent of Jews and others above the age of 75. However, seventeen point three percent of Holocaust survivors said they felt lonely often, compared to twelve point six percent of Jews and others 75 and older.