ABSTRACT
This chapter is part of a broader research project being carried out by the author at the Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics, the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prior to the period of glasnost the relevant statistical data on Jewish demography in the USSR were mostly kept secret. The 'core' population does not include persons of Jewish origin who reported another ethnic nationality in the census. The alternative definition of the 'enlarged Jewish population' includes Jews and their non-Jewish family members, and this group may be significantly larger than the 'core' Jewish population. Since World War II the age structure of the Soviet Jewish population has become substantially older, a fact which is linked to the fertility decline. Russian Jewry is the most aged Jewish population of the former USSR. The data on age composition show that by 1970 Russian Jewry had already reached what has been defined as the terminal stage' of demographic evolution.
