ABSTRACT
THE discussion on Dr. Prais’ paper was opened by Professor R. Bachi. ‘The emphasis put by Dr. Prais on the proper organization and utilization of the statistical sources on Jewish demography shows that he, too, considers that the main problems in Jewish demographic research today are lack of information, and lack of co-ordination of demographic statistics. I concur completely in this view and I must add that the steady deterioration reported by Dr. Prais in respect to reliable sources of Jewish statistics for Great Britain is also true, alas, for the rest of world Jewry. This state of affairs is particularly sad, because it occurs in an era of widespread and ever increasing interest in population problems all over the world, of continuous improvement in techniques for collecting and processing data, and of much progress in demographic research. Within this frame of continuous improvement in the field of population study, the place of research on demography of the Jews at the world level is conspicuous by its steady deterioration, in comparison with the situation which prevailed before World War I, and, at present, indeed by its almost complete absence. For instance, today it is almost impossible to give a clear and unqualified reply even to the most elementary questions about the number of Jews in the world, their demographic structure, their rate of natural increase, the degree of fusion with the Gentile population through intermarriage, the volume of internal and international migration, etc. For many other Jewish communities, besides the Jews of Great Britain, the statement by Dr. Prais that many statistics are little more than informal estimates or even guesses is unfortunately true : for this reason we cannot even state today whether the size of the Jewish population in the world is increasing or decreasing.
