Author(s): Waites, William; Pearson, Carl A. B.; Gaskell, Katherine M.; House, Thomas; Pellis, Lorenzo; Johnson, Marina; Gould, Victoria; Hunt, Adam; Stone, Neil RH; Kasstan, Ben; Chantler, Tracey; Lal, Sham; Roberts, Chrissy H.; Goldblatt, David; CMMID COVID-19 Working Group; Marks, Michael; Eggo, Rosalind M.
Author(s): Gaskell, Katherine M.; Johnson, Marina; Gould, Victoria; Hunt, Adam; Stone, Neil RH; Waites, William; Kasstan, Ben; Chantler, Tracey; Lal, Sham; Roberts, Chrissy H.; Goldblatt, David; Eggo, Rosalind M.; Marks, Michael
Abstract: Background
Ethnic and religious minorities have been disproportionately affected by SARS-CoV-2 worldwide. The UK strictly-Orthodox Jewish community has been severely affected by the pandemic. This group shares characteristics with other ethnic minorities including larger family sizes, higher rates of household crowding and relative socioeconomic deprivation. We studied a UK strictly-Orthodox Jewish population to understand transmission of COVID-19 within this community.
Methods
We performed a household-focused cross-sectional SARS-CoV-2 serosurvey between late-October and early December 2020 prior to the third national lockdown. Randomly-selected households completed a standardised questionnaire and underwent serological testing with a multiplex assay for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies. We report clinical illness and testing before the serosurvey, seroprevalence stratified by age and sex. We used random-effects models to identify factors associated with infection and antibody titres.
Findings
A total of 343 households, consisting of 1,759 individuals, were recruited. Serum was available for 1,242 participants. The overall seroprevalence for SARS-CoV-2 was 64.3% (95% CI 61.6-67.0%). The lowest seroprevalence was 27.6% in children under 5 years and rose to 73.8% in secondary school children and 74% in adults. Antibody titres were higher in symptomatic individuals and declined over time since reported COVID-19 symptoms, with the decline more marked for nucleocapsid titres.
Interpretation
In this tight-knit religious minority population in the UK, we report one of the highest SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence levels in the world to date, which was markedly higher than the reported 10% seroprevalence in London at the time of the study. In the context of this high force of infection, all age groups experienced a high burden of infection. Actions to reduce the burden of disease in this and other minority populations are urgently required.
Funding
This work was jointly funded by UKRI and NIHR [COV0335; MR/V027956/1], a donation from the LSHTM Alumni COVID-19 response fund, HDR UK, the MRC and the Wellcome Trust.
Abstract: The release in March/April 2023 of England and Wales 2021 Census complete data on “usual residents” by the Office for National Statistics provides an opportunity to analyze, understand and comment on the current geographic disposition of Anglo–Jewry. The analysis presented in this paper incorporates data from the 2001 and 2011 censuses, and makes use of a geodemographic assessment of Jewish communities developed from the 2011 census, setting the scene for changes which have taken place, particularly in the last 10 years. Estimates of the scale of births, deaths and net migration in the 2011–2021 period have been developed to explain why the changes in population have taken place. The potential impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on the census results is also considered. A total of 26 sub-communities in the London and Manchester areas, together with 34 free-standing communities, each with more than 200 Jewish residents, have been analyzed in detail. Unexpected changes in Stamford Hill, Gateshead and Bristol are investigated. A total of 42 smaller communities (60–200 members) are also identified. The paper shows that an understanding of the socio-economic characteristic of each of the communities explains their changes in population since 2011, particularly when factors such as “meta-suburbanisation” in the London fringe area, the impact of student numbers in university towns, and special factors affecting Haredi areas are also taken into account. The picture presented is one of a stable (indeed slightly growing) overall population, but with a large variation in fortunes of the many communities which make up Anglo–Jewry.
Abstract: In this report:
We look into Jewish migration from 15 European countries - representing 94% of Jews living in Europe - comparing data from recent years to previous periods over the last century, and focusing on the signal that the current levels of Jewish migration from Europe send about the political realities perceived and experienced by European Jews.
