By BERNIE BELLAN Continuing my ongoing analysis of data from the 2021 census, as a result of a trove of data released by STATCAN in November 2022, the one finding that has become clear is that the only province that has shown a substantial increase in Jewish population is British Columbia.
Until now I’ve been focused on Winnipeg and, once again, I’ve delved deeper into data for Winnipeg – which you can read in another article on page 2.
But, this time around I wanted to do a comparison between the National Household Survey of 2011 and the 2021 census, looking at how many respondents to both surveys reported they had Jewish ethnic origins and how many said their religion was Jewish.
It’s difficult to produce definitive figures as to how many Jews there are in Canada since, as I’ve noted several times, a great many individuals reported that at least one of their ethnic origins was Jewish, but they either reported no religion or that their religion was something other than Jewish.
And, concomitantly, a great many individuals who reported their religion was Jewish did not report Jewish as one of their ethnic origins.
While I did do a very comprehensive analysis for Winnipeg, which I reported in our November 23rd issue, when I showed that the Jewish population of Winnipeg, at a maximum, could not be more than 14,270, it would take quite a bit of time to do the same analysis for other Canadian cities that have sizeable Jewish populations.
Still, there are some clear trends that emerge from a study of available data, whether you’re focusing on ethnicity or religion.
The first is that far fewer individuals in Canada reported that at least one of their ethnic origins was Jewish in 2021 than in 2011.
The second trend was that there was a huge increase in the number of respondents from 2011 to 2021 who reported that at least one of their ethnic origins was Israeli: From 15,010 in 2011 to 35,350 in 2021. While there was a substantial drop in the number of individuals who reported that one of their ethnic origins was Jewish from 2011 to 2021 (from 309,650 in 2011 to 282,015 in 2021), the number of individuals who reported their religion was Jewish was almost the same in 2021 as it was in 2011 (329,500 in 2011 and 335,295 in 2021.) One might surmise, therefore, that the increase in respondents who said their religion was Jewish was made up to a large extent by immigrants from Israel and, to a lesser extent, other countries. (It is also possible, however, that there was a substantial increase in the number of individuals who converted to Judaism.)
Here is a table showing figures for the number of individuals who reported that at least one of their ethnic origins was Jewish in 2011 and in 2021 (Interestingly, while the number of respondents in Winnipeg who reported that at least one of their ethnic origins was Jewish dropped substantially from 2011 to 2021, the number who reported their religion was Jewish increased):
The third trend, as already noted, is that, while there was a slight increase in the number of individuals who reported their religion was Jewish from 2011 to 2021 in Canada as a whole, British Columbia was the only province to show a sizeable increase in the number of individuals who reported their religion was Jewish.
Further, the cities that showed the greatest increase in respondents who said their religion was Jewish were, in order: Vancouver, Victoria, Barrie, Halifax, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and London. I was somewhat surprised to see that Toronto did not show any increase at all in the number of respondents who reported their religion was Jewish. (The figure for both 2011 and 2021 was exactly 165,765. I wonder whether there might have been a mistake in data reported by STATCAN?)
Here is a table showing figures for the number of respondents who reported that their religion was Jewish in 2011 and 2021. This table also gives figures for the cities that reported the most respondents who said their religion was Jewish:
