ISRAEL TO HAVE MOST JEWS IN WORLD IN 2006

Diaspora in the doldrums
Israel will become the world’s biggest Jewish community in 2006, a study found. According to the study released this week by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, assimilation has so sapped the current largest Jewish population, in the United States, that its numbers will fall below Israel’s by next year.

While most Jews abroad marry non-Jews, in Israel the rate of intermarriage is only 3 percent, said the institute, which is linked to the Jewish Agency for Israel. Still, Israel is not expected to be home to the majority of the world’s Jews in the foreseeable future. By 2020, the report said, only 46 percent of Jews will have been born in Israel or chosen to move there, up from the current figure of around 40 percent.