The origin of Jews is in the Middle East. Historical populations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Land of Israel (also known historically as Canaan) all contributed to that initial core of the Jewish nation. Howl old does it make Jews? Based on the insights from the ancient Hebrew texts and the modern sciences of history, archeology and genetics: 3,000-4,000 years old. After the formation of the initial core, throughout the centuries, by choice and by force, Jews spread all over the globe. Their contact with local populations in countries to which they migrated resulted in a certain degree of mixing. Contemporary Jewish populations are the result of this mixing. Italy was an important point of entry of Jews into Europe and, as would be expected, Italians were found to make a contribution into the creation of the Ashkenazi Jewry. The place of Israel in Jewish demography is a subject worthy of a separate investigation. The same is true of the Jewish European saga.
At its peak, in 1939, global Jewish population came to 16.5 million. Today, it is 15.2 million. The earliest estimates of Jewish population, then located mostly in the historical Land of Israel, date to the time of King David – which is about 3,000 years ago, give or take a few. Probably, about 2 million Jews existed then. During the Hellenistic period Jewish population reached the 4.5 million mark. Then an era of population decline followed. In purely numerical terms, in scale, this was comparable to the impact of the Holocaust. The mechanism was different though. Much, perhaps most, of the decline reflected assimilation of Jews into the surrounding non-Jewish populations rather than the wholesale murder. The early estimates of Jewish population, prior to year 1,000 CE, say, are very uncertain. Before modern methods of counting people (such as censuses) arrived, only more or less informed guesstimates existed. 2.0-4.5 million of Jews in ancient Judea may be revised, even radically, when better data become available and superior insights follow.
The late modern era brought vigorous population growth. The process of modernisation, known as the demographic transition in the expert demographic jargon, brought the increase in quality and length of life; it propelled the European populations, and Jews, to new numerical heights. In 1939, on the eve of the Holocaust, there were 16.5 million Jews in the world – the largest number ever. Six years later there were 11 million. Jewish population grew in the following years but never recovered its pre-Holocaust size. If not the Holocaust, around 2020 Jewish population may have been anywhere between 20 and 35 million, on a par with the national populations of Canada and Australia at the same time.
Other ‘participants’ of the Second World War experienced population losses, as one would expect. Take the Soviet Union and Germany. Restoring the total Soviet population size to its pre-war levels took about a decade. The population of West Germany was more numerous at the end of the war than before its outbreak. The forces of population growth – including population transfers – managed to compensate Germany for the losses incurred by war. Globally, Jewish population saw no recovery since Second World War. It is hardly surprising that Jews, in Israel and the Diaspora, continue to show high anxiety about antisemitism. The population losses during the Holocaust are key to understanding the Jewish mind and Jewish politics in this day and age.
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If using graphical and/or textual content presented here, please cite Jewish World in Data (Daniel Staetsky) as a source