How many Jews there are

What it is

Ask how many Jews there are and you will get answers that differ by three million, all of them published by serious people. Pew Research counted nearly 14 million Jews worldwide as of 2010, which it put at 0.2% of the global population. ⁴ The Jewish Virtual Library's world table, built on the American Jewish Year Book, lists 17,136,800 for 2024. ¹ Neither is wrong. They are counting different sets of people, fifteen years apart, using different rules about who lands inside the line.

Start with where those people are, because that part is stable across every count. In the 2024 table, Israel holds 7,153,000 Jews, or 41.7% of world Jewry, and the United States holds 6,300,000, or 36.8%. ¹ Everything after that drops off a cliff: France at 438,500, Canada at 400,000, the United Kingdom at 313,000. ¹ Two countries account for roughly four fifths of the total, and no third country reaches three percent.

Now the definitional problem, which is easiest to see in Israel because Israel's statisticians say out loud what their category contains. As of September 2025, Israel's total population was 10,148,000, of whom 7,758,000, or 78.5%, were counted as Jews and other residents, alongside 2,130,000 Arabs at 21.5% and 260,000 foreigners. ² The "others" in that phrase are, in the Central Bureau of Statistics' own accounting, "non-Arab Christians, Baha'i, Samaritans, Karaite Jews, Seventh-day Adventists, Messianic Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who identify themselves as Jewish but do not satisfy the Orthodox Jewish definition of 'Jewish.'" ² Israel's headline number for its Jewish population is built around who was admitted and who lives in Jewish households, not around who satisfies a religious test.

The American version of the same problem runs the other direction. Pew's survey put the US Jewish population at roughly 7.5 million, made up of 5.8 million adults and 1.8 million children. ³ That 5.8 million is itself two groups stitched together: Jews by religion, at about 1.7% of American adults, and Jews of no religion, people who call themselves atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular but identify as Jewish ethnically, culturally or by family background, at about 0.6%. ³ Combined, 2.4% of US adults. ³ Meanwhile the world table lists the United States at 6,300,000, and explains the discrepancy in a footnote: it dropped DellaPergola's figures for years before 2023 because they undercount American Jews, and switched to Sheskin and Dashefsky's data instead. ¹ The gap between 6.3 million and 7.5 million is two research teams drawing the boundary of American Jewry in two defensible places, and saying so in print.

The narrow count and the broad count both have a real case. The narrow count is the one that answers "how many people are Jewish," and it has the advantage of resting on what people say about themselves rather than on household composition or immigration eligibility. The broad count is the one that answers "how many people does a Jewish community actually serve," which is the question a federation, a school, or a state planning ministry has to answer. Israel publishes the broad one. Pew publishes both and labels them. ^{2 3}

One number is not in dispute. World Jewry stood at 16,728,000 in 1939 and at 11,000,000 in 1945. ¹ Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, including roughly 2.7 million at killing centers, about 2 million in mass shooting operations, between 800,000 and 1,000,000 in ghettos and camps, and at least 250,000 in other acts of violence. ⁵ The 2024 figure of 17,136,800 is the first time the world count has meaningfully passed where it stood in 1939. ¹

Why it still matters

The center of gravity is moving, and the arithmetic is not close. Pew projects that by 2050 the global Jewish population will be about 16 million, still 0.2% of the world, with Israel at roughly 8.1 million Jews and the United States at 5.4 million. ⁴ In its 2010 baseline, North America held 44% of world Jewry and the Middle East and North Africa held 41%. ⁴ By 2050 the projection reverses those: 51% in the Middle East and North Africa, 37% in North America, under 8% in Europe. ⁴ For most of the last century, "the Jewish world" meant America with an Israeli branch.

That shift is not being driven by immigration at the moment. Israel took in 22,522 immigrants in 2025, a 31% decline from 2024, and its population growth rate was projected to fall to 1.1%, the first time since 1948 it has dropped below its historical range. ² Since independence, 3.46 million people have immigrated to Israel, 47% of them since 1990. ² The Israeli share is growing on births, not arrivals.

Our view on the definitional fight: both numbers are honest, and the dishonesty is in the selection. People reach for the smaller count when they want to argue that Jews are too few to be a threat to anyone, and for the larger count when they want to argue that a community is thriving. The useful habit is to ask which count is on the page before arguing with it, because a claim about growth or decline that switches definitions midway through is measuring nothing.

The other number worth holding onto is 0.2%. ⁴ It was 0.2% in 2010 and it is projected to be 0.2% in 2050. ⁴ Roughly one person in five hundred, which is smaller than almost anyone guesses when they argue about Jewish influence and smaller than most Jews guess when they picture the room.

The words you'll hear

Jews and others. Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics category, 7,758,000 people or 78.5% of the population as of September 2025, which includes non-Arab Christians, Samaritans, Karaite Jews, Messianic Jews, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union who identify as Jewish without meeting the Orthodox definition. ²

Jews by religion. Pew's category for Americans who name Judaism as their religion, about 1.7% of US adults. ³

Jews of no religion. Pew's category for Americans who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular while identifying as Jewish ethnically, culturally, or by family background, about 0.6% of US adults. ³

Net Jewish population. Pew's combined figure for those two groups, 2.4% of US adults, roughly 5.8 million people, or 7.5 million counting children. ³

The American Jewish Year Book. The annual volume where the standard country-by-country world Jewish population estimates are published, and the source behind the 17,136,800 figure for 2024. ¹

Aliyah. Immigration to Israel. 3.46 million people since 1948, 47% of them arriving from 1990 onward, and 22,522 in 2025. ²