The two countries with the greatest shares of the world's Jewish population are the United States and Israel. The United States had been a hub of Jewish immigration since the nineteenth century, as Jewish people sought to escape persecution in Europe by emigrating across the Atlantic. The Jewish population in the U.S. is largely congregated in major urban areas, such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, with the New York metropolitan area being the city with the second largest Jewish population worldwide, after Tel Aviv, Israel. Israel is the world's only officially Jewish state, having been founded in 1948 following the first Arab-Israeli War. While Jews had been emigrating to the holy lands since the nineteenth century, when they were controlled by the Ottoman Empire, immigration increased rapidly following the establishment of the state of Israel. Jewish communities in Eastern Europe who had survived the Holocaust saw Israel as a haven from persecution, while the state encouraged immigration from Jewish communities in other regions, notably the Middle East & North Africa. Smaller Jewish communities remain in Europe in countries such as France, the UK, and Germany, and in other countries which were hotspots for Jewish migration in the twentieth century, such as Canada and Argentina.

The average for 2013 based on 21 countries was 4.3 percent. The highest value was in Israel: 76.2 percent and the lowest value was in Hungary: 0.2 percent. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2013. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This statistic shows the top 25 countries in the world with the largest number of Jewish population in 2010. In 2010, there were living about 5.7 million Jews in the United States.

The world's Jewish population has had a complex and tumultuous history over the past millennia, regularly dealing with persecution, pogroms, and even genocide. The legacy of expulsion and persecution of Jews, including bans on land ownership, meant that Jewish communities disproportionately lived in urban areas, working as artisans or traders, and often lived in their own settlements separate to the rest of the urban population. This separation contributed to the impression that events such as pandemics, famines, or economic shocks did not affect Jews as much as other populations, and such factors came to form the basis of the mistrust and stereotypes of wealth (characterized as greed) that have made up anti-Semitic rhetoric for centuries. Development since the Middle Ages The concentration of Jewish populations across the world has shifted across different centuries. In the Middle Ages, the largest Jewish populations were found in Palestine and the wider Levant region, with other sizeable populations in present-day France, Italy, and Spain. Later, however, the Jewish disapora became increasingly concentrated in Eastern Europe after waves of pogroms in the west saw Jewish communities move eastward. Poland in particular was often considered a refuge for Jews from the late-Middle Ages until the 18th century, when it was then partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and persecution increased. Push factors such as major pogroms in the Russian Empire in the 19th century and growing oppression in the west during the interwar period then saw many Jews migrate to the United States in search of opportunity.

The Holocaust was the systematic extermination of Europe's Jewish population in the Second World War, during which time, up to six million Jews were murdered as part of Nazi Germany's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". In the context of the Second World War, the term "Holocaust" is traditionally used to reference the genocide of Europe's Jews, although this coincided with the Nazi regime's genocide and ethnic cleansing of an additional eleven million people deemed "undesirable" due to their ethnicity, beliefs, disability or sexuality (among others). During the Holocaust, Poland's Jewish population suffered the largest number of fatalities, with approximately three million deaths. Additionally, at least one million Jews were murdered in the Soviet Union, while Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Yugoslavia also lost the majority of their respective pre-war Jewish populations. The Holocaust in Poland In the interwar period, Europe's Jewish population was concentrated in the east, with roughly one third living in Poland; this can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when thousands of Jews flocked to Eastern Europe to escape persecution. At the outbreak of the Second World War, it is estimated that there were 3.4 million Jews living in Poland, which was approximately ten percent of the total population. Following the German invasion of Poland, Nazi authorities then segregated Jews in ghettos across most large towns and cities, and expanded their network of concentration camps throughout the country. In the ghettos, civilians were deprived of food, and hundreds of thousands died due to disease and starvation; while prison labor was implemented under extreme conditions in concentration camps to fuel the German war effort. In Poland, six extermination camps were also operational between December 1941 and January 1945, which saw the mass extermination of approximately 2.7 million people over the next three years (including many non-Poles, imported from other regions of Europe). While concentration camps housed prisoners of all backgrounds, extermination camps were purpose-built for the elimination of the Jewish race, and over 90% of their victims were Jewish. The majority of the victims in these extermination camps were executed by poison gas, although disease, starvation and overworking were also common causes of death. In addition to the camps and ghettos, SS death squads (Einsatzgruppen) and local collaborators also committed widespread atrocities across Eastern Europe. While the majority of these atrocities took place in the Balkan, Baltic and Soviet regions, they were still prevalent in Poland (particularly during the liquidation of the ghettos), and the Einsatzgruppen alone are estimated to have killed up to 1.3 million Jews throughout the Holocaust. By early 1945, Soviet forces had largely expelled the German armies from Poland and liberated the concentration and extermination camps; by this time, Poland had lost roughly ninety percent of its pre-war Jewish population, and suffered approximately three million further civilian and military deaths. By 1991, Poland's Jewish population was estimated to be just 15 thousand people, while there were fewer than two thousand Jews recorded as living in Poland in 2018.

