'More Jews than ever are leaving Israel'

From Israeli media

Report: Sharp rise in Israelis leaving country permanently in 2023-2024 after Gaza war, judicial overhaul

Passengers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, August 1, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics from 2023 indicates a sharp increase in Israelis leaving the country permanently, according to a Channel 13 report that comes amid the ongoing war in Gaza, conflict with Hezbollah on the northern border, and after mass civil unrest earlier last year over the government’s judicial overhaul plan.

According to the report, some 31,000 Israelis left the country in 2021 (compared to 29,000 who returned), 38,000 in 2022 (with 23,000 returning), while 55,300 moved abroad in 2023 (27,000 returned), marking a jump of over 50 percent.

In unverified data from the first half of 2024, some 40,400 are said to have left the country, according to Channel 13.

Israeli journalist Matan Hodorov points out that the spike could partially be due to a change in the definition of emigration, which was previously calculated on at least a one-year absence from the country but is now defined as Israelis who stay aboard for at least 275 days in a one-year period.

He notes that the jump in emigration in 2023 could be attributed to the judicial overhaul rather than the war raging since October, but says that “either way, the trend is not changing but is currently increasing.”

דרמה בנתוני ההגירה מישראל:
בשורה התחתונה, נתוני למ״ס מ-2023 מציגים זינוק במס׳ העוזבים את הארץ, לנתון חסר תקדים כ-55,300 איש בשנה.
נתונים ראשונים מ-2024 מנבאים קצב של כ-69,200!
הזינוק נובע בחלקו מתיקון מוצדק (שמיד אסביר) בשיטת המדידה עצמה, אך נותר חריג מאוד גם בנטרול השינוי הזה.???? pic.twitter.com/cTIJJIIY8R

— מתן חודורוב (@MatanHodorov) September 22, 2024

Hodorov also reports that the data indicates more married, educated Israelis are leaving the country.

“This is an initial confirmation of the prevailing feeling among young people from the middle class, that many around us are leaving,” he writes, adding that “if many of those leaving are doctors, researchers, programmers, engineers, etc. – the damage to GDP and tax revenues will be particularly significant. Here, additional data is missing for an accurate situational picture.”

In July, Channel 12 cited CBS data as showing that the number of Israelis who permanently left Israel spiked after Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the ensuing outbreak of war in Gaza but dropped in the following months and had stabilized.