Some of the key findings in this report:
Peak periods of Jewish migration in the past century – from Germany in the 1930s, North Africa in the 1960s and the Former Soviet Union in the 1990s, saw 50%-75% of national Jewish populations migrate in no more than a decade;
No European Jewish population has shown signs of migration at anywhere near that level for several decades, although recent patterns from Russia and Ukraine point to that possibility over the coming years;
France, Belgium, Italy and Spain saw strong surges in Jewish emigration in the first half of the 2010s, which declined subsequently, but not as far as pre-surge levels;
However, the higher levels of migration measured in these counties during the last decade have not reached the critical values indicating any serious Jewish ‘exodus’ from them;
For Russian and Ukrainian Jews, 2022 was a watershed year: if migration from these countries continues for seven years at the levels seen in 2022 and early 2023, 80%-90% of the 2021 Jewish population of Ukraine and 50%-60% of the 2021 Jewish population of Russia will have emigrated;
Jewish emigration from the UK, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark has mainly been stable or declining since the mid-1980s;
In Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, there has been some decline in Jewish migration over the observed period, with migration eventually settling at a new, lower level.
Abstract: Настоящая книга представляет собой продолжение двух предыдущих изданий: "20 лет Большой алии" (2013) и “Четверть века Большой алии” (2017) и посвящена дальнейшим изменениям, которые претерпела еврейская русскоязычная община в Израиле. Наш анализ охватывает период с начала 1990-х годов до настоящего времени, и включает динамику общей численности репатриантов по республикам исхода, их расселение по городам и регионам Израиля, демографические аспекты, владение ивритом и англий-ским языком, компьютерную грамотность, армейскую/национальную службу, образова-ние (как взрослого населения, так и детей и молодежи). Особое внимание уделяется профессиональному трудоустройству репатриантов, и в частности, специалистов с выс-шим образованием. Рассматриваются также изменения в экономическом положении ре-патриантов, их состояние здоровья, а также общая удовлетворенность жизнью в Изра-иле, отношение к различным общественным институтам и уровень религиозности. По сравнению с предыдущим изданием, данные уточнены в соответствии с новыми источ-никами и с учетом тенденций последних лет.
Данные по репатриантам сопоставляются со всем еврейским населением Израиля, а по возможности – с еврейскими иммигрантами из бывшего СССР в США и Германии.
Книга предназначена для демографов, социологов, специалистов, занятых проблемами интеграции репатриантов в различных сферах и всех интересующихся данной пробле-мой.
Abstract: В последние 20–25 лет список стран, которые стали адресом эмиграции израильтян, пополнили и страны бывшего СССР, где по разным оценкам проживает от 45 до 70 тысяч таких лиц. Причем более 90 % из них составляют уроженцы постсоветского пространства, включающие, в свою очередь, как тех, кто переселился в Россию и другие страны бывшего СССР (либо живут на две или более стран), имея достаточно значимый опыт жизни в Израиле, так и так называемых «дарконников» — тех, которые взяли израильский заграничный паспорт (даркон), никогда реально в Израиле не живя. Анализируя данные официальной статистики и результаты опросов этих групп, проведенных с участием автора в 2009–2019/20 годах, представляется возможным констатировать, что ядром первой группы являются лица, мотивированные надеждами полнее реализовать свои профессиональные и деловые возможности в столичных и иных крупных индустриальных и культурных центрах бывшего СССР. К тому же профессионально-поведенческому типу принадлежит и основная масса «дарконников», главная причина чьей «отложенной» реальной репатриации связана с опасением потери наработанного профессионального статуса и привычного уровня жизни. Представители групп, которые перебрались или вернулись в регион первого исхода, мотивированные иными причинами, занимают в структуре разнородного сообщества «израильтян в бывшем СССР» в целом маргинальное положение. Как следствие, существенное ухудшение экономической ситуации и деловой конъюнктуры могут заставить израильтян, живущих в СНГ, вновь перебраться в Израиль — что сегодня частично и происходит.
