Israelis Ditch Country In Record Numbers — Outnumbering Immigrants
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Israelis are exiting the country in record numbers as tensions heat up, with double the number of citizens leaving the country as returning from long-term spells abroad.
According to Israel’s Bureau of Statistics, 16,700 Israelis left the country for periods of a year or more, while 8,500 people returned from a long-term stay in another nation.
That net record of people exiting sets a six-year record – for the first time since 2009, more Israelis ditched the country than returned.
This seems correlated to political instability, with the so-called “knife intifada” in 2015 and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza happening during the spikes in leave-taking.
Israelis leaving their country permanently are said to be making yerida, or “descent,” the opposite of immigration to Israel, known as aliyah or “ascent.”
According to Haaretz, more than 700,000 Israelis have emigrated from their homeland since the War of Independence in 1948.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
