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.

As of 2024, the population of Israel reached about *** million permanent residents in total. About *** million were registered as Jews or other non-Arab populations. Furthermore, some *** million Arabs lived in the country.

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.

Israel Population: 2022 Census: excl Foreign Workers: Avg: Jews and Others data was reported at 7,723.400 Person th in Mar 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 7,717.500 Person th for Feb 2025. Israel Population: 2022 Census: excl Foreign Workers: Avg: Jews and Others data is updated monthly, averaging 7,642.700 Person th from Jan 2023 (Median) to Mar 2025, with 27 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 7,723.400 Person th in Mar 2025 and a record low of 7,519.600 Person th in Jan 2023. Israel Population: 2022 Census: excl Foreign Workers: Avg: Jews and Others data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Israel – Table IL.G001: Population.

Between Oct. 14, 2014, and May 21, 2015, Pew Research Center, with generous funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Neubauer Family Foundation, completed 5,601 face-to-face interviews with non-institutionalized adults ages 18 and older living in Israel.

The survey sampling plan was based on six districts defined in the 2008 Israeli census. In addition, Jewish residents of West Bank (Judea and Samaria) were included.

The sample includes interviews with 3,789 respondents defined as Jews, 871 Muslims, 468 Christians and 439 Druze. An additional 34 respondents belong to other religions or are religiously unaffiliated. Five groups were oversampled as part of the survey design: Jews living in the West Bank, Haredim, Christian Arabs, Arabs living in East Jerusalem and Druze.

Interviews were conducted under the direction of Public Opinion and Marketing Research of Israel (PORI). Surveys were administered through face-to-face, paper and pencil interviews conducted at the respondent's place of residence. Sampling was conducted through a multi-stage stratified area probability sampling design based on national population data available through the Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics' 2008 census.

The questionnaire was designed by Pew Research Center staff in consultation with subject matter experts and advisers to the project. The questionnaire was translated into Hebrew, Russian and Arabic, independently verified by professional linguists conversant in regional dialects and pretested prior to fieldwork.

The questionnaire was divided into four sections. All respondents who took the survey in Russian or Hebrew were branched into the Jewish questionnaire (Questionnaire A). Arabic-speaking respondents were branched into the Muslim (Questionnaire B), Christian (Questionnaire C) or Druze questionnaire (D) based on their response to the religious identification question. For the full question wording and exact order of questions, please see the questionnaire.

Note that not all respondents who took the questionnaire in Hebrew or Russian are classified as Jews in this study. For further details on how respondents were classified as Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze in the study, please see sidebar in the report titled "http://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/" Target="_blank">"How Religious are Defined".

Following fieldwork, survey performance was assessed by comparing the results for key demographic variables with population statistics available through the census. Data were weighted to account for different probabilities of selection among respondents. Where appropriate, data also were weighted through an iterative procedure to more closely align the samples with official population figures for gender, age and education. The reported margins of sampling error and the statistical tests of significance used in the analysis take into account the design effects due to weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error and other practical difficulties, one should bear in mind that question wording also can have an impact on the findings of opinion polls.

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.

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.

Historical chart and dataset showing total population for Israel by year from 1950 to 2025.

Israel Population: 2008 Census: excl Foreign Workers: End Period: Jews and Others data was reported at 7,068.800 Person th in Oct 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 7,055.800 Person th for Sep 2018. Israel Population: 2008 Census: excl Foreign Workers: End Period: Jews and Others data is updated monthly, averaging 6,446.100 Person th from Jan 2009 (Median) to Oct 2018, with 118 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 7,068.800 Person th in Oct 2018 and a record low of 5,926.300 Person th in Jan 2009. Israel Population: 2008 Census: excl Foreign Workers: End Period: Jews and Others data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Israel – Table IL.G001: Population. The group 'Jews and others' includes Jews, population not classified by religion and non-Arab Christians.

Jerusalem was the city with the largest population of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish residents in Israel in 2022, reaching 290,090 people. The community accounted for almost 30 percent of the city's total population. The town with the second-highest number of Ultra-Orthodox Jews was Bnei Brak, with 202,960 residents. Beit Shemesh and Modi'in Illit also made up a sizable portion of the Ultra-Orthodox community in Israel.

Israel Population: 2008 Census: excl Foreign Workers: Avg: Jews and Others: ow Jews data was reported at 6,640.700 Person th in Oct 2018. This records an increase from the previous number of 6,630.900 Person th for Sep 2018. Israel Population: 2008 Census: excl Foreign Workers: Avg: Jews and Others: ow Jews data is updated monthly, averaging 6,095.150 Person th from Jan 2009 (Median) to Oct 2018, with 118 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 6,640.700 Person th in Oct 2018 and a record low of 5,612.500 Person th in Jan 2009. Israel Population: 2008 Census: excl Foreign Workers: Avg: Jews and Others: ow Jews data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Central Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Israel – Table IL.G001: Population. The group 'Jews and others' includes Jews, population not classified by religion and non-Arab Christians.

