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 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.

Throughout history, the displacement and migration of Jewish populations has been a repeating theme. In ancient times, the worlds Jewish population was concentrated in the Middle East, especially around Judaism's spiritual homeland in present-day Israel. However, the population distribution of the world's Jewry began to shift in the Middle Ages, with an increasing share living in Europe. Initially, Western Europe (particularly France, Italy, and Spain) had the largest Jewish populations, before they then migrated eastward in later centuries. Between the 18th and mid-20th centuries, over half of the worl'd Jews lived in Europe, with over 80 percent of these living in Eastern Europe.

Poland had become a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution in the Middle Ages, although shifting borders and foreign influence meant that long-term security was never fully attained, and a series of pogroms in the Russian Empire in the 1800s, and rising anti-Semitism in Central Europe in the early-1900s contributred to waves of migration to the United States and Israel during this time. After the Holocaust saw the genocide of up to six million Jews (over one third of the world's Jewish population), the share of Jews living in Europe dropped drastically, and emmigration outside of Europe increased. Today, the United States has the world's largest Jewish population in the world at around 7.3 million people, just ahead of Israel with 7.1 million.

In the Middle Ages, it is believed the largest Jewish populations in the world were found in Asia, particularly across the Middle East. Of the estimated total Jewish population of 1.2 million people, over 80 percent are thought to have lived in Asia, while 13 percent lived in Europe, and the remaining six precent lived in (North) Africa. The largest populations were found on the Arabian peninsula, as well as Iran and Iraq, while the Near East (here referring to the Levant region) had a much smaller population, despite being the spiritual homeland of the Jewish people.

These figures are based on the records of Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveller from the Middle Ages who provided one of the most comprehensive collections of population statistics from the period. Benjamin's writings not only recorded the number of Jews living across this part of the world, but also gave an insight into societal structures and the ordinary daily lives within Jewish communities in the medieval period. The source providing these figures, however, has adjusted some of the statistics to account for known populations that were missing from Benjamin of Tudela's records, especially in Europe and Asia.

Russia: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from 2013 is 0.4 percent, unchanged from 0.4 percent in 2012. In comparison, the world average is 4.3 percent, based on data from 21 countries. Historically, the average for Russia from 1991 to 2013 is 0.5 percent. The minimum value, 0.4 percent, was reached in 2005 while the maximum of 0.6 percent was recorded in 1991.

The worldwide Jewish population experienced a marked decline during the 20th century due to the murder of six million Jewish people during the Holocaust, the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. While there were almost 17 million Jewish people alive before the Holocaust, or the Shoah as it is known in Hebrew, after the war this was only around 11.5 million people. By using several different fertility scenarios, demographers have been able to reconstruct what the Jewish population would be in modern times if the genocide of Jewish people had not happened. In scenarios where there was a low or very low fertility rate, the Jewish population in 2000 would be in the range of 26 to 33 million people, double what it was in reality. In a scenario where the population growth rate was the same as that observed in the Jewish population after WWII, which was extremely low, the global Jewish population would have risen to over 20 million people.

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.

Mexico: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from 2013 is 0.2 percent, unchanged from 0.2 percent in 2012. In comparison, the world average is 4.3 percent, based on data from 21 countries. Historically, the average for Mexico from 1960 to 2013 is 0.2 percent. The minimum value, 0.2 percent, was reached in 1960 while the maximum of 0.2 percent was recorded in 1960.

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.

Tonga: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.0 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for Tonga from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

Belgium: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from 2013 is 0.3 percent, a decline from 0.4 percent in 2012. In comparison, the world average is 4.3 percent, based on data from 21 countries. Historically, the average for Belgium from 1960 to 2013 is 0.4 percent. The minimum value, 0.3 percent, was reached in 2013 while the maximum of 0.5 percent was recorded in 1960.