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Strategic Planning, Policy, Demography, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Care and Welfare, Health, Children, Youth, Poverty, Housing, Elderly Care, Age and Generational Issues
Abstract: At 28,075 Jewish people, Greater Manchester recorded the largest Jewish population in the UK
outside of London and adjacent Hertfordshire. At first sight, it appears to have grown by 12%
between 2011 and 2021, most likely driven largely by high birth-rates among the strictly Orthodox
community. Similarly, if the data eventually proves to be accurate, this constitutes a growth of 29%
over the twenty years between 2001 and 2021. Provisional estimates of the Haredi community
based on other data sources (such as Manchester Connections) suggest that the Haredi community
could be as large as 22,778 but, again, further analysis is needed before any firm conclusions can be
drawn. Whatever the final numbers, it is clear that Greater Manchester, which includes the largest
Eruv in the UK with a perimeter of more than 13 miles, covering parts of Prestwich, Crumpsall and
Higher Broughton, is an important and growing centre of Jewish life.
This report was commissioned by Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Regions
(GMJRC) to research and analyse community strengths and provide a mapping of Jewish
organisations in the Greater Manchester area. It was overseen by the GMJRC strategic group – a
group that was formed of Councils and organisations across the Jewish religious spectrum as a
response to the pandemic. It reviews services in seven themes: Children & Young People; Adult
Services; Older People; Health; Employment; Emergency Response; and Housing. As well as looking
at delivery, governance, leadership, and building assets, it also tries to understand where the gaps
and support needs are. As the demographics and relative sizes of the mainstream and strictly
Orthodox Jewish populations continue to change, this study represents an important examination
of both the challenges and opportunities of how the respective communities work together. As
these populations change across the UK, and beyond, the study will have significance to other cities
where these Jewish communities exist side by side.
The Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR) used a variety of data sources to identify organisations
delivering in each theme and built maps of that data which can be seen throughout this report.
Mobilise Public Ltd use several methods to gather data from these organisations in each theme.
The main approach was qualitative, using stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions with a
purposely selected sample of these organisations, and the evidence collected was supplemented
with a short survey which was issued to a larger number of organisations. The research was
coproduced with a subset of the strategic group through a series of facilitated sessions and was
designed to build a good understanding of delivery in each theme as well as an understanding of
challenges and opportunities in readiness for the strategic group to develop a more integrated
strategy for the Greater Manchester Jewish community
Abstract: In this report:
The UK Census takes place every ten years, and since 2001, it has included a question on religion. Census data are of particular value to community leaders and planners because they can provide a remarkably detailed and accurate view of the nation’s Jewish population and allow us both to monitor change over time and predict future trends.
This report, published on the day the first data on religion from the 2021 Census of England and Wales were released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), contains the initial results about the geography of the British Jewish population.
Some of the key findings in this report:
The total number of people self-identifying as Jews in England and Wales in 2021 was 271,327. This compares with 265,073 in 2011 and 259,927 in 2001, the first occasion the religion question was asked;
Jews comprise 0.46% of the population of England and Wales. This compares with 0.47% in 2011 and 0.50% in 2001;
Greater London accounts for 53.6% of the total Jewish population of England and Wales, with 145,466 Jews living in the capital. This excludes areas contiguous to London such as South Hertfordshire and Essex;
Several parts of Britain have seen their Jewish populations decline since 2001, notably: Redbridge (-57%), Harrow (-44%) and Brent (-42%);
While still the largest religious group, in 2021, the Christian population fell below 50% of the total for the first time and is now comprises 46%.
Abstract: About 29,000 self-identifying Jews live in Belgium today, constituting 0.25% of Belgium’s population. Adding people with familial ties to Jews, who are entitled to settle in the State of Israel under its Law of Return, brings the total to 46,000 people (0.4%);
The Jewish population of Antwerp (56% of the whole) is now larger than the Jewish population living in and around Brussels (39%). 63% of the Jews living in Antwerp identify as Haredi, with a further 19% identifying as Orthodox. In Brussels, Haredi and Orthodox Jews make up only 4% of the Jewish community – the rest are mainly traditional, progressive or ‘just Jewish’;
At present, the Jewish population of Brussels is experiencing close to zero growth, while the Jewish population of Antwerp has a significant excess of births over deaths;
The proportion of Belgian Jewish adults with a university education (80%) is twice as high as that found in the general population. This pattern, and scale of difference, are observed in many Jewish populations around the world.
