Abstract: The new report by the JPR European Demography Unit estimates the ‘core’ Jewish population in the Netherlands is about 35,000. Furthermore, while the natural balance of Dutch Jews is negative (the population experiences more deaths than births), the Dutch Jewish population is growing slowly as a result of one single factor: migration, mainly from Israel.
The report was launched in Amsterdam in January 2025 in partnership with the Jewish Social Work Foundation/Joods Maatschappelijk Werk (JMW) and the Committee for Demography of Jews in the Netherlands.
Some of the key findings in this report:
The ‘core’ Jewish population of the Netherlands is estimated to be about 35,000 today (a mid-point of a 29,000–41,000 range), constituting 0.2% of the Dutch population.
According to the Israeli Law of Return, which applies to Jews, children and grandchildren of Jews, and all respective spouses, the estimated eligible population in the Netherlands might be as high as 65,000.
The Dutch Jewish population experiences more deaths than births and cannot grow on its own. Nevertheless, it is slowly increasing due to one single factor: migration. This situation is similar to that of the Dutch population as a whole.
Jews born in Israel constitute about 20% of the Jews living in the Netherlands today. The population with a direct connection to Israel, including those born in the Netherlands but with at least one parent born in Israel, comes to about a third of the Dutch Jewish population. A majority of Dutch Jewish children today are either Israel-born or born to Israeli parents already in the Netherlands.
Dutch Jews are one of the most secularised European Jewish communities. Only about 20% identify as ‘Orthodox’ or ‘Traditional’, and just 10%–20% are fully religiously observant. About 60% of partnered Dutch Jews are married to someone who is not Jewish.
A significant proportion of Dutch Jews (about 50%) currently identify with the Centre-Right in political terms. About a quarter are political centrists, and another quarter are Centre-Left. This situation is similar to the Dutch electorate as a whole.
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: 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: This paper is the first output of the new European Jewish Demography Unit, set up by JPR in January 2019 with the generous support of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe, to undertake demographic research about Jewish populations across Europe.
Demography provides answers to questions such as how many Jews exist in the world? Or in Europe? Or in any particular country of Europe? And where will European Jewry go from here?
The objective of the Unit is to create demographic profiles of European Jewish populations at a country level, documenting their size, structure, composition, patterns of Jewish identity, factors of growth and decline and past and projected trajectories over time. The foundational paper demonstrates the practical sides and uses of demography, with the focus on its use by the Jewish community.
The paper is written in three parts. Part 1 describes what Jewish demography is, as a subject area, and its purpose and value, with specific reference to Jews in Europe. Part 2 explores some of the critiques of demography from the past and present and responds to these by outlining how the data should be used and have been used for highly constructive purposes. Part 3 outlines what the European Jewish Demography Unit will do, and the methods and approach it will take.
