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.

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 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.

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.

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 .

Kiribati: 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 Kiribati from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

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.

Australia: 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 Australia from 1960 to 2013 is 0.4 percent. The minimum value, 0.4 percent, was reached in 1960 while the maximum of 0.4 percent was recorded in 1960.

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 .

With the heightened threat to Germany's Jewish population following the Nazi Party's ascent to power in 1933, many German Jews chose to flee or emigrate. In 1933, Germany's Jewish population was approximately 500,000 people; by the end of the war, it is estimated that 300,000 fled the country, and 165,000 were murdered in the Holocaust. In order to flee, most Jewish emigrants from Germany had to give up the majority of their wealth to the German state, whose emigration tax and seizure of property stripped Jews of their financial assets. Destination and transit For Germany's Jewish refugees, the most common destination country was the United States, and almost half of all these refugees would arrive in the U.S. over this 12 year period. As the United States had a strict quota of 27,000 German migrants per year, many refugees were forced to enter via other countries. France was the second most common destination country, receiving 100,000 refugees. However, France was also used as a transit country for German Jews wishing to travel further afield, especially after it was annexed by Germany in 1940. This was also true for several other European countries, such as the Netherlands, which had provided protection for German Jews in the mid-1930s, before rapidly becoming very unsafe following the outbreak of war in 1939. The Frank family Possibly the most famous example of this was the story of Anne Frank and her family. Anne had been born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929, but her family moved to the Netherlands in 1934 after Hitler came to power. The family then led a relatively comfortable and successful life in Amsterdam, with her father, Otto, founding his own businesses. When the Netherlands was invaded by the Germans in 1940, the family tried to emigrate once more; Otto had been granted a single Cuban visa in 1942, but the family was forced to go into hiding as the restrictions tightened. For the next two years, with the help of non-Jewish friends, they lived in secret in the upper floor of Otto's business premises with several other Jewish refugees, in a small space concealed behind a bookcase. In August 1944, through unknown means, the group was betrayed and then arrested by Dutch authorities, and the Frank family was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau thereafter. Anne's mother, Edith, died of starvation in Auschwitz within five months of her capture, while Anne and her sister, Margot, died one month later after being transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany. Otto was the sole survivor of the group. Otto's secretary, Miep Gies, had saved Anne's diary the day after the group was arrested, which she then gave to Otto; he then devoted much of the remainder of his life to the publication and promotion of his daughter's diary, which has now become one of the most famous and widely-read books in recent history. Additionally, the hiding space is now open to the public, and has become one of the Netherlands' most popular tourist museums.

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.

Archaeological evidence of human activity in the area of Ramat Hanadiv is visible mostly around the tuff layers and near sources of water. The two main sites are Ein Tzur and Horvat Aqav (horva meaning ruins in Arabic). The tuff is a nurturing layer into which the wells at Ein Tzur were dug and upon which agricultural plots were situated. Inhabitants of the ancient settlement of Horvat Eleg relied upon the nearby spring to create a system of aqueducts. The following section summarizes the main archaeological sites at Ramat Hanadiv. All excavations between 1984 and 2006 were conducted by the late Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld, the Park's archaeologist. Horvat Aqav The site includes an agricultural manor, inhabited by the local Jewish population up to the second half of the first century B.C. and deserted, most likely, at the time of the Great Revolt against the Roman Empire (70 A.D.). Beginning in the Byzantine era in the 4th century and continuing until the Arab occupation, the site was re-settled as a country villa. The remains of the villa, including the water system's ruins were preserved and are open to the public. Horvat Eleq This site is situated at a strategic point, at the top of a hill overlooking the cultivated 'Hanadiv' Valley. A water tunnel with a spring flowing through it was found at the foot of the hill. Throughout the 20 seasons of excavations at the site, various findings were revealed, including specimens dating as early as the Bronze era. The most impressive findings are from the early Roman era: a wall, a tower and structures for processing agricultural produce. Some other findings indicate the existence of a settlement at this location during the Iron, Persian and Hellenist eras. During excavations, some ruins of Herodian origin were found. The findings included a large castle from King Herod's time (37-4 B.C.). The castle was abandoned during the Jewish fight against the Romans. Other structures which were part of this impressive site were found on the slope of the hill. The Tumuli Field At the southern part of Ramat Hanadiv, remains of 40 round tumuli were found. The tumuli were used for burial purposes during the period between 3000 B.C. until the beginning of 2000 B.C. At the centre of each tumulus, a sarcophagus made of non-chiselled limestone plates (coffin/tomb) was found. Some of the tombs contained gifts, such as batons, daggers and jewellery.

Palau: 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 Palau from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

Ireland: 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 Ireland from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

San Marino: 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 San Marino from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

Data on religion by gender and age for the population in private households in Canada, provinces and territories.

Paraguay: 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 Paraguay from to is percent. The minimum value, percent, was reached in while the maximum of percent was recorded in .

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Lithuania was estimated to be just under 780,000. Lithuania’s rate of population growth would remain largely unchanged in the 19th century, as the Russian Empire would slowly but gradually develop its border regions. While large numbers of Lithuanians would emigrate west-ward (largely to the United States) between 1867 and 1868 after a famine in the country, growth would remain largely uninterrupted until the beginning of the First World War in 1912, which would see Lithuania, like much of the Baltic region, devastated as the battleground between the German and Russian Empires. As the conflict spread, those who were not made to evacuate by orders from the Russian government would face economic turmoil under German occupation, and as a result, Lithuania’s population would fall from just under 2.9 million in 1910, to under 2.3 million by 1920.

While Lithuania’s population would start to grow once more following the end of the First World War, this growth would be short-lived, as economic turmoil from the Great Depression, and later occupation and campaigns of mass extermination in the Second World War, most notably the extermination of 95 to 97 percent of the country’s Jewish population in the Holocaust, would cause Lithuania’s population growth to stagnate throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In the years following the end of the Second World War, Lithuania’s population would steadily climb, as industrialization by the Soviet Union would lead to improved economic growth and access to health, and campaigns of mass immunization and vaccination would lead to a sharp decline in child mortality. As a result, by the 1990s, Lithuania would have a population of over 3.7 million. However, Lithuania’s population would rapidly decline in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as economic crises and mass emigration from the country, paired with sharp declines in fertility, would result in a dramatic reduction in population. As a result, in 2020, Lithuania is estimated to have a population of just over 2.7 million.