Around 115,000–120,000 Jewish people live in Australia, depending on how the community is defined and counted.

Core numbers

  • The 2021 Australian census recorded 99,956 people who identified Judaism as their religion.
  • When researchers adjust for people who do not state religion or identify Jewish in other ways, recent demographic studies estimate about 117,000 Jews in Australia.
  • A 2024 update from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research similarly gives a “core” Jewish population figure of about 117,000 , in a total national population of roughly 26 million.

Why estimates differ

  • Census data is conservative because some people with Jewish background either choose “no religion”, skip the religion question, or identify as Jewish by ancestry rather than religion.
  • Community and academic studies therefore create adjusted estimates that add Jews by ancestry and some who do not list Judaism as religion, yielding higher totals than the raw census count.

Where most Jews live

  • Around 90% of Australia’s Jews are concentrated in the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne.
  • Community reports suggest roughly 60,000 Jews in Victoria (mainly Melbourne) and a large community in New South Wales (mainly Sydney), with smaller but established communities in other states.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.