From a global standpoint, Israel’s 4.8 million Jews account for 36 percent of the world’s 13.1 million Jews, according to a study released this week by Hebrew University’s department of contemporary Jewry.
In 1948, there were 650,000 Jews in Israel — 6 percent of the world’s 11.5 million Jews. By the early 1970s the approximately 2.6 million Jews in Israel accounted for 21 percent of world Jewry, which totaled about 12.6 million.