About half of all Jews in Belgium reported that they had experienced antisemitic harassment over the previous twelve months (48%). About one-third of Belgian Jews reported that they had experienced antisemitic discrimination over the same period. They are much less likely to report antisemitic vandalism (2%) or physical attacks (4%).
Abstract: The Representative Council’s demographics officer analyses data to assist various bodies to plan for the
future needs of the Jewish community in Liverpool, Wirral, Chester, and adjoining areas. This year, the
investigation and analysis have been extended to include the Southport area, for the first time. We need to
estimate the numbers of people who might wish, now or in the future, to avail themselves of the services of
the community: Jewish educational and social facilities for children, synagogue provision, welfare and social
provision for adults, residential care and, ultimately, burial. The work of the demographics officer does NOT in
any way seek to identify our community by name; indeed almost all data sources used exclude any means of
identifying individuals. The approach adopted merely seeks to quantify our population by gender and age,
with some analysis of the geographic spread across our community area.
Abstract: Capitalising on new resources and advances made in the methods of estimation, this report is the first time that the global Haredi (strictly Orthodox) population size has been estimated and calculated, revealing that about 2,100,000 Haredi Jews live worldwide, out of a total global Jewish population of 15 million. The report projects that the Haredi population could double in size by the year 2040, rising to over a fifth of the total by that time.
Some of the key findings in this report:
• The global Haredi population is estimated at 2,100,000, constituting about 14% of the total Jewish population in the world.
• Together, Israel and the USA account for about 92% of all Haredi Jews. Europe hosts 5% of the global Haredi population, while the rest live mainly in Latin America, South Africa, Canada and Australia.
• Outside of Israel and the USA, the three largest Haredi populations are located in the UK (about 75,000, or 25% of all British Jews), Canada (30,000, 8%) and France (12,000, 3%).
• While the world Jewish population has been growing by approximately 0.7% per year over the past decade, the Haredi population is currently growing by about 3.5%-4.0% annually.
• Today, a large part of the growth of the global Jewish population as a whole is due to the Haredi population: perhaps as much as 70%-80% of the total growth worldwide.
• Haredi rates of growth are very high not simply due to high fertility, but rather to the combined effects of very high fertility and very low mortality.
Abstract: В статье рассмотрены особенности заселения и освоения территории нынешней Еврейской автономной области разными этносоциальными группами; обсуждаются условия и факторы, определяющие отношения
между группами. Выявлены и описаны контрастные типы отношений (противоречия) между этносоциальными группами, что определило их современную роль и значение в регионе.
Зафиксированы шесть последовательных этапов заселения территории, которое осуществлялось значительными по численности группами переселенцев, не пересекавшихся по времени вселения: казаки и староверы, строители Транссиба и работники, привлекаемые при индустриальном освоении региона, евреи и таджики, представители кавказских народов.
Все группы различались по нескольким важным признакам: происхождению и предшествующей этнической истории, культурным стереотипам и хозяйственным практикам, были различны конфессионально и популяционно-демографически. Основные отношения складываются между этно-социальными группами, специализирующимися в разных хозяйственно-экономических сферах, осваивающих преимущественно разные ресурсы: коммерция, предпринимательство и промыслы (диаспоры таджиков, армян, чеченцев, дагестанцев, азербайджанцев, староверы), бюджет и административный ресурс (русские и евреи, армяне). Всё вместе обусловило особый характер отношений этносоциальных групп населения на территории области. Отношения контрастны и имеют характер противоречий. Они определяют уникальный социально-демографический статус обла
Abstract: In the midst of the conflict in Ukraine, the question of how many Jews may be caught up in it, whether on the Ukrainian or Russian side of the border, has been raised several times since the war began, and some wildly different estimates have been quoted in the press and by community leaders.
Determining precisely how many Jews live in former Communist countries such as Ukraine and Russia is notoriously challenging. Jewish life was severely hampered during the Soviet era, making it extremely difficult to pass one’s Jewish identity onto the next generation, so there are remarkably different Jewish population counts today depending on how one defines who is, and is not, Jewish.
