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 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.

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 Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews 2013, is a comprehensive national survey of the Jewish population. The survey explores attitudes, beliefs, practices and experiences of Jews living in the United States. There are two datasets, a respondent dataset (where there is one row per respondent) and a household dataset (where there is one row per person in the sampled households). The respondent dataset includes all of the information collected as part of the survey. The household dataset is a reshaped version of the respondent dataset that includes a limited number of variables describing the demographic characteristics and Jewish status of all of the people in the surveyed households.

The Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews 2013 is a comprehensive national survey of the Jewish population. The survey explores attitudes, beliefs, practices and experiences of Jews living in the United States. There are two datasets, a respondent dataset (where there is one row per respondent) and a household dataset (where there is one row per person in the sampled households). The respondent dataset includes all of the information collected as part of the survey. The household dataset is a reshaped version of the respondent dataset that includes a limited number of variables describing the demographic characteristics and Jewish status of all of the people in the surveyed households.

This statistic shows the denominational affiliation of Jewish community members in the United States, as of January 2017. 28 percent of Jews identified with the Reform movement while 29 percent considered themselves to be "just Jewish"

This nationwide study investigated respondents' opinions on current affairs at both the national and international levels. Issues such as morality in the United States, approval of the United Nations, and the positon of the United States in world affairs were explored, as well as attitudes toward the Constitution and individual rights. Respondents were asked about their feelings toward minority groups such as the John Birch Society, communists, and Blacks, with special emphasis on the Jewish minority. Respondents' beliefs about Jews as a group, their contacts with Jews, and their feelings about political and social rights of Jews in the United States were probed. Past treatment of the Jewish people was also explored, and the respondents were asked to compare Jews with other groups in the United States on the basis of ambition, wealth, intelligence, and power. A number of variables assessed the respondents' leisure activities, their religious beliefs and education, and their outlooks on life. Derived measures include indexes such as anti-Semitic beliefs, Index of Jewish contacts, Fascism Scale, Despair Scale, Tolerance of Cultural Diversity Index, Enlightenment Values Scale, Anomie Scale, Political Anxiety Scale, Self-Image Scale, Libertarian Index, and Monism Scale. Demographic data include sex, race, age, education, income, religion, home ownership, marital status, and number of children. The study was received from the International Data Library and Reference Service, Survey Research Center, University of California at Berkeley.

The data reported here are from the 2000 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, detailing the views of American Jews about a broad range of subjects. Among the topics covered in the present survey are the Israel-Arab peace process, the attachment of American Jews to Israel, political and social issues in the United States, Jewish perceptions of anti-Semitism, Jewish opinion about various countries, and Jewish identity concerns. Some of the questions appearing in the survey are new; others are drawn from previous American Jewish Committee surveys, including the 1997, 1998, and 1999 Annual Surveys of American Jewish Opinion. The 2000 survey was conducted for the American Jewish Committee by Market Facts, Inc., a leading survey-research organization. Respondents were interviewed by telephone during September 14-28, 2000; no interviewing took place on the Sabbath. The sample consisted of 1,010 self-identified Jewish respondents selected from the Market Facts consumer mail panel. The respondents are demographically representative of the United States adult Jewish population on a variety of measures. (AJC 3/4/2015).

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at https://doi.org/10.25940/ROPER-31094161. We highly recommend using the Roper Center version as they may make this dataset available in multiple data formats in the future.

According to a survey conducted in 2022, ** percent of Americans said that it was mostly or somewhat true that Jews stick together more than other Americans in the United States. ** percent also agreed that it was mostly or somewhat true that Jews in business go out of their way to hire other Jews.

Among the topics covered in the present survey are the consequences of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States, the Israel-Arab peace process, the attachment of American Jews to Israel, political and social issues in the United States, Jewish perceptions of anti-Semitism, Jewish opinion about various countries, and Jewish identity concerns. Some of the questions appearing in the survey are new; others are drawn from previous American Jewish Committee surveys, including the Annual Surveys of American Jewish Opinion carried out in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. The 2001 survey was conducted for the American Jewish Committee by Market Facts, Inc., a leading survey-research organization. Respondents were interviewed by telephone during November 19 - December 4, 2001; no interviewing took place on the Sabbath. The sample consisted of 1,015 self-identified Jewish respondents selected from the Market Facts consumer mail panel. The respondents are demographically representative of the United States adult Jewish population on a variety of measures. (AJC 3/4/2015)

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at https://doi.org/10.25940/ROPER-31094162. We highly recommend using the Roper Center version as they may make this dataset available in multiple data formats in the future.

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.

