Demography in focus
INTERNATIONALLY renowned demographer Professor Sergio Della Pergola (pictured) delivered a talk on the topic “World Jewish Population – trends and prospects” to a packed auditorium at the Sydney Jewish Museum late last month.
Della Pergola, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Contemporary Jewry, is a leading specialist in the demography of the Jewish people worldwide.
Tracking patterns of growth in the global Jewish population, he estimated that the number of Jews could have been up to 30 million had the Holocaust not happened, instead of just over 14 million.
The population that was destroyed, he argued, was not an ageing remnant, but contained a large proportion of young people who were set to continue the fast rise in the Jewish population of Europe which had been going on for two centuries. Their descendants, he said, should now be alive.
On the topic of Israel’s Jewish population growth, Della Pergola said that with Israel now home to the world’s largest Jewish community, a shift was due in Israel–Diaspora relations.
While Israel has long looked to the Diaspora for support, he suggested that it is now time for Israel to give leadership to the world Jewish community.
He said, for example, that a global forum on Jewish identity could help the many disparate Jewish communities to come together and find a voice that they would feel could represent all their interests, whatever the shade and depth of their Jewish identification.
The function was jointly hosted by the Sydney Jewish Museum, the Zelman Cowen Universities Fund and the Australian Friends of the Hebrew University (NSW).
Della Pergola is in Sydney as a Sir Zelman Cowen Universities Fund Academic Exchange Fellow and a visiting professor in the Department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney. He is working with Professor Suzanne Rutland investigating demographic trends of Australian Jewry and also Israel–Australia bilateral migration exchanges.
The Sir Zelman Cowen Universities Fund supports and promotes a range of cooperative activities between the University of Sydney and the Hebrew University.
AJN STAFF
Prof Sergio Della Pergola.
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