The number of Jews in the world is declining with a net loss of 300,000 American Jews in the last decade, according to a new study by the Jewish Agency's Institute for Jewish People Policy Planning, cited by Haaretz.
According to the institute, which convened an emergency session to deal with what it called the "demographic crisis," there are now about 12.9 million Jews in the world. Earlier this year, estimates put the number at 13.2 million.
The main reason for the decline appears in the data from the census of Jewish communities in the U.S., which indicated that there has been a drop of 300,000 in American Jewry, from 5.5 million in 1990 to 5.2 million in 2002. Experts argued that about 300,000 Jews emigrated to the U.S. during the 1990s, but nonetheless, the community lost about 50,000 Jews per annum, mostly to natural attrition.
(Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