This fact sheet, sent to reporters in the UK, includes the most recent and accurate counts, based on research by JPR researchers Professor Sergio DellaPergola and Dr Daniel Staetsky, as well as by Hebrew University Professor Mark Tolts
Abstract: Using theoretical concepts concerning space, identity and boundaries, this thesis examines a contemporary ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Broughton Park, Manchester (located in the north of England). The thesis discusses how these Jews practise and understand their lives within the context of a (post)modem world. Demographically, the overall population of Anglo-Jewry is declining (by as much as a third in the past forty years), with fears expressed about its future survival. Socially, there are major schisms between the different branches of Judaism, with increasing concerns about a polarisation between religious and secular. These factors provide the background to this thesis, which examines arguably the most extreme and still rapidly growing form of Judaism. The thesis uses a theoretical framework which takes seriously post-positivist understandings of space and identity, in which movement, inter-connections and, in particular, processes of hybridity are recognised. Same and other are never pure. Nonetheless, such theoretical conceptions tend to deny particular people's situated attempts to defend, institutionalise and 'slow down' identities and spaces, which are, I argue, key factors in understanding people's everyday lives. While such stabilisations can be described as reactionary, I suggest that they may also be celebrated (although in complex and ambivalent ways) as resistances to forces of homogeneity. Through the empirical materials collected in Broughton Park, a discussion of the institutionalisation of space detailed in the sacred text of the Talmud, and a reconsideration of post-positivist theories to do with identity and space, the thesis draws upon and extends critiques of hybridity as always a (positive) force of resistance, and boundaries as necessarily reactionary and aligned with powers of domination. Overall, it offers a theoretical and methodological framework with which to interrogate 'geographies of Jewry', taking seriously those calls for 'geographies of religion' to make use of post positivist understandings of space and identity.
Abstract: The number of Jewish pupils enrolled in Jewish schools has been climbing consistently for several decades and has increased significantly since the mid-1990s. This rise, described in previous JPR Jewish schools bulletins, has taken place in both the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘strictly Orthodox’ sectors. However, JPR’s new schools bulletin reports that, while the number of registered pupils in 2021/21 shows an overall increase of 1,612 pupils on three years previously, the growth rate has moderated in recent years, nearly flattening within the mainstream sector.
“These new findings are already playing an important role in helping community leaders to plan the future of Jewish education in this country”, says Dr Jonathan Boyd, Executive Director of JPR. “The clear slowdown in growth in the mainstream sector, particularly at primary level, urgently needs to be understood to ensure that all Jewish children who wish to be educated within the Jewish school system can continue to be offered that opportunity.”
Some of the key findings in this report:
35,825 Jewish pupils were studying in 133 Jewish schools in the academic year 2020/21. This represents an increase of 1,612 pupils, or 4.7%, since 2017/18.
60% of Jewish pupils in Jewish schools are in strictly Orthodox schools; 40% are in non-strictly Orthodox or ‘mainstream’ Jewish schools, a slight shift from 58% to 42% three years previously.
Almost three-quarters of all Jewish pupils in Jewish schools are in schools in Greater London or South Hertfordshire (73.3%) – a drop from 74.6% in the 2017/18 academic year that is influenced by a shift towards Manchester (27% to 29%) and away from London (67% to 65%) in the strictly Orthodox sector.
The geographical distinction between London and elsewhere is most pronounced in the mainstream Jewish sector, where 86% attend schools in London or the surrounding area.
Overall, there has been growth in the numbers of both primary and secondary school pupils since 2017/18, but this conceals a fall in primary pupil numbers for the mainstream Jewish sector over the last two academic years.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic hit the British Jewish community hard. According to data gathered by JPR in July 2020, 25% of British Jews had already contracted the virus by that time and Jewish mortality rates in London in April 2020 – the peak of the first wave – were almost three times as high as usual. In Manchester, the picture was even worse.
Building on our previous studies on this topic, this paper looks at Jewish mortality over the first year of the pandemic, taking in both the first wave (March to May 2020) and the second wave (December 2020 to February 2021).
Whilst it confirms that excess mortality among Jews during the first wave was considerably higher than among comparative non-Jews (280% higher compared to 188%), it reveals that the second wave saw the opposite picture: 69% higher than expected levels of mortality for that period among Jews, compared to 77% among the non-Jewish comparative group. This second wave picture is exactly what one might expect to see given that Jews typically enjoy relatively good health and longevity, so it forces us to ask again: what happened during the first wave to cause such devastation across the Jewish community?