Israel's population is aging steadily, with the median age projected to rise from ** years in 2020 to ** years by 2050. This demographic shift reflects global trends of increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates, though Israel maintained a relatively young population compared to many developed nations. The country's unique religious and cultural makeup contributed to regional variations in age distribution, presenting both opportunities and challenges for policymakers. Which region has the oldest population? As of 2023, over a ******* of Israelis were under the age of 14 years. The largest age group in the country being ************** and below. Interestingly, significant regional differences existed within the country when it came to age distribution and aging. While the median age in the Jerusalem district was below **, Tel Aviv was the oldest region with an average age of over ** years, highlighting significant demographic variations across different areas. How does religion influence demographics? Religious affiliation played a role in Israel's age structure and demographics. Muslims are the youngest religious group with a median age of ** years, while Christians of Arab ethnicity are the oldest, at ** years. Jews, the largest religious-ethnic group, had a median age of almost ** years, but within the Jewish demographic, age and fertility varied greatly between people based on religiosity. These differences play a significant role in the country's population and future growth patterns.

According to a survey, nearly half of the Jewish population in Israel followed kosher practices consistently in accordance with the Jewish tradition. On the other hand, just over 30 percent of Jews did not keep kosher at all, and 23 percent mostly kept kosher.

Abstract

IPUMS-International is an effort to inventory, preserve, harmonize, and disseminate census microdata from around the world. The project has collected the world's largest archive of publicly available census samples. The data are coded and documented consistently across countries and over time to facillitate comparative research. IPUMS-International makes these data available to qualified researchers free of charge through a web dissemination system.

The IPUMS project is a collaboration of the Minnesota Population Center, National Statistical Offices, and international data archives. Major funding is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Additional support is provided by the University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research, the Minnesota Population Center, and Sun Microsystems.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

Household

UNITS IDENTIFIED: - Dwellings: Not available in microdata sample - Vacant units: Not available in microdata sample - Households: Yes - Individuals: Yes - Group quarters: Includes but not identified - Special populations: No special populations

UNIT DESCRIPTIONS: - Households: A group of persons living together in the same dwelling who prepare most of their meals together. Generally, this term is identical with members of a family who live in the same dwelling. A person living alone is considered to be a household. - Group quarters: An administrative unit that provides dormitory facilities and usually food services to at least five individuals.

Universe

Permanent residents of Israel, including those who were abroad on the census date but had been absent from Israel no longer than one year continuously. Jewish persons living in Jewish localities in administered territories.

Kind of data

Census/enumeration data [cen]

Sampling procedure

MICRODATA SOURCE: Central Bureau of Statistics - Israel

SAMPLE DESIGN: Systematic sample of every 5th household after a random start. 1-in-2 sample drawn from that by MPC.

SAMPLE UNIT: Household

SAMPLE FRACTION: 10%

SAMPLE SIZE (person records): 315,608

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The census was conducted in two stages and for each one there a separate enumeration form. In the first stage (A), the entire population was enumerated. The stage A questionnaire was designed to cover all households and every member in the houusehold.

The number of households registered as Jewish in Israel reached roughly 2.36 million in 2023. In the same year, 469,300 households were registered as Arab, while 93,700 households were registered as belonging to population groups of other religions.

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.

In 2023, the Jewish population had the highest total fertility rate in Israel, at an average of 3 births per woman. Muslim women, on the other hand, had a rate of 2.81 children. The Druze and Christian religious communities had a total fertility rate of 1.75 and 1.64, respectively.

Addressing vaccine hesitancy requires culturally adaptable tools. This study aimed to provide a better understanding of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Israel’s ultraorthodox Jewish community, where vaccine hesitancy is prevalent. We developed and validated a COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy questionnaire and explored correlates of intention to receive the fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in this population. A mixed-methods study employing an exploratory sequential design was conducted in May-September 2022. Building on qualitative data, a questionnaire was developed and validated in a cross-sectional study when the fourth dose was recommended to all adults. Thematic analysis identified several factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine decision-making, predominantly religious authority alongside health information sources, perceived vaccine safety, effectiveness, and trust in state authorities. In the cross-sectional study, 96/106 (90.6%) participants were vaccinated against COVID-19; 5.2%, 25.0%, 65.6%, and 4.2% received 1, 2, 3, and 4 doses, respectively. Intention to receive the fourth dose (yes/maybe) was reported by 46%. A factor analysis yielded several scales expressing perceptions regarding COVID-19, with Cronbach’s Alpha mostly between 0.689 and 0.887. Correlates of intention to receive the fourth dose were age ≥ 50 years: OR = 12.45 (95% CI 1.42–108.93), male-sex: 4.97 (1.47–16.81), perceiving the vaccine as important/effective and safe: 4.11 (1.29–13.13), utilizing ultraorthodox communication channels: 5.86 (1.58–21.73), and the number of previously received doses: 3.14 (1.31–7.53). Complementary evidence emphasized the role of religious authority and information sources (ultraorthodox communication channels) and balancing perceived vaccine safety and effectiveness and disease risk in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Israel’s ultraorthodox Jewish population.

The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes of Jews and Arabs in Israel concerning the role of the police in counterterrorism. The study focuses on the public perception of the effect of the police’s involvement in counterterrorism on their ability to perform traditional police roles; how the police’s role in fighting terrorism affects the relationship between police and the community; and the willingness of Jews and Arabs in Israel to assist the police by reporting crimes and terrorism threats. These questions are asked against the backdrop of majority-minority relations, in which the ways both the majority Jewish population and the minority Arab population in Israel responds are examined. Data included in this study was gathered from a community survey. The computer software “Dvash” and the database “Bezek,” which includes all residents of Israel who have "land" phone lines were used to conduct the survey. The low response rate (58%) of the community survey limits the extent to which the results can be applied to the entire Israeli population. Variables affecting the data gathered include the respondent’s past experiences with the po lice, their religion or ethnicity, their trust in the capabilities of the police, and their views on the consequences of policing terrorism.