The State of Israel is a country made up overwhelmingly of immigrants, and Jewish immigration to Israel, or aliyah, remains a central tenet of Zionism. And while aliyah has continued through the past two years of war, during this time — and in the months preceding it — Israel has become a state of emigration, with more people leaving the country than moving to it, according to fresh data released today by the Knesset’s Research and Information Center.
The center found that emigration rates surged in 2022, up 44% from the previous year, jumped again by 39% in 2023 — particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks — and remained at this elevated rate in the first eight months of 2024 (the last months for which data were available). The growing number of Israelis leaving the country for extended periods is also compounded by a shrinking number of Israelis living abroad returning to Israel. From January 2022 to August 2024, roughly 125,000 more people left the country than arrived, according to the survey.
The statistics were published ahead of a discussion on the topic this morning in the parliament’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, led by Labor MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv. “Tens of thousands of Israelis have chosen to leave Israel in the past two years. This is not a ‘wave’ of emigration but rather a ‘tsunami’ of Israelis opting to leave the country,” Kariv said, promising to have his committee continue to track the matter.
The issue of emigration has become a highly politicized issue within Israel, serving as something of a Rorschach test. To those more critical of the government, those tens of thousands of people leaving the country are proof that the current leadership is making the country unlivable, while to supporters of the government, the criticism is directed primarily at the people leaving (most of whom appear to be more secular and therefore less likely to support the coalition). Many of the people leaving the country appear to have been part of the wave of immigration from Russia and Ukraine in the wake of Moscow’s war against Kyiv and its domestic crackdowns. This too is in the eye of the beholder, with some using this as a reason to restrict immigration and prevent people from receiving Israeli citizenship “just in case,” while others see the phenomenon as a failure of the government to sufficiently integrate these recent arrivals into Israeli society.
The committee hearing highlighted a dearth of information about those émigrés — namely who they are and why they are leaving — and a lack of governmental responsibility for addressing the phenomenon.
A key unanswered question from the hearing dealt with the fears of a “brain drain” from Israel, with unsubstantiated anecdotal reports indicating that a disproportionate number of Israeli academics are leaving the country. A representative from Israel’s Council of Higher Education said that not only does the body not know how many people with advanced degrees have left the country, it also does not have an estimate for how many academics employed by Israeli institutes of higher education have left the country.
“The people choosing to leave the country are the kinds of people who can have a profound impact on the Israeli economy, and their emigration causes damage in the billions of shekels,” Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak said at the hearing. “A clear policy must be devised to keep the best of our children in Israel.”