Four out of five Jews in Jerusalem are religious, new stats show

Only 21 percent of Jerusalem's Jewish residents define themselves as "non-religious, seculars," according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. The government agency released the figures ahead of the annual Jerusalem Day, to be marked this Wednesday. According to the figures, 19,800 residents left the capital in 2009 while only 12,800 moved there. However, the city's population nonetheless grew by about 14,000 people, as result of high birthrates amongst both the Jewish and the Arab populations. Both Jewish and Arab women in the city bear an average of four children, a figure contradicting claims that the Arab population would soon overtake that of Jews.

The Israeli capital is currently also the country’s largest city, with a population of 774,000. Sixty-three percent of it are Jews and a third Muslims, together with 15,000 Christians and 10,000 unclassified. Nearly a third of Jewish Jerusalemites aged 20 and above define themselves as Haredim (ultra-Orthodox).
 
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies reports that about 50 percent of Jewish women in the capital work, compared to only 47 percent of men. This figure makes Jerusalem one of the world's only cities where such a phenomenon exists. Haredi Jews live in Jerusalem at a rate 3.6 times higher than their percentage in Israel as a whole, while non-Haredim are 1.4 times as common in the capital as elsewhere. The percentage of non-religious Jews in Jerusalem is less than half of that in the country as a whole.

About three out of five inhabitants of Jerusalem reside in areas conquered by Israel during the Six Day War in 1967 and annexed in 1980. Two out of five of them are Jews and three out of five Arabs.