Jewish Population

World Jewish centers have shifted dramatically in the 20th century, as a result of the Holocaust, emigration, wars, the breakup of nations and the creation of Israel. Today, about 95% of world Jewry is concentrated in 10 countries. The United States, home to more than 5.5 million Jews, tops the list, followed by Israel, with about 4.7 million. 1900 / TOTAL JEWISH POPULATION: 10,671,832 At the outset of a century of upheaval, the great bulk of Jews are concentrated in eastern and central Europe.

The green fields on the western outskirts of this vast metropolis are dotted with ripening ears of corn, trash and the skeletons of half-built villas abandoned by bankrupt developers. But Dvir Bar-Gal, an Israeli expatriate and photojournalist, saw none of these as he trudged toward a putrid creek, his eyes scouring the ground. Rather, he was looking for something far older: gravestones buried in the mud — the lost relics of this city's vanished Jews "When I go out to these villages filled with peasants it's almost like I've gone back to another era," he said.

The green fields on the western outskirts of this vast metropolis are dotted with ripening ears of corn, trash and the skeletons of half-built villas abandoned by bankrupt developers. But Dvir Bar-Gal, an Israeli expatriate and photojournalist, saw none of these as he trudged toward a putrid creek, his eyes scouring the ground. Rather, he was looking for something far older: gravestones buried in the mud — the lost relics of this city's vanished Jews "When I go out to these villages filled with peasants it's almost like I've gone back to another era," he said.

In saying her critics manufactured "a blood libel," Sarah Palin deployed a phrase linked to the false accusations made for centuries against Jews, often to malign them as child killers who coveted the blood of Christian children. Blood libel has been a central fable of anti-Semitism in which Jews have been accused of using the blood of gentile children for medicinal purposes or to mix in with matzo, the unleavened bread traditionally eaten at Passover. The spreading of the blood libel dates to the Middle Ages ?

The Jewish population of the United States increased slightly last year to 5,981,000, up by about 40,000 and amounting to 2.4% of the nation's people, the 1991 American Jewish Year Book says. The compilation by the American Jewish Committee reports recent increases in Detroit; Middlesex County, N.J.; Orange County, Calif., and Seattle. But a long-term decline continued in the Miami-Dade County region of Florida. The Jewish population there fell more than 20,000, to 201,800, the new figures show.

The world's Jewish population outside Israel is steadily declining and will fall from the current 9.5 million people to about 6 million in less than 40 years, the World Zionist Organization said Monday. In a report on Jewish demography, the organization said low birthrates, intermarriage and assimilation were the main factors responsible for the trend. However, the Jewish population of Israel--3.5 million--is rising because it is largely unaffected by intermarriage.

Los Angeles' Jewish community--the third-largest in the world--now numbers just over 519,000, with steady migration from around the nation and the world offsetting a relatively low birthrate, according to the first census of the area's Jewish population in nearly two decades. While migration has helped keep the area's Jewish population steady since the late 1970s, the Jewish community's center of gravity has increasingly moved westward over the past 20 years.

Finding kosher food in the east county was once an ordeal that often ended with a trip to the San Fernando Valley. And during the holidays, Christmas trinkets were plentiful but Hanukkah decorations scarce. Today, with a growing number of Jewish residents making their homes in east Ventura County and Los Angeles' westernmost cities, kosher frozen chicken can be found at many major supermarkets. And a number of boutiques and The Oaks mall decorate for Hanukkah.

For a group that traditionally has viewed the counting of its members with ambivalence, the Jewish community is devoting a great deal of scrutiny and debate to population surveys. Take, for example, the discussion generated by the recent publication of a study by Brandeis University that estimated the U.S. Jewish population at 6 million to 6.4 million, roughly 1 million larger than thought.

Jewish life was slowly disappearing in the neighborhoods on the east bank of the Los Angeles River when Rabbi Mayer Joel Franklin died in 1976. White flight had sent all the faithful westward, away from Highland Park, where Franklin was the last in a long line of rabbis at Temple Beth Israel . After Franklin's death, the shrinking membership of the temple didn't have the money to hire a new rabbi. But for years, Henry Leventon and a handful of other devout men and women held on. The men, wearing their prayer shawls and kippahs, would climb up the old steps each Saturday morning and enter the sanctuary underneath the Lions of Judah, even as the surrounding community began to live and shop in Spanish, and to pray in other faiths.

