Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, 111,000 survivors living in Israel

Over a quarter are older than 90, two-thirds are women; world Jewish population has still not recovered to numbers it had in 1933, according to Central Bureau of Statistics

At the start of 2026, there were 111,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel, according to figures released Sunday by the Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of the annual commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day later this week.

All survivors are at least 80 years old, and 28 percent are over 90, the CBS said, based on data from the Holocaust Survivors’ Authority, a government agency that sits under the Prime Minister’s Office.

In January 2025, the authority said there were 123,000 survivors living in Israel.

Of current survivors, 63% are women. Nearly half of survivors (49.3%) are widowed. In Israel, there are 9,300 couples in which both are Holocaust survivors.

The figures include those who suffered during the 1941 pogroms in Iraq, and Jews who suffered during the war in the Nazi-occupied or -aligned countries of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

Around 60% of Holocaust survivors living in Israel were born in Europe, with the largest group being from the former Soviet Union, who make up 36%. Most of them, 84%, arrived in the country during the 1990s. Another 37% are from Asia or Africa, with Moroccans making up 16.9% of that group, and Iraqis 10.9%.

Just 6% of Holocaust survivors had arrived in British-mandate Palestine during the period of 1933-1947, before the establishment of the state.

After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, there was a surge of immigration by Holocaust survivors, with 30.2% of those alive today arriving in 1948-1951. A similar percentage arrived in 1952-1989.

The city with the largest number of Holocaust survivors is Haifa, with 7,500, followed by Jerusalem (7,100), then Tel Aviv (6,000), Ashdod (5,500), and Netanya (5,400).

According to the CBS, the world Jewish population has still not recovered from the Holocaust, when Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews, primarily in Europe.

The number of Jews in the world stands at 15.8 million, less than the total for 1939, when there were 16.6 million Jews, the CBS said.

In 1939, just three percent of Jews lived in Palestine (449,000), whereas today there are 7.2 million, accounting for 45% of the world’s total Jewish population.

The second largest concentration of Jews is in the United States, with 6.3 million, around 40%.

Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day begins on Monday evening and ends on Tuesday evening. It is marked by official ceremonies and a two-minute siren during which much of the country comes to a standstill.

In April 2025, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany estimated there were 211,300 Holocaust survivors alive in the world, but that almost half will die by 2032.

Dwindling numbers of living eyewitnesses to the Nazi genocide during World War II mean it will be more difficult to transmit the lessons of the Holocaust to the next generation, Holocaust educators say.

Zev Stub contributed to this report.