, September 7, 1942) is widely acknowledged as the leading authority in demography

Demography

Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...

 and statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 related to the Jewish population

Jewish population

Jewish population refers to the number of Jews in the world. Precise figures are difficult to calculate because the definition of "Who is a Jew" is a source of controversy.-Total population:...

 all over the world. Della Pergola has lived in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 since 1966. He holds a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 and is a professor of Population Studies at the Hebrew University’s Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, where he has directed the Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics and holds the Shlomo Argov

Shlomo Argov

Shlomo Argov was a prominent Israeli diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom whose attempted assassination led to the 1982 Lebanon War.-Attempted assassination:...

 Chair in Israel-Diaspora

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....

 Relations.

Career

Della Pergola is a specialist on the demography of world Jewry and has published numerous books and over one hundred papers on historical demography

Historical demography

Historical demography is the quantitative study of human population in the past. It is concerned both with the three basic components of population change--fertility, mortality, and migration--and with population characteristics related to those components, such as marriage, socioeconomic status,...

, the family, international migration

Human migration

Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...

, Jewish identification

Jewish identity

Jewish identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Under the broader definition, the Jewish identity does not depend on whether or not a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or...

, and population projections in the Diaspora and in Israel. He has lectured at over 50 universities and research centers worldwide and served as senior policy consultant to the President of Israel

President of Israel

The President of the State of Israel is the head of state of Israel. The position is largely an apolitical ceremonial figurehead role, with the real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. The current president is Shimon Peres who took office on 15 July 2007...

, the Israeli government, the Jerusalem municipality, and many major national and international organizations.

He served on the National Technical Advisory Committee for the 1990 and 2000-01 National Jewish Population Surveys. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago

University of Illinois at Chicago

The University of Illinois at Chicago, or UIC, is a state-funded public research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, near the Chicago Loop...

 (UIC) in 2009 and at the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

 (UCLA) in 2010.

Awards

In 1999, Della Pergola won the Marshall Sklare Award

Marshall Sklare Award

The Marshall Sklare Award is an annual honor of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry . The ASSJ seeks to recognize "a senior scholar who has made a significant scholarly contribution to the social scientific study of Jewry." In most cases, the recipient has given a scholarly...

 for distinguished achievement from the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry

Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry

The Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry is a cross-disciplinary organization of individuals whose research concerns the Jewish people throughout the world.-Purpose:...

(ASSJ) and his award presentation was entitled: "Thoughts of a Jewish Demographer in the Year 2000"

External links

• Official webpage at Hebrew University site
• Hava Pinchas-Cohen, "In the future, most Jews will live in Israel", Hava Pinchas-Cohen interviewed Sergio DellaPergola, about numbers and the trends these indicate. Eretz Acheret magazine