Holocaust survivor Jerry Stein, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and immigrated to Israel this year from the United States, is photographed at his home in Jerusalem ahead of his 97th birthday on Feb. 18, 2026. Photo courtesy of Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
JNS
Israel is home to some 111,000 Holocaust survivors and victims of anti-semitic persecution, according to new government estimates released prior to Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026. Women make up about 63% of survivors, most of whom are in their 80s and 90s.
Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reports that the global Jewish population stood at 15.8 million at the start of 2025, including 7.2 million Jews in Israel, or roughly 45% of the total, and 6.3 million in the United States. About 60.5% of survivors in Israel were born in Europe, led by immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Romania and Poland, while significant numbers also came from Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria.
Roughly 6% of survivors immigrated to prestate Israel before 1948, about 30% arrived in the mass immigration wave immediately after independence, and a similar share came between 1952 and 1989. About one-third have arrived since the 1990s, mainly from the former Soviet Union.
Around 95% of survivors live in urban communities, with about 42% concentrated in major cities such as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv–Yafo, Haifa, Ashdod, Netanya, Petah Tikva, Beersheva and Rishon Letzion.