Among the topics covered are the war against terrorism and Iraq; the Israel-Arab conflict; the attachment of American Jews to Israel; transatlantic relations; political and social issues in the United States; Jewish perceptions of anti-Semitism; and Jewish identity concerns. Some of the questions appearing in the survey are new, others are drawn from previous AJC surveys conducted annually since 1997. The 2003 survey was conducted for AJC by Market Facts, a leading survey-research organization. Respondents were interviewed by telephone between November 25 and December 11. The sample consisted of 1,000 self-identifying Jewish respondents selected from the Market Facts consumer mail panel. The respondents are demographically representative of the U.S. adult Jewish population on a variety of measures. (AJC 3/4/2015)

Please Note: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at https://doi.org/10.25940/ROPER-31094163. We highly recommend using the Roper Center version as they may make this dataset available in multiple data formats in the future.

This study was designed to gather information on anti-Semitism in the United States. The major topics covered include the anti-Semitic beliefs of non-Jews as well as the anti-Semitic experiences of Jews. Additionally, other questions in the instrument gauge Christian fundamentalism and attitudes toward other racial and ethnic groups. The sample used two independent, but integrated samples to represent the population of the United States ages 18 years or older. The "General Public" sample of 1,072 interviews and the Jewish/Black "Supplemental" sample of 143 are combined here into a single sample.

The survey provides comparable data on the perceived extent and nature of antisemitism across a number of selected EU Member States, whether it is manifested as hate crime, hate speech, discrimination or in any other form that undermines Jewish people’s feelings of safety and security. The survey was commissioned by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). It follows up on the agency’s first survey, conducted in seven countries in 2012.

The overall objectives of FRA’s second survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in the European Union (EU) are 1) to collect comparable data in the selected EU Member States and thereby contributing to the assessment and further development of policies that aim to protect the fundamental rights of Jewish people living in the EU; 2) to identify changes over time with respect to the results of the first survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in 2012; 3) to further develop research methodologies for surveying hard-to-reach groups using online survey tools; 4) to deliver FRA’s key stakeholders research evidence that can be used to raise awareness of fundamental rights and address gaps in the protection of rights.

The 2018 survey collected data from 16,395 self-identified Jewish respondents (aged 16 or over) in 12 EU Member States – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These Member States are home to over 96 % of the EU’s estimated Jewish population. The survey collected data through an open online survey and was available for respondents to complete for seven weeks in May–June 2018.

The survey asked respondents about their opinions on trends in antisemitism, antisemitism as a problem in everyday life, personal experiences of antisemitic incidents, witnessing antisemitic incidents and worries about becoming a victim of an antisemitic attack. The survey also provides data on the extent to which respondents consider antisemitic acts against the Jewish community – such as vandalism of Jewish sites or antisemitic messages in the broadcast media or on the internet – to be a problem in the countries. The survey collected data on the effects of antisemitism on respondents’ daily behaviour and their feelings of safety, and about any actions they take due to security fears. The questions about personal experiences of specific forms of harassment or physical violence were followed up with questions concerning the details of such incidents, including their frequency, the number and characteristics of perpetrators, and the reporting of the incident to any organisation or institution. The survey collected data about personal experiences of feeling discriminated against on different grounds and in various areas of everyday life – for example, at work, school, or when using specific services. The survey followed up on respondents’ discrimination experiences with questions concerning the reporting of incidents and the reasons for non-reporting. The survey also explored the level of rights awareness regarding antidiscrimination legislation, victim support organisations and knowledge of any legislation concerning the trivialisation or denial of the Holocaust. In addition, the survey collected socio-demographic data, such as respondents´ gender and age, educational background, employment status, and income.

Topics: 1. Rights awareness, perceptions and attitudes: perception of crime level, unemployment racism, antisemitism, immigration, government corruption, and intolerance towards Muslims as a problem in the country; increase vs. decrease of racism, antisemitism and intolerance towards Muslims in the country; perception of antisemitic acts against the Jewish community as a problem in the country (antisemitic graffiti, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, vandalism of Jewish buildings or institutions, expressions of hostility towards Jews in the street or other public places, antisemitism in the media, in political life, and on the internet including social media; increase vs. decrease of the aforementioned problems; frequency of personally experienced antisemitic comments of non-Jewish people (Jews have too much power in the country, Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes, the Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated, Israelis behave ‘like Nazis’ towards the Palestinians, world a better place without Israel, Jews are not capable of integrating into national ...