In 1995, Israel had a Jewish population of approximately 4.5 million people, of whom approximately 1.75 million were born abroad. Over one million of these immigrants were born in Europe, with over 650,000 of these born in the former Soviet Union. Despite Poland having the largest Jewish population in the world in the pre-WWII years, the number of Polish Jewish migrants and descendents in Israel was relatively small in 1995 when compared to the USSR due to the impact of the Holocaust.

Outside of Europe, Morocco had the largest number of Jewish immigrants and descendents in Israel by 1995. Morocco had the largest Jewish population in the Muslim world when Israel was founded in 1948, with over 250,000 people. Many Moroccan Jews sought to emigrate to Israel at this time, but often faced resistance from authorities and local populations who believed the Jews would join in the fight against the Arab forces seeking to establish a Muslim state in Palestine. The government of Morocco then officially prohibited emigration to Israel after gaining independence from France in 1956, however this policy was reversed in 1961 whereby the Moroccan government began facilitating Jewish emigration to Israel in return for payments from Jewish organizations in the U.S. and Israel. By the 1970s, Morocco's Jewish population had fallen to less than 15 percent of its size in 1948.

Jews were the dominant religious group in the Israel-Palestine region at the beginning of the first millennia CE, and are the dominant religious group there today, however, there was a period of almost 2,000 years where most of the world's Jews were displaced from their spiritual homeland. Antiquity to the 20th century Jewish hegemony in the region began changing after a series of revolts against Roman rule led to mass expulsions and emigration. Roman control saw severe persecution of Jewish and Christian populations, but this changed when the Byzantine Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion in the 4th century. Christianity then dominated until the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate (the first to succeed Muhammad) took control of the Levant. Control of region split between Christians and Muslims intermittently between the 11th and 13th centuries during the Crusades, although the population remained overwhelmingly Muslim. Zionism until today Through the Paris Peace Conference, the British took control of Palestine in 1920. The Jewish population began growing through the Zionist Movement after the 1880s, which sought to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Rising anti-Semitism in Europe accelerated this in the interwar period, and in the aftermath of the Holocaust, many European Jews chose to leave the continent. The United Nations tried facilitating the foundation of separate Jewish and Arab states, yet neither side was willing to concede territory, leading to a civil war and a joint invasion from seven Arab states. Yet the Jews maintained control of their territory and took large parts of the proposed Arab territory, forming the Jewish-majority state of Israel in 1948, and acheiving a ceasefire the following year. Over 750,000 Palestinians were displaced as a result of this conflict, while most Jews from the Arab eventually fled to Israel. Since this time, Israel has become one of the richest and advanced countries in the world, however, Palestine has been under Israeli military occupation since the 1960s and there are large disparities in living standards between the two regions.

The Jewish population of Europe decreased dramatically during the 20th century, as millions of Jews were killed during the Holocaust of the Second World War, while millions of others emigrated to escape persecution (notably to Israel and the U.S.). Some estimates suggest that the total number of Jews in Europe in 1933 was approximately 9.5 million people, with the majority of these living in Eastern Europe. Jews were a minority in most countries, however they still made up a significant portion of the population in countries such as Hungary, Poland and Romania. Following the war however, the Jewish populations in these countries dropped drastically, and by the end of the century they made up just 0.1 percent or less in several countries.

At the end of 2023, the population of Israel reached almost 9.7 million permanent residents. Jewish residents formed the largest religious group, with just over 7.15 million people. The Muslim population in the country, formed the largest religious minority at over 1.7 million individuals. Conversely, the smallest religious group was that of the Druze with about 151,000 people.

As of 2024, the share of Jewish citizens in Israel who prefer to remain in the country rather than emigrate, decreased to **** percent. This represents the lowest level in the observed period. Furthermore, ** percent of Arab citizens said they preferred to live in the country. This was a significant increase compared to the previous year. Following the Israel-Hamas war, which started on October 7th, 2023, the topic of emigration became more prominent.

