Immigration is at the heart of the country\u2019s self-image. But people have been leaving.<\/p>\n
Jonathan didn\u2019t want to leave Israel. When his wife first broached the idea, it was he who pushed back.<\/p>\n
But as the country\u2019s war in Gaza dragged on, and the stresses of the conflict compounded the economic pressures and social tensions never far below Israel\u2019s surface, he realised they had to go.<\/p>\n
Then one evening, as he returned to his apartment in Tel Aviv, he ran into the child of one of his neighbours. They spoke, and the boy, aged five or six, said he would see Jonathan that night in the building\u2019s shelter, where residents would go to take refuge from missiles launched by Israel\u2019s foes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was one of the big breaking points for me… (I thought) that\u2019s the future of the country and this is what he knows,\u201d Jonathan recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine, for a couple of years now, people have been in this fight or flight mode. And there\u2019s no escape from this cycle… When you combine all of the social, the economic, the political aspects, it just became untenable.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so, in 2024, the 30-something real estate professional, who asked for his full name not to be used, packed up his home in Tel Aviv and moved to the US with his family, joining a wave of 150,000 Israelis who have left the country over the past three years.<\/p>\n
The outflow has been fuelled by a period of unprecedented tumult in Israel. In early 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government launched a controversial drive to overhaul the judiciary, triggering the deepest domestic crisis in Israel\u2019s near-80-year history. Then Hamas\u2019 Oct 7 attack that year plunged the country into a war that became a years-long regional conflict, drawing in Iran and allied militant groups from Lebanon to Yemen.<\/p>\n
By international standards, the share of Israelis who have left over this period is not huge. But for Israel, the outflow is highly unusual \u2014 and has already had an outsized impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Immigration is at the heart of the country\u2019s self-image. But people have been leaving. Jonathan didn\u2019t want to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[217829,217826,217833,217824,217823,85,217832,46,1619,217827,198461,217825,217820,43,217831,217821,217830,217828,217822],"class_list":["post-587184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-android-magazine","tag-best-magazine","tag-digital-magazines","tag-free-magazine","tag-free-magazines","tag-il","tag-ipad-magazine","tag-israel","tag-magazine","tag-magazine-subscription","tag-magazines","tag-magazines-for-smartphones","tag-magzter","tag-news","tag-online-digital-magazine","tag-online-magazine","tag-online-pdf-magazine","tag-pdf-for-smartphones","tag-pdf-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}