Sweden: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.0 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for Sweden from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

In 2020, around 28.8 percent of the global population were identified as Christian. Around 25.6 percent of the global population identify as Muslims, followed by 14.9 percent of global populations as Hindu. The number of Muslims increased by 347 million, when compared to 2010 data, more than all other religions combined.

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.

North Korea: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.0 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for North Korea from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

Mauritius: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.0 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for Mauritius from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

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.

Kosher Food Certification Market Outlook

The Kosher Food Certification Market is poised to exhibit remarkable growth, with its global market size expected to expand from USD 24.8 billion in 2023 to an estimated USD 42.2 billion by 2032, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4%. The surge in demand for kosher-certified products is largely driven by increasing consumer awareness about food safety, dietary health benefits, and growing adherence to religious dietary laws, alongside the broader trend of seeking high-quality food products. This growth trajectory is further bolstered by the rising global population and its inclination towards healthier, more transparent food sourcing practices, which are hallmarks of kosher-certified food items.

One of the primary growth factors contributing to the expansion of the kosher food certification market is the increasing health consciousness among consumers. Kosher food is often perceived as a cleaner and more trustworthy option due to its stringent certification process, which ensures the food is free from contaminants and adheres to strict preparation standards. This perception has gained traction not only among Jewish communities but also among health-conscious individuals who are seeking assurance about the food they consume. This broader acceptance has opened new demographics and market segments for kosher-certified products, thereby driving market growth.

In addition to health motivations, cultural and religious factors play a significant role in the growth of this market. The Jewish population, which traditionally consumes kosher products, is not the only driver; the market is also buoyed by Muslim communities adhering to halal dietary laws which align in certain aspects with kosher guidelines. This overlap increases the appeal of kosher products, facilitating market growth in regions with significant Muslim populations. Furthermore, the globalization of food cultures and the fusion of different culinary traditions have led to a broader acceptance and demand for kosher-certified products worldwide.

The rapid advancement of globalization and the continuous expansion of international trade have also significantly contributed to the growth of the kosher food certification market. With food products now crossing borders more frequently, there is a heightened focus on maintaining food safety standards across nations. Kosher certification provides an internationally recognized mark of quality, making it easier for products to penetrate new markets. This trend is supported by the increasing demand for gourmet and specialty foods, where kosher certification often serves as a mark of quality and authenticity, enhancing consumer trust and confidence in the product.

Regionally, the kosher food certification market exhibits a diverse outlook. North America holds a significant share of the market due to its large Jewish population and the well-established food certification industry. However, the Asia Pacific region is expected to witness the highest growth rate, driven by its burgeoning middle-class population and increasing awareness of kosher dietary benefits. Meanwhile, Europe, with its rich history of cultural diversity and culinary exploration, continues to be a robust market for kosher foods, benefiting from regulatory support and growing consumer interest in food quality and safety standards.

Type Analysis

The Kosher Food Certification Market by type is segmented into Kosher Pareve, Kosher Meat, and Kosher Dairy. Each category serves a distinct purpose and caters to different consumer needs. Kosher Pareve, which includes foods that contain neither meat nor dairy, is particularly appealing to vegetarians and those allergic to dairy products. It has gained popularity due to the rising trend of plant-based diets and the increasing prevalence of lactose intolerance. The strict certification for pareve products ensures that they meet high standards of quality and purity, attracting a broad consumer base that values transparency and health.

Kosher Meat, another critical segment, holds substantial significance, especially within traditional Jewish communities. The consumption of kosher meat is not only a dietary choice but also a religious obligation for many. The meticulous process involved in certifying kosher meat - which includes humane slaughtering and thorough inspections - is a major selling point. This segment is expected to continue to expand as consumer demand for ethically-sourced meat products grows, reflecting broader trends towards sustainable and humane food production practices that are gaining moment

Thailand: People practicing Judaism as percent of the population: The latest value from is percent, unavailable from percent in . In comparison, the world average is 0.0 percent, based on data from countries. Historically, the average for Thailand from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .