The Jewish population in the United Kingdom is growing for the first time since World War II, research suggests. The rise appears to be due to a growth in the size of Haredi families, according to researchers at the University of Manchester. The population fell to a historic low of 275,000 in 2005, but that figure has since increased to 280,000 in 2008. The figures were based on British census data and the monitoring of Jewish births by academics. The Jewish population in Britain decreased by 40 per cent between the end of World War II and 2005 as the birth-rate among secular Jews declined and more married outside the community. Britain has the fifth largest Jewish population in the world and the second-largest in western Europe after France.
Yaakov Wise, of Manchester University's Center for Jewish Studies, was quoted by the BBC as saying that the population had now risen to about 280,000. He attributed the growth to the extraordinary fertility of strictly orthodox families. Given the increase in the size of the UK's population, the decrease in that of the Jewish minority was even more marked according to Wise.
