As Israel marks its 77th Independence Day, the country’s population has officially surpassed 10 million, according to data released Tuesday by the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Israel is now home to approximately 10.094 million people, more than 12 times its population of 806,000 at the time of the state’s founding in 1948. Of the current population, 7.732 million are Jews and others (76.6%), 2.114 million are Arabs (20.9%), and 248,000 are foreign residents (2.5%).
The population grew by 135,000 over the past year – a 1.4 percent increase – driven largely by natural growth and immigration. Roughly 174,000 babies were born, 28,000 new olim arrived, and about 50,000 people died. The balance of Israelis residing abroad was estimated at a negative 56,000.
The figures come as Israel reflects on its decades of rapid development and demographic transformation, with population milestones marking the country’s evolving national identity.
NEARLY HALF OF THE WORLD’S JEWS NOW LIVE IN ISRAEL
At the start of 2024, the global Jewish population stood at an estimated 15.7 million, with Israel home to roughly 7.1 million Jews – around 45 percent of the world’s total. Another 6.3 million, or about 40%, reside in the United States, according to data released ahead of Israel’s Independence Day.
The figures mark a dramatic demographic shift over the past century. In 1939, on the eve of World War II, the global Jewish population was 16.6 million, but only 449,000 – about 3% – lived in what would later become the State of Israel. By 1948, at the state’s founding, Israel’s Jewish population had grown to 650,000, comprising just 6% of world Jewry.
Today, Israel is the single largest Jewish population center in the world.
Israeli officials estimate that approximately 120,000 Holocaust survivors and victims of antisemitic persecution during the war remain alive in Israel in 2025.
Among them, 62% are women and 38% men. Just over 6% immigrated to pre-state Israel between 1933 and 1947, while another 30.3% arrived in the mass Aliyah immediately following independence. Another 30% came between 1952 and 1989, and a third – 33.6% – immigrated during the wave from the former Soviet Union beginning in the 1990s.