Since 1963, the Righteous Among the Nations is an honor bestowed by the Israeli state on non-Jews who risked their lives, and often the lives of their families, to save Jews during the Holocaust. As of 2024, a total of 28,707 individuals from 51 different countries have been honored in this way. Poland, the country with the largest Jewish population in Europe before the war, also has the highest number of recipients. Recipients are granted honorary Israeli citizenship (or commemorative citizenship for the deceased), and as many as 130 recipients relocated to Israel; recipients are also awarded a personalized medal, a certificate of honor, and their name is added to the Wall of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem helps coordinate this award, and has archived the stories of the thousands of recipients. However, it does acknowledge that there are thousands more potential recipients whose stories will likely never be known.

Europe's Jewish population in 1939 was around 9.5 million people, and it is estimated that six million of these were ultimately killed by 1945. The persecution of German Jews escalated during the interwar period, particularly after Hitler's ascent to power in 1933, and again after Kristallnacht in 1938. However, the scale of this increased drastically following the German invasions of Poland in 1939 and the USSR in 1941, when Germany annexed regions with some of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. Extermination Camps As part of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", the Nazi occupiers established six extermination camps in present-day Poland; these were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek***, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Prisoners, mostly Jews, were transported from all over Europe to these camps. Upon arrival, the majority of victims were sent directly to purpose-built chambers or vans, where they were murdered with carbon monoxide or Zyklon B gas. A relatively small number of prisoners were also forced to dispose of the victims' bodies, which often included their own family members, friends, or persons known to them. Most of the deceased were incinerated, and many of the camp records were destroyed; this means that precise figures for the number of deaths in extermination camps will never be known. It has been estimated that at least 2.7 million Jews were murdered in these six camps; over two thirds of these were killed at Auschwitz or Treblinka. Einsatzgruppen After extermination camps, the most common method of murder was through mass shootings. The majority of these shootings were not carried out by regular soldiers, but specialized task forces known as "Einsatzgruppen". Each group was just a few hundred men each, but they were responsible for some of the largest individual acts of genocide in the war. The largest of these took place at Babi Yar, near Kyiv in 1941, where almost 35,000 victims were beaten, humiliated, and then shot over a two day period. The Einsatzgruppen were most active in the annexed Soviet territories (although additional regiments were active in Poland and the Balkans), and their ranks were often bolstered by local volunteers. It has been estimated that Einsatzgruppen were responsible for the genocide of more than two million people in fewer than six years.

In 2023, over ****** new immigrants arrived in Israel from over ** countries. Among all incoming immigrants that year, over ** percent previously resided in Russia, *** percent in former USSR countries, and **** percent arrived from Ukraine. Jewish diaspora immigration to Israel increased recently due to the influx of Russian and Ukrainian citizens fleeing their countries following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Religious adherence varies widely between countries and regions across the globe. While in some countries, such as Bangladesh (majority-Muslim), Thailand (majority-Buddhist), and Nigeria (over 50 percent Muslim and 45 percent Christian), almost all people indicate that religion is important in their daily lives, in others such as Japan, Sweden, and Estonia, over three quarters of people do not believe that religion is important to them. Among countries with higher levels of religious adherence, there are some interesting cases. Predominantly Islamic countries, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, tend to show high levels of religious adherence. Italy, the historical center of the Catholic Church, records much higher levels of religiosity than other Western European countries, such as France, Germany, or the UK. The United States has almost double the number of people saying they believe religion is important in their daily life than not important. While religious adherence has declined over the past half century in the U.S., waves of immigration from predominantly Catholic countries, as well as the cultural impact of Evangelical Protestantism in some areas has meant that it is still one of the most religious Western countries. Israel, in spite of being an officially Jewish state, records roughly half of respondents being religious. Another notable trend is the tendency of some post-communist countries to show lower levels of religiosity, likely a result of the policy of state atheism under communism - Russia, Belarus, and Estonia all come towards the least religious end of the list for this reason, although Poland, or former-Soviet states in the Caucuses and Central Asia show much higher levels of religious adherence.

In 2023, border authorities registered over ************ international departures of Israeli citizens. This was a moderate increase from the previous year, and the highest rate since 2019. During the observed period, the number of departures consistently increased, until a sharp down turn in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. The number of departures fell to about *********** that year. Flights most preferred way to travel Flying remains the This spending reached over *********** U.S. dollars in 2023. New destinations after the Abraham Accords The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, led not only to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the countries, but also to the launch of direct flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai. Israelis are eagerly exploring these new destinations following marketing campaigns and due to their luxury offerings.

As of May 2024, over ****** Israelis had emigrated from the country in the previous 24 months. This represented an approximate ** percent increase in recent emigration from February 2023. Since June 2017, the number of Israeli newly relocating abroad consistently decreased until a low point in early 2023. Since the government initiation of the controversial judicial reform in January 2023 and the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, the topic of emigration became more prominent.