Tuesday, January 04, 2005

How many Jews do you think remain in Russia? Take a wild guess

Ha'aretz claims (with some very vague data) that the number of immigrants to Israel who are returning to Mother Russia is dropping -- precisely at the moment when the world's media is picking up on the story. Unhelpfully, the Ha'aretz story seems to refer to Russia-proper, with no stats for the FSU as a whole. Still, I find the following numbers amazing:
Currently 243,000 "nuclear" Jews, those who define themselves as Jews and generally have two Jewish parents, live in Russia. The expanded nucleus, which includes the "nuclear" Jews and their expanded families, is twice this number. Meanwhile, the number eligible to immigrate to Israel according to the Law of Return is said to be 800,000, Tolts said....
Recent restrictions on the immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to the United States and Germany makes Israel nearly the only option available to Russian Jews. Today, of some 1,600,000 Russian-speaking Jews in the world, constituting 12 percent of world Jewry, more than two-thirds live in Israel. Israel is unequivocally the center of Russian Jewry today.
That makes less Jews living in Russia today than in the UK, France or Canada.

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