Whilst not yet definitive about their conclusions, the authors point towards the ‘religious sociability’ hypothesis – that notion that close interaction between Jews, prior to the first lockdown, caused the devastating spike in Jewish deaths early on. The paper also demonstrates that the ‘Jewish penalty’ at this time was greater among Orthodox Jews than Progressive ones which further strengthens the hypothesis, as much higher proportions of Orthodox Jews gather regularly for religious reasons than Progressive Jews (even though Progressive Jews do so more regularly than British society as a whole).
The fact that the picture of extremely high excess mortality among British Jews was not repeated during the second wave (on the contrary, excess mortality among Jews was very slightly lower than among the comparator non-Jewish population, and slightly higher among Progressive Jews than Orthodox ones), suggests that the religious sociability theory was no longer a major factor at this time. With many synagogues closed or complying closely with the social distancing policies established by government, Jews were affected by coronavirus in much the same way as others.
The findings in this paper should be taken seriously by at least two key groups. Epidemiologists and public health experts should explore the impact of religious sociability more carefully, as currently, socioeconomic factors tend to dominate analysis. And Jewish community leaders must also reflect on the findings and, in the event of a similar pandemic in the future, consider instituting protective measures much more quickly than occurred in early 2020.
Abstract: This study, the first to assess mortality among Jews around the world during the COVID-19 crisis, draws on data from a wide variety of sources to understand the extent to which Jews were affected by coronavirus in different parts of the world during the first wave of the pandemic, March to May 2020.
The first section describes the methods of quantification of COVID-19 mortality, and explains why measuring it using the excess mortality method is the most effective way to understand how Jewish communities have been affected. The second section presents data on Jewish mortality during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, drawing particularly on data provided to JPR by Jewish burial societies in communities all over the world. It does so in a comparative perspective, setting the data on Jews alongside the data on non-Jews, to explore both the extent to which Jews have been affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, and how the Jewish experience with COVID-19 compares to the experience of non-Jewish populations.
The immediate impression is that there is not a single ‘Jewish pattern’ that is observable everywhere, and, with respect to the presence of excess mortality, Jewish communities, by and large, followed the populations surrounding them.
The report cautions against speculation about why Jews were disproportionately affected in some places, but rule out two candidate explanations: that Jewish populations with particularly elderly age profiles were hardest hit, or that Jews have been badly affected due to any underlying health issue common among them. They consider the possibility that Jewish lifestyle effects (e.g. above average size families, convening in large groups for Jewish rituals and holidays), may have been an important factor in certain instances, noting that these are unambiguous risk factors in the context of communicable diseases. Whilst they suggest that the spread of the virus among Jews “may have been enhanced by intense social contact,” they argue that without accurate quantification, this explanation for elevated mortality in certain places remains unproven.
The report also includes a strongly worded preface from Hebrew University Professor Sergio DellaPergola, the Chair of the JPR European Jewish Demography Unit, and the world’s leading expert in Jewish demography. In it, he stresses the importance of systematically testing representative samples of the population at the national and local levels, and, in Jewish community contexts, of routinely gathering Jewish population vital statistics. He states: “If there is one lesson for Jewish community research that emerges out of this crisis it is that the routine gathering of vital statistics – the monitoring of deaths, as well as births, marriages, divorces, conversions, immigrants and emigrants – is one of the fundamental responsibilities community bodies must take.”
Abstract: This detailed and thorough report is rapidly becoming the ‘must-read’ study on European Jews, taking the reader on an extraordinary journey through one thousand years of European Jewish history before arriving at the most comprehensive analysis of European Jewish demography today.
Written by leading Jewish demographers Professor Sergio DellaPergola and Dr Daniel Staetsky, the Chair and Director of JPR’s European Jewish Demography Unit respectively, it explores how the European Jewish population has ebbed and flowed over time. It begins as far back as the twelfth century, travelling through many years of population stability, until the tremendous growth of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by the dramatic decline prompted by a combination of mass migration and the horrors of the Shoah. Extraordinarily, after all this time, the proportion of world Jewry living in Europe today is almost identical to the proportion living in Europe 900 years ago.
