189,500 Holocaust Survivors Still Alive in Israel

World War II ended 75 years ago, but the Jewish world has yet to recover from the demographic shock of the Holocaust, the Central Bureau of Statistics said Monday. Releasing data in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the CBS said that there were officially 14.7 million Jews in the world, the same number as in 1925 – and several million short of the number at the eve of the Holocaust, when there were 16.6 million Jews in the world.

Israel is home to 5.1 million of those Jews, and of those, about 189,500 are Holocaust survivors themselves. 31,000 are age 90 and over, and over 800 are age 100 and above. In 2019, 15,170 survivors were niftar.

Overall, 77% of survivors are over age 80, and the average age of all survivors is 83.9. 60% are women, and 36% were born in Asia or North Africa. Of the latter, half were born in Morocco and Algeria, and many were imprisoned in concentration camps, as they lived in territories controlled by the Vichy government, a puppet French regime installed by the Nazis.

Survivors received NIS 4.34 billion in transfer payments in 2019, with monthly payments ranging from NIS 2,420 to NIS 6,078 per month. In addition to survivor benefits, many of the survivors receive payments as widows or widowers, as well as payments for disabilities.

Haifa has the most survivors, with 13,300, followed by Yerushalayim, with 11,600. A total of 10,500 live in Tel Aviv, and 9,350 live in Ashdod, the CBS numbers showed.