Israel Supplants US as World’s Largest Jewish Population Center, Passing Symbolic 6 Million Figure
During Passover, the Jewish population of Israel has passed the symbolic 6 million mark - the same number of Jews who were believed to have been killed during the Nazi Holocaust - while the country’s total population is now 8 million.
Israel now has the world’s largest community of Jews, replacing the U.S. (5.5 million, with 2 million in New York City alone), France (500,000, mostly in Paris) and Canada (380,000, primarily in Toronto).
Britain has 290,000 Jews, most of them concentrated in London.
According to the Interior Ministry, Israel’s non-Jewish population comprises about 1.6 million Arabs and 350,000 non-Arab Christians and others (mostly immigrants from the Soviet Union whose religion has not been listed or registered by the ministry).
Another half-million Israeli citizens live abroad, the Ynet newspaper reported.
However, a leading expert on demography warns that overall the world’s Jewish population is declining.
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