The genetic connection is interesting – it might partially explain the Litvak/Galitizaner divide about sweet things, since Jews tended to intermarry locally.

Judy Floam

Baltimore, MD

My apologies for my typo. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 not 1952.

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research says the number of Jewish people in Europe has gone done by 60 percent in the past 50 years.

The report says this is mostly due to the exodus from the former Soviet Union which collapsed in 1991.

Populations drooped drastically in Russia and Ukraine, but increased in Austria, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. Some 70,000 Israeli-born Jews have also moved to Europe.

Jews, whose continuous presence on the continent has lasted for more than 2,200 years.

The report looks at three major territorial divisions:

• the EU with its 27 member states;
• the former republics of the Soviet Union in Europe, (noting that the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are already included among the EU 27); and
• the balance of other countries in Europe located in part in western Europe with the prominent presence of the UK, and, in part, the Balkans.

The operational limits of Europe adopted in this report include the conventional geographical definition of the continent from Lisbon to Vladivostok, as well as two countries sometimes classified as part of Asia.

One is Cyprus, which is included as it is a member of the European Union. The other is Turkey, which has been included because a clear majority of its Jewish population lives in the European part of the country,

namely the neighborhoods of the Istanbul metropolitan area west of the Bosporus. Similarly, the entire Russian Republic is included in the population estimates, including Jews who live in areas actually

located in Asia beyond the Ural Mountains.

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research is a London-based research organization, consultancy and think-tank.

To read the report go to: https://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR_2020.Jews_in_Europe_at_the_turn_of_the_Millennium.pdf

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee