Hand puppet insult: a Holocaust joke by Chilean comedian Elias Escobedo through hand puppet Murdock the Lizard saying 'Jews burn better than wood' leaves Chilean Jews contemplating legal action
A study by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has revealed that the global Jewish population has grown by 88,000 people in the past year alone, bringing the total number almost to 14 million.
According to the new statistics, 1 out of just over 500 people is Jewish, in other words nearly 0.2% of the world’s population.
Of these 14 million Jewish people worldwide, over 40% live in Israel, whose population has grown to almost 8 million residents this year, 75% of whom identify themselves as Jewish. This population increase is partly due to the latest wave of immigrants, the majority of whom came from Eastern Europe, the US and Ethiopia.
Israel also boasts a young population, with 28% of residents aged between 0-14 and one of the highest life expectancies at 81.5 years of all the OECD’s 34 member states.