Jewish life was slowly disappearing in the neighborhoods on the east bank of the Los Angeles River when Rabbi Mayer Joel Franklin died in 1976. White flight had sent all the faithful westward, away from Highland Park, where Franklin was the last in a long line of rabbis at Temple Beth Israel . After Franklin's death, the shrinking membership of the temple didn't have the money to hire a new rabbi. But for years, Henry Leventon and a handful of other devout men and women held on. The men, wearing their prayer shawls and kippahs, would climb up the old steps each Saturday morning and enter the sanctuary underneath the Lions of Judah, even as the surrounding community began to live and shop in Spanish, and to pray in other faiths.

The American Civil Liberties Union is vilified by conservatives as a left-wing lobby disguised as an advocate for free speech for all. And certainly it's true that many supporters of the organization are liberal in their political views. But to its credit, the ACLU often puts its commitment to free expression above those opinions. The latest example is its support for a student group at the University of Nevada, Reno, that invited Jim Gilchrist, an extreme opponent of illegal immigration, to take part in a panel discussion.

Quick, when you see the word "Gorbals," what comes to mind? A deadly disease from the Middle Ages (as in: Egad, he's got the gorbals!)? A cuddly but vicious gorilla-gerbil hybrid? Or a new restaurant in downtown L.A. named after a neighborhood in Glasgow, Scotland, that was once home to much of the city's Jewish population? As much as you might be inclined to think the former two, the answer is actually the latter. The restaurant, which opened Friday, is the oddball creation of Ilan Hall, Season 2's winner of "Top Chef."

On most weekdays, young boys in yarmulkes can be seen hanging out with friends in front of the new kosher Subway sandwich shop, while Orthodox women in modest dress stroll past Judaica stores and synagogues along Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Dubbed the "Kosher District" by some planners, this roughly 12-block stretch near Robertson Boulevard has exploded in recent years with restaurants, shops and religious institutions aimed at serving the neighborhood's growing Jewish population.

The landmark Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the oldest Jewish congregation in Los Angeles and one associated with the men who invented the motion picture industry, has begun a multimillion-dollar renovation and expansion that symbolizes the reversal of the Jewish exodus from the eastern part of the city. Senior Rabbi Steven Leder said he didn't know how much the project will cost because the details are evolving. But the Reform temple already has spent $20 million buying the five pieces of land it didn't own on the block that runs from 6th Street to Wilshire Boulevard and Hobart to Harvard boulevards in Koreatown.

For a group that traditionally has viewed the counting of its members with ambivalence, the Jewish community is devoting a great deal of scrutiny and debate to population surveys. Take, for example, the discussion generated by the recent publication of a study by Brandeis University that estimated the U.S. Jewish population at 6 million to 6.4 million, roughly 1 million larger than thought.

The Jewish population is plummeting around the world--except in Israel, Germany, Canada, Panama and Hong Kong--according to a demographic "State of the Jewish World" report issued during the World Jewish Congress' annual convention held in Jerusalem this week. Only 13 million Jews are alive worldwide--indicating that the community has not recovered numerically from the Holocaust, before which there were about 18 million Jews. In the United States, the percentage of Jews has dropped drastically.

The Jewish population in the United States declined 5% in the last decade to about 5.2 million and the rate of intermarriage continued to climb, but at a slower pace, a new nationwide survey has found. The study by United Jewish Communities found contradictions in American Jewish life: an increase in the number of children enrolled in Jewish day schools and adults participating in Jewish education, yet "significant segments" of Jews on the margins of religious or community involvement.

The newly issued "American Jewish Year Book 2002" estimates there are 6.16 million Jews in the United States, constituting 2.2% of the nation's population. The American Jewish Committee annual is the standard reference for statistics and other information on the U.S. Jewish community. The highest Jewish population percentages were reported for New York (8.7%), New Jersey (5.7%) and the District of Columbia (4.5%).