Israel’s Jewish majority continues to shrink as ultra-Orthodox birthrate falls

On New Year’s Eve, Israel’s population stands at just over 10 million, with the Jewish majority continuing to shrink, fueled in part by a drop in the ultra-Orthodox birthrate.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Israel’s population at the end of 2024 stood at just over 10 million, according to a report released by the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics  on Tuesday.

On New Year’s Eve, Israel is home to some 10,027,000 people, the report said, up from roughly 9,915,000 at the end of 2023.

Overall, the population grew by just 1.12% over the last 365 days, down from an annual growth rate of 1.6% a year earlier and 2.2% the year before.

The country’s Jewish majority continues to shrink, with the category of “Jews and Others” falling from 77.0% one year ago to 76.9%, or 7.707 million out of 10.027 million residents in total.

Israel’s Arab population grew, rising from 20.8% at the end of 2023 to 21.0% on the eve of 2025, with 2.104 million Arab-Israelis.

There are also 216,000 foreign nationals living in Israel.

Of the 181,000 live births in Israel in 2024, 76% were to mothers in the “Jewish and Others” category, which includes non-Jewish immigrants who moved to Israel under the Law of Return. Virtually all of the remaining 24% of births were to Arab mothers.

The number of births rose slightly in 2024, from 178,724 the previous year.

Approximately 51,400 people died in Israel over the past year.

The sharp decline in Israel’s total growth rate, from 2.2% in 2022 and 1.6% in 2023 to 1.1%, resulted primarily from a negative net migration rate over the last year.

During 2024, 82,700 Israeli citizens moved abroad, while just 23,800 returned to live in Israel.

In the same year, a total of 32,800 new immigrants moved to Israel, 15,000 less than in 2023.

The decline in Israel’s growth rate was also fueled in part by the continuing decline of the ultra-Orthodox birthrate.

While the total fertility rate (TFR), representing the average number of children born to ultra-Orthodox or haredi women during their lifetimes, peaked in the mid-2000s at 7.5, that figure fell to 6.5 by 2021.

According to a report published recently by the Haredi institute for Public Affairs, the haredi TFR has fallen to just 6.1, the lowest level recorded since the early 1980s.

However, that figure remains significantly higher than the overall TFR for non-haredi Jewish women in Israel, estimated at 2.5.