Opinion & Comment
Orthodox English Demographics

To the Editor:

You report that there was a drop in Jewish births in the United Kingdom from 2673 in 1998 to 2509 in 1999, reflecting a steady decline over the years (e.g. 2897 in 1966). Over the last few years I have been collecting data on the number of sholom zochors celebrated on the birth of a boy in the strictly Orthodox community of North Manchester which seems to show a completely different trend. According to my records the figures were:

1996	95
1997	91
1998	128
1999	99
2000	105

In the first six months of 2001 there were 72 sholom zochors, indicating possibly over 280 births this year. While the fluctuations may reflect statistical variations, possibly caused by the relative numbers of boys and girls in each year, there still seems to be an underlying upward trend. If this is typical of the situation in the Orthodox community nationwide, does this show that the demographic composition of Anglo-Jewry is shifting radically? What are the implications for its communal organisations?

Yours faithfully

Martin D. Stern

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