Using multiple definitions of Jewishness and a vast array of sources to determine the size of the contemporary population, the study proceeds to measure it in multiple ways, looking at the major blocs of the European Union and the European countries of the Former Soviet Union, as well as providing country-by-country analyses, ranging from major centres such as France, the UK, Germany and Hungary, to tiny territories such as Gibraltar, Monaco and even the Holy See.
The report also contains the most up-to-date analysis we have on the key mechanisms of demographic change in Europe, touching variously on patterns of migration in and out of Europe, fertility, intermarriage, conversion and age compositions. While the report itself is a fascinating and important read, the underlying data are essential tools for the JPR team to utilise as it supports Jewish organisations across the continent to plan for the future.
Abstract: Since the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak in the UK, concerns have been expressed that Jews have been disproportionately affected, with mortality levels among them abnormally high. Initial hypotheses arguing that this could largely be explained by geographical and age factors were both proven and challenged by a June 2020 paper published by the Office for National Statistics. It showed that Jews were more likely to be affected because of their above average age profile and where they tend to live (London and other urban centres), but that even after accounting for these and other socio-demographic variables, they were still found to be disproportionately vulnerable.
This short paper draws on existing evidence to investigate why this might be the case. In particular, it explores whether the long-established above average health profile of Jews in the UK has shifted in such a way as to result in elevated levels of mortality from COVID-19, and whether behavioural factors – particularly in the most Orthodox parts of the community – affect the numbers in any significant way. In brief, it finds that there has been no such change in the fundamental health status of British Jews, and that regardless of any specific issues within haredi communities, the vast majority of COVID-19 related deaths among Jews have occurred in the mainstream, non-haredi sector.
Its key conclusions are as follows:
1) Even though Jewish mortality from COVID-19 is high as it is for other Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, Jews are a completely different case and should be analysed and understood as such;
2) The high mortality levels found among Jews is not caused in any significant way by any particular developments occurring in the strictly Orthodox (haredi) population;
3) Elevated mortality among Jews may in part be due to the interconnected and contact-rich social and religious lives that Jews have, but further analysis is required to confirm this.
Abstract: Written by the world’s leading Jewish demographer, Professor Sergio DellaPergola, and Dr Daniel Staetsky, Director of JPR’s European Jewish Demography Unit, this report shines a light on the demography of Jewish in Austria today, and presents in-depth analysis of fertility rates, age distribution data, patterns of Jewish identity, migration and intermarriage rates to predict Austrian Jewry’s future. It demonstrates, through careful and methodical analysis, that the population is projected to grow.
Whilst the Austrian Jewish population is small, its projected growth constitutes an important finding in European Jewish demography. The Jewish population of Europe has declined dramatically over the past century and a half, particularly as a result of mass migration and the Holocaust. Yet today, in several European countries, demographers are beginning to see signs of growth, driven particularly by high birth rates in the strictly Orthodox population. This study provides an important example of this phenomenon.
The report is a publication of JPR’s European Jewish Demography Unit, an initiative established in 2019 to produce new data to support Jewish community planning across Europe. Funded by the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe, the Unit is working to produce country-specific reports annually, and this study about Austria is the first of these.
The report draws on three major sources of data: the 2001 Austrian Census, comprehensive records of the Austrian Jewish community and a survey carried out by a JPR/Ipsos consortium in 2018 for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).
Key findings include:
Today the core Jewish population of Austria is estimated to be just above 10,000. The ‘core Jewish population’ consists of people who would explicitly identify themselves as Jews. This is the highest number of Jews observed in Austria since the 1960.
According to the Israeli Law of Return – which uses a broader definition to determine who is entitled to migrate to Israel and immediately apply for Israeli citizenship – the eligible Jewish population in Austria is currently about 20,000.
The core Jewish population constitutes 0.1% of the total population of Austria. 64% of all Austrians are Roman Catholics, 17% are unaffiliated in religious terms, and 8% are Muslims.
The Jewish population of Austria is growing and may reach 11,000-12,000 by the mid-2030s.
About 86% of all Austrian Jews reside in Vienna. Only 19% of all Austrians live in Vienna
The average number of children that a Jewish woman in Austria is expected to have in her lifetime is 2.5; strictly Orthodox Jewish women have 6–7 children per woman, on average, while non-strictly Orthodox Jewish women typically have about 2. The average among Austrian women in general is 1.5.