According to a survey conducted in 2024, ** percent of Americans agreed that people in the United States should be allowed to express speech that supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state in public, even if it might offend others. In comparison, only ** percent of Americans said that people should be allowed to express speech that supports Palestinians having their own state in public. However, a much smaller share of Americans were found to believe that calling for violence against Jews or Muslims should be allowed in public, at ** percent and ** percent respectively.

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.

SSRS conducted a survey of Muslims, Jews, and the general population for the "https://www.ispu.org/" Target="_blank">Institute for Social Policy and Understanding from March 17 through April 22, 2020. The study investigated the opinions of Muslims, Jews, and the general population regarding politics, important issues facing the country, faith customs, and religious discrimination.

For the survey, SSRS interviewed 801 Muslim respondents, 351 Jewish respondents, and 1,015 general population adult respondents. A total of 2,167 respondents were surveyed.

Global Religious Demographics

Global religious demographics over time

By Throwback Thursday [source]

About this dataset

The dataset contains information on a wide range of religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Baha'i Faith, Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Syncretic Religions (religious practices that blend elements from multiple faiths), Animism (belief in spiritual beings in nature), Non-Religious individuals or those without any religious affiliation.

For each religion and region/country combination recorded in the dataset we have the following information:

• Total population: The total population of the region or country.
• Religious affiliation percentages: The percentages of the population that identify with specific religious affiliations.
• Subgroup populations/percentages: The populations or percentages within specific denominations or sects of each religion.

The dataset also provides additional variables like Year and State Name (for regional data) for further analysis.

How to use the dataset

• Understanding the Columns

  The dataset contains several columns with different categories of information. Here's a brief explanation of some important columns:

  • Year: The year in which the data was recorded.
  • Total Population: The total population of a country or region.
  • State Name (StateNme): The name of the state or region.

  Each religion has specific columns associated with it, such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism, Shintoism etc., representing its percentage and population for each category/denomination within that religion.

• Selecting Specific Data

  If you are interested in exploring data related to a particular religion or geographic location:

  • To filter data by Religion: Identify relevant columns associated with that religion such as 'Christianity', 'Buddhism', 'Islam', etc., and extract their respective percentage and population values for analysis.

    Example: If you want to analyze Christianity specifically, extract columns related to Christianity like 'Christianity (Percent)', 'Christianity (Population)', etc.

    Note: There might be multiple columns related to a specific religion indicating different categories or denominations within that religion.

  • To filter data by Geographic Location: Utilize the 'State Name' column ('StateNme') to segregate data corresponding to different states/regions.

    Example: If you want to analyze religious demographics for a particular state/region like California or India:

    i) Filter out rows where State Name is equal to California or India.

    ii) Extract relevant columns associated with your selected religion as mentioned above.

• Finding Trends and Insights

  Once you have selected the specific data you are interested in, examine patterns and trends over time or across different regions.

  • Plotting data using visualizations: Use graphical tools such as line charts, bar charts, or pie charts to visualize how religious demographics have changed over the years or vary across different regions.

  • Analyzing population proportions: By comparing the percentage values of different religions for a given region or over time, you can gather insights into changes in religious diversity.

• Comparing Religions

  If you wish to compare multiple religions:

Research Ideas

• Comparing religious affiliations across different countries or regions: With data on various religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, etc., researchers can compare the religious affiliations of different countries or regions. This can help in understanding the cultural and religious diversity within different parts of the world.
• Exploring the growth or decline of specific religions: By examining population numbers for specific religions such as Jainism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, etc., this dataset can be used to investigate the growth or decline of these religious groups over time. Researchers can analyze factors contributing to their popularity or decline in particular regions or countries

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors. Data Source

License

See the dataset description for more information.

Columns

File: ThrowbackDataThursday 201912 - Religion.csv | Column name...

Attitude to Jews and other minorities. Topics: Attitude to West Germans/East Germans, gipsies, Arabs, Vietnamese, Turks, Poles, Africans and Jews as neighbors; provocative behavior by these population groups; judgement on protection of foreigners by authorities; judgement on the influence of large concerns, trade unions, media, banks, Americans, Japanese, churches and Jews on society; assessment of antisemitism in Germany and expected development in the next few years; attitude to a Jewish candidate for Federal President; judgement on the influence of Jews on world events; significance of the term Holocaust as well as Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka; Auschwitz as lie or truth; knowledge about the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust as well as population groups persecuted by the Nazis; knowledge about the star of David; attitude to a Holocaust Memorial; importance of knowledge about National Socialist perscution of Jews for Germans; perceived exploitation of the Holocaust for personal intents by Jews; attitude to considering finished the topic of persecution of Jews in the past; religious denomination; party preference; interest in politics; union membership; behavior at the polls in the last Federal Parliament election.