Counting the Jews – Reality and Antisemitic Myth

How many Jews are there?

Jews comprise only 0.18% of the world’s population^[1][1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/number-of-jews-in-the-world

In September 2021 new statistics published by the Jewish Agency^[2][2] https://www.jpost.com/opinion/who-will-replace-isaac-herzog-at-the-jewish-agency-opinion-671222 showed that there are 15.2 million Jews in the world. The numbers include those who define themselves as Jews and who do not identify with another religion.  45.3 percent of the world’s Jews live in the Jewish state, an increase of half a percent over the previous year. Outside of Israel, the largest Jewish populations remain in the US with 6 million, followed by France with 446,000, Canada with 393,000, the UK with 292,000, Argentina with 175,000, Russia with 150,000, Germany with 118,000, and Australia also with 118,000.^[3][3] https://www.jpost.com/opinion/who-will-replace-isaac-herzog-at-the-jewish-agency-opinion-671222

More than 749 million people across the globe believe there are 700 million Jews in the world

The antisemitic notion of “Jewish power” and its attendant threats “runs in parallel with enormous overestimates of the number of Jews in the world”

The ADL Global 100 Index survey found that “18% of respondents [globally] believe that the total worldwide Jewish population exceeds 700 million people.”^[4][4] https://global100.adl.org/did-you-know As mentioned above the actual Jewish global population is approximately 15.2 million.^[5][5] https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/there-are-152-million-jews-in-the-world-jewish-agency-data-678733 “People who overestimate the world’s Jewish population by this amount are more likely to harbor antisemitic attitudes – with an Index Score of 38%.”^[6][6] https://global100.adl.org/did-you-know According to a 2018 CNN poll, 25% of Hungarians estimated the world is 20% Jewish as did 20% of British and Polish respondents. 40% of respondents surveyed thought their own countries were between 3% and 10 % Jewish when in fact Israel is the only country where more than 2% of the population is Jewish. The overestimates came even as majorities or near-majorities in every country CNN polled said they were not aware of ever having met a Jewish person. “Two-thirds of Germans, Austrians and Poles said they didn’t think they had ever socialized with a Jew, while about half of people in Britain, France, Hungary and Sweden said the same.”^[7][7] https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2018/11/europe/antisemitism-poll-2018-intl/

Antisemitism without Jews – “Most people historically, in fact and even most people today, have had no contact with Jews.” 

The transgenerational and transcultural pervasiveness of Jew-hatred has focused its venom on a people “with whom for centuries there was no acute objective conflict over territory resources, or political control or domination, and who has been numerically small, politically weak or powerless, and militarily utterly without capacities for most of the last two millennia.”^[8][8] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (pp. 79). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. “Most people historically, in fact and even most people today, have had no contact with Jews.”^[9][9] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (pp. 76). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. Nevertheless antisemitic accounts of Jews “are regularly such a figment of fantastical imaginings that many antisemitic images and accounts of Jews, including several civilizations’ principal antisemitic discourses, might as well be describing a people that never existed. … Though this antipathy “has been wholly invented”,^[10][10] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (pp. 12). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. antisemitism has often flourished today in places where no Jews were present at all. The number of Jews … and the ebbs and flows in a country’s or region’s Jewish population in no sense correspond to – which also means they did not cause – local antisemitism’s extent, character, or intensity.”^[11][11] Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. The Devil That Never Dies (pp. 195). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Continue Reading:Counting Antisemites – Global Figures

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