Australian Jews

Australian Jews, or Jewish Australians, (Hebrew: יהודים אוסטרלים, romanized: yehudim ostralim) are Jews who are Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia. In the 2021 census there were 99,956 people who identified Judaism as their religious affiliation and 29,113 Australians who identified as Jewish by ancestry, an increase from 97,355 and 25,716, respectively, from the 2016 census.^[2] The actual number is almost certainly higher, because being a Jew is not just about being religious, but the census data is based on religious affiliation, so secular Jews often feel it would be inaccurate to answer with "Judaism". Also, since the question is optional, many practising Holocaust survivors and Haredi Jews are believed to prefer not to disclose their religion in the census.^{[citation needed]} By comparison, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz estimated a Jewish-Australian population of 120,000–150,000^[3] (not limited to adherents of Judaism), while other estimates based on the death rate in the community estimate the size of the community as 250,000, which would make them 1% of the population. Based on the census data, Jewish citizens make up about 0.4% of the Australian population.^[4] The Jewish community of Australia is composed mostly of Ashkenazi Jews, though there are Jews in Australia from many other traditions and levels of religious observance and participation in the Jewish community.