We often read or hear about the so-called "big three" religions -- always listed, in some order, as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Christianity and Islam are indeed the two largest religions worldwide, but Judaism? It doesn't even crack the top ten.
Indeed, it would be accurate to say that those are the largest three monotheistic faiths, and/or it would be accurate to say that these are the three largest religions in the United States, but that's not generally how people use the phrase. (Incidentally, Judaism has actually fallen from 2nd place to 3rd place in the U.S., as the number of Muslims now outnumber Jews in the U.S. as of the start of this century.)
Here's a recent breakdown of the top twenty faiths in the world, taken from adherents.com, compiled from Encyclopedia Britannica but confirmed, give or take a million here and there, by other sources I could find, such as the CIA World Fact Book, etc.
1) Christianity: 2.1 billion
2) Islam: 1.5 billion
- Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
- Hinduism: 900 million
- Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
- Buddhism: 376 million
- primal-indigenous: 300 million
- African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
- Sikhism: 23 million
- Juche: 19 million
- Spiritism: 15 million
12) Judaism: 14 million
- Baha'i: 7 million
- Jainism: 4.2 million
- Shinto: 4 million
- Cao Dai: 4 million
- Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
- Tenrikyo: 2 million
- Neo-Paganism: 1 million
- Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
Despite its apparent power and prestige, Judaism is actually a very small religion (on balance). In fact, even the 14 million figure above is a little high, if we use the most recent numbers. From Wiki:
In 2007, the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.2 million, 41% of whom lived in Israel and 40% of whom lived in the United States.
In the Muslim world in particular, there seems to be an odd perception that Muslims and Jews are relatively "evenly matched", let Muslims outnumber Jews more than 110 to 1. (This diary actually comes about from a discussion with a Muslim-American here on Kos, who insisted there was "absolutely no way" that the 14 million number was correct.) In fact, polls in Muslim countries even show that most think the U.S. is a predominantly Jewish nation, not a Christian one.
Part of this may be a misperception of statistics. 40% of all Jews do indeed live in the United States, as observed above, which sounds like a high number, but the U.S. is still only 2% Jewish. Remember, there are only two countries left in the world with a significant Jewish population -- the U.S., and Israel, a nation of only 7.5 million people, 75% of which are Jewish. No other nation has much more than 500,000 Jews. World War II really did wipe out nearly half of the Jews alive on the planet, and the numbers weren't that high to begin with. That's why Israel was created -- to save a tiny dwindling minority faith from complete destruction. But that doesn't change the fact that, as a percentage of the entire world population, Jews make up less than 0.2%. Yes, less than zero point two.
When discussing the I/P conflict, for example, a lot of diarists and commenters write statements such as "the Jews have enough power; they don't need our help". But while I understand the sentiment behind that point in the immediate context, it contributes to the myth of Judaism being "too big to fail." It isn't. The fact that many Jews are "powerful" doesn't eliminate the need for this protection. Bald eagles are powerful, too. The entire population of the entire country Israel, including the Christian and Muslim minorities, is still less the population of, say, New York City. Quite literally, a single bomb hitting Israel could wipe out nearly half of the entire world's Jewish population.
We can debate whether Judaism is still powerful enough to avoid placement on the "endangered" list, but its days of being in the "big three" World Religions is centuries past. As a non-believer, I have no dog in this fight, as they say, but I do find it perplexing that of the real "big two" World Religions, there is so much distrust and animosity toward the parent religion that started them both. Gallup's excellent six-year study polling Islamic adherents worldwide found near-universal hatred and fear of Jews among Muslims. Yet by the numbers, how much of a threat could the last remaining Jews possibly have on the Muslim faith? It's a bit like the elephant being scared of the mouse.