Shma (Jewish Population Trends in Israel and the Diaspora)

"Jewish Population Trends in Israel and the Diaspora

By Sergio DellaPergola

After the loss of six million during the Shoah, the world Jewish population was estimated at eleven million in 1945. It took about 13 years to add one million Jews to the post-Shoah total, but the next 45 years were not enough to add a second million: world Jewry was estimated at 12,948,000 in 2003. Zero population growth reflects mostly negative balances between Jewish births and Jewish deaths, and between accessions to and secessions from Judaism. Low 'effectively Jewish' birthrates also reflect widespread out-marriages and low propensities to identify the majority of the respective children as Jews.

In Israel, Jews have constituted a solid majority of the total population since 1948, while Jews in other countries constituted small minorities in their respective environments. Israel's Jewish population steadily increased from approximately half a million in 1945 and one million in 1950 to over 5.1 million in 2003. Diaspora Jewry was stable from 10.5 million in 1945 to 10.2 million in 1960, notwithstanding mass aliyah following Israel's independence. The Diaspora population, however, rapidly diminished to 7.8 million in 2003. Over the 1945,2003 period, Israel's total growth of over 4.6 million was due half to the balance of immigrants and emigrants, and half to the balance of births and deaths.

International migration reshaped the geographical map of world Jewry and fundamentally changed the environments in which Jewish life developed. Since 1945 over five million Jews and their non-Jewish family members have moved between countries and continents. Jewish migration's wavelike pattern has reflected predominant crisis or push-dominated determinants. Two major migration waves occurred in the wake of Israel's independence, between May 1948 and 1951, and since "