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Number of Jews in world down to 12.9

million
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
following a preliminary examination of the recent census of
American Jewry, according to the Jewish Agency's Institute for
Jewish People Policy Planning.

According to the institute, which convened an emergency session to

deal with what it called the "demographic crisis," there are now some
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
showed that there has been a decline of 300,000 in American Jewry,
from 5.5 million in 1990 to 5.2 million in 2002. Experts say that some
300,000 Jews emigrated to the U.S. during the 1990s, but
nonetheless, the community lost some 50,000 Jews a year, mostly to
natural attrition.

The institute, jointly headed by former U.S. Middle East peace envoy
Dennis Ross and Prof. Yehezkel Dror, a specialist in strategic
government policy planning, is supposed to form general and long-
term strategic plans for the Jewish people.

Studies published at the conference, which opened Saturday night and

ends Tuesday, said the decline is apparent in other major Jewish
communities around the world. The French Jewish community has
declined from 535,000 in 1980 to some 500,000 now, while the
number of Jews in the former Soviet Union has fallen from 1.45
million in 1989, to some 437,000 now. Most of those Jews moved to
Israel during the 1990s.

But according to Prof. Sergio della Pergola, an expert on

demographics, "last year alone in Russia there were 8,000 deaths of
elderly Jews, and only 600 births recorded to Jewish mothers. This is
the end of a long process of assimilation and aging."

The only Jewish community in the world that is growing is Israel,

which is home to most of the world's Jewish children under the age of
15.

Sallai Meridor, the Likud-appointed chairman of the agency, said at

the conference that "one of the biggest problems is the high cost of
Jewish education in the West, and ways must be found to help more
people pay for Jewish education for their children."

Hinting that he may be shifting his views on the greater Land of

Israel, Meridor said that demographic threat inside Israel, because of
the increase of non-Jews in the population and the Israeli control over
the territories, "must certainly influence our borders policy."

But he added "it also means that we cannot concede on the

Palestinian right of return issue. And particularly, we must increase
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 immigration. That is a vital need for Israel, like water in the faucet."

He called for a more lenient rabbinical attitude toward the issue of

converting non-Jewish immigrants. "I hope that conversion continues
to be the only gateway to the Jewish people, because I believe the
people of Israel and the religion of Israel go together. But that's as
long as religious values do not endanger national needs ... There will
be no significant immigration in the future that does not include non-
Jewish members of the family, and those who are ready to forgo those
people should already give up the demographic effort."

Ross said that "we have to examine which methods worked in the
past and which didn't." He noted that Jewish schooling, summer
camps and organized trips to Israel were the best way to keep young
Jews interested in the fate of the Jewish people. Furthermore, he said,
"if Israel wants to remain the center of the Jewish people, it must
certainly remain a Jewish and democratic state."
By Yair Sheleg, Ha'aretz Correspondent

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