Historic decline in Jewish population reversed

Britain’s Jewish community is enjoying a revival for the first time in fifty years - according to a University of Manchester researcher.

Dr Yaakov Wise from the University’s Centre for Jewish Studies attributes the rising numbers to the massive growth of Britain’s ultra-orthodox Jews.

According to Dr Wise, almost three out of every four British Jewish births are ultra-orthodox, accounting for 45,500 out of a total UK Jewish population of around 280,000 or 17 per cent.

Secular Jewry numbers, on the other hand, are declining by about 2 per cent each year as a result of low birth rates, emigration to Israel and high rates of intermarriage – which is running at about 50 per cent.

European ultra-orthodox Jewry, on the other hand, is expanding more rapidly than at any time since before World War Two.

The latest birth rates are calculated from annual records completed in December 2007 and are expected to rise even further in 2008.

He said: “Though Britain’s Jewish population is the fifth largest in the world, it has declined by 40 per cent from over 450,000 in 1950 to only 275,000 today.

“The high birth rate of ultra-orthodox Jews is now reversing this trend and that will have a major impact on the Jewish community in the years to come.

“The birth rate has exceeded the mortality rate for the first time since the war in each year since 2005.

“Secular Jewish women have on average 1.65 children whereas the ultra-orthodox have on average 6.9 – a huge difference.

“And that is a major contributory factor to my view that ultra-orthodox Jews are set to outnumber their more secular counterparts by the second half of this century.

He added: “The growing numbers of ultra-orthodox Jews in communities across the UK underline these trends.

“In Greater Manchester, for example, the ultra- orthodox number over 8,500 which is almost a third of the 28,000 Jews in the region. This is up from around one quarter only ten years ago.

“Approximately half of all the Jewish under fives in Greater Manchester are ultra- orthodox.

“And in Greater London the ultra-orthodox now account for 18 per cent of the Jewish population, up from less than 10 per cent in the early 1990s.”

Notes for editors

The UK figures were based on census data plus the regular monitoring of Jewish births by academics in Manchester and Leeds.

Dr Wise is available for comment

An image of Dr Wise available

For more details contact:

Mike Addelman
Media Relations Officer
Faculty of Humanities
University of Manchester
0161 275 0790
07717 881 567
michael.addelman@manchester.ac.uk