Holocaust survivors at a concert honoring them organized by the Nachas Health and Family Network. Photo: Provided.

JNS.org – Over the past year, 15,324 Holocaust survivors died in Israel, according to data published on Wednesday by the country’s Social Equality Ministry.

According to the report, published by the ministry’s Holocaust Survivors’ Rights Authority on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, there are currently 165,800 survivors in Israel, 90 percent of whom are 80 or older. The average age of survivors is 85. Some 31,000, or 19 percent, are over 90, and over 950 are over 100. Sixty percent of the survivors known to the Authority are women, with the average age among this group being 85.4.

The other 36 percent of known survivors in Israel were born in Asia and North Africa, including 30,600 Moroccan and Algerian-born citizens who suffered under France’s Vichy government. These include 18,000 Baghdad natives who were victimized by antisemitic rioting in Iraq in June 1941. Another 11,000 were born in Tunisia and Libya and were subjected to race laws and sent to labor camps.

Only 5 percent of known survivors in Israel made aliyah before founding of the state, while another 11 percent arrived by the end of 1948. Some 80,500 (48 percent) made aliyah by the end of the 1950s and over one-third made aliyah starting in 1989 in the big wave from the former Soviet Union. In 2021, an additional 98 survivors made aliyah.

Haifa has the highest number of survivor residents at 11,300, followed by Jerusalem (10,300), Tel Aviv (8,900), Ashdod (8,200), Netanya (8,000), Beersheva (7,050), Petah Tikva (6,700) and Rishon Lezion (6,500).