Average annual Rates of Natural Increase Per 1000 Inhabitants of Each Religion in Palestine before 1948 (Nakba). British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 144. Chapter VI: Population:

CHAPTER VI.

Table 8.

AVERAGE ANNUAL RATES OF NATURAL INCREASE PER 1000 INHABITANTS OF EACH RELIGION.

Years Moslems Jews Christians Others Total
-- - ---• - --------
l 922/25 23.27 20.44 20.16 23.24 22.54
1926/30 25.19 22.70 20.60 21.07 24.26
1931/35 21.97 20.91 20.85 23.38 23.71
1936/40 27.68 17.75 20.77 26.7J 24.12
1941/44 30.71 17.83 18.89 25.71 25.68 8. It is probable that the high rate of natural increase of the population of Palestine is a phenomenon of the mandatory period although no data are available on this point nor on the changes in the size of the population before the British occupation. It may only be noted that, according to Turkish sources, the population of Palestine in 1914 was estimated to be 689,000. The Jewish population was estimated in that year to be 84 ,660, w bile the Christian population in the years before the first world war was estimated at about 70,000.

9. Information on the Jewish population is available for a long period. Dr. Ruppin (Soziologie der Juden, 1930) suggests that, according to biblical and other information, the Jewish population numbered two millions at the time of Moses, some 600,000 about 700 B.C. and over one million at the date of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Thereafter, the Jewish population appears to have declined, reaching a minimum in the Middle Ages. Reliable statistical data were collected during the second part of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th. They show on the whole a steady tendency to increase which was interrupted only by the first world war in the course of which the number of Jews declined from 84,660 to 56,000 in consequence of epidemics, emigration and deportations by the Turks. In 1922 the number of Jews had reached once again the figure of 1914.

ESTABLISHED JEWISH POPULATION OF PALESTINE.

1882

1895

1900

1910

1914 1916-1918 1922

24,000 47,000 50,000 81,000 85,000 56,000 SR,704

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