Migration has been a powerful factor of growth in the Austrian Jewish population. Jews born in Israel constitute about 20% of Jews in Austria today.
About 78% of Jewish households in Austria are affiliated with the Jewish community through membership of its representative organisation. Compared to other communities around the world, this is a very high level of affiliation.
About 30% of Jews in Austria identify as ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Traditional’ and 19% as ‘strictly Orthodox.’ 15% identify as ‘Reform/Progressive’ and 19% as ‘just Jewish.’ Austrian Jewry has one of the highest proportions of strictly Orthodox Jews of all European Jewish communities.
Due to their high fertility, the strictly Orthodox represent the main engine of population growth for the Jewish community as a whole. For the same reason, their share in the Jewish population is expected to increase significantly in the medium term.
About two thirds (70%) of partnered Austrian Jews have a Jewish partner.
About 70% of all Jewish children of compulsory school age in Austria attend Jewish schools. While 100% of strictly Orthodox Jews attend Jewish schools, among the non-strictly Orthodox uptake is still significant – about 52%.
Abstract: This report, published in conjunction with the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town, contains a detailed demographic assessment of the South African Jewish population and the results of the 2019 Jewish Community Survey of South Africa – the largest and most extensive study of its kind ever undertaken. The fieldwork for the survey generated a final sample of 4,193 individuals (aged 18 and over) living in 2,402 unique households. Accounting for everyone living within those households, the report draws on data on 5,287 individuals.
Authored by JPR Senior Research Fellow Dr David Graham, the report finds that the Jewish population of the country has declined over the past twenty years, mainly as a result of migration, but also due to the natural ageing of the population. Jews have emigrated from South Africa in significant numbers since the 1960s; the study speculates that the South African Jewish diaspora may now be larger than the Jewish population living in South Africa.
However, despite the numerical decline, the report demonstrates that the South African Jewish community is remarkably vibrant and resilient. Overall, Jewish identity in South Africa appears to be stronger, and more religious, than in either Australia or the UK and the community remains very close-knit.
The study finds significant differences between the Jewish communities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, with 48% in Johannesburg self-identifying as either Orthodox or strictly Orthodox, compared with 22% in Cape Town. In Cape Town 40% self-describe as Progressive or Secular, compared with 18% in Johannesburg.
The report explores South African Jews' sense of belonging to the country and sense of satisfaction with their lives, as well as their attitudes to issues such as unemployment, government corruption and crime levels, anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism. It also contains new data on synagogue membership and Jewish school enrolment.
The study is designed to provide an up-to-date set of empirical data to help Jewish community leaders plan for the future, including those involved in social care, health and welfare, education, religious life and combating antisemitism.
Abstract: The Representative Council’s demographics officer analyses data to assist various bodies to plan for the
future needs of the Jewish community in Liverpool, Wirral, Chester, and adjoining areas. These needs include
the scale of Jewish educational and social facilities for children, synagogue provision, welfare and social
provision for adults, residential care and, ultimately, burial needs. As with all Jewish demographic studies, the
question of who should be included arises. The government’s 2011 National Census used self-identification
as its definition of a member of a religion; for our purposes we ‘simply’ need to estimate the numbers of
people who might wish, now or in the future, to avail themselves of the services of the community – we might
call these ‘community affiliatable’ people, or simply ‘our community’. The work of the demographics officer
does NOT in any way seek to identify our community by name; indeed almost all data sources used exclude
any means of identifying individuals. The approach adopted merely seeks to quantify our population by
gender and age, with some analysis of the geographic spread across our community area.
The analysis falls into three elements:
An annual ‘snapshot’ of population elements - the main sources for which are data provided by the
shuls, the King David & Harold House Foundation, MJCC (on certain burials) and Greenbank Drive
Limited. My thanks to the administrators and honorary officers of those organisations for their
patience in completing the various forms.
An assessment of the current overall size and age breakdown of the community, which builds on the
‘snapshot’, and makes use of information from both the 2011 National Census, and our own local
census also undertaken in that year.
A projection of the future size and shape of the community.
