The Western Wall in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – According to figures released Tuesday by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Jews alive today is still lower than it was in 1939, prior to the Holocaust.

Prior to the murder of 6 million Jews between 1939 and 1945, there were 16,600,000 spread throughout the world. Today’s data, based on information gathered by Hebrew University’s Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics and the A. Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, indicates that there are currently 14,511,000 Jews on Earth, a number similar to that in 1922.

Today, the country with the most Jewish people is Israel, surpassing the American Jewish population by almost 750,000 people. Israel’s Jewish population currently stands at 6,446,000 with America’s at 5,700,000.

Another 456,000 live in France, 390,000 in Canada, 290,000 in Britain, 181,000 in Argentina, 176,000 in Russia, 117,000 in Germany, and 113,000 in Australia.

The data also showed that since 1948, when the number of Jews in Israel stood at 650,000, Israel’s Jewry has increase nearly tenfold.

The rest of the world’s Jewry has decreased, according to the report. Jews living outside Israel numbered 10.8 million in 1948. In 2016, there were approximately 8 million Diaspora Jews.