Published On 3/6/2026
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Last update: 23:01 (Mecca time)
Emigration from Israel is no longer just individual cases in search of better opportunities, but has turned into what the head of the Immigration Committee in the Israeli Knesset, Gilad Kariv, described as “a tsunami of Israelis choosing to leave the country.”
Israel, which built its founding doctrine on importing Jews and historically described those who left it as “fallen ones,” today faces a crisis that strikes deep at the foundations of its human power and economy through a severe drain in human capital that is not compensated for by the numbers of new arrivals.
A report prepared by the Knesset Research and Information Center at the request of Kariv, based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, monitored a decline in the net citizen migration balance (i.e. the cumulative difference between departures and returnees) by 125,200 people between the beginning of 2022 and August 2024.
Numbers are rising year after year
The Knesset report reveals a radical and accelerating shift in the demographic curve, which can be summarized in the following milestones:
- Average before 2021: The number of departures annually has stabilized at about 40,500 people.
- Year 2022: The number of departures increased to 59,400, while the number of returnees decreased to 29,600.
- Year 2023: A record jump was recorded with the departure of 82,800 people (an increase of 44%), while returnees continued to decline to 24,200.
- Year 2024 (first 8 months): About 50,000 people left, while the balance recorded the return of only 12,100 people.
The result is that Israel recorded for the first time a greater number of long-term migrants than returnees, and the gap in 2023 was the largest in the country’s history.
Who leaves?
What is most notable is not the number, but the identity of those leaving, as about half of those who have left since 2022 are between the ages of 20 and 44, that is, at the peak of their productive age.
In 2022, bachelor’s holders constituted 33.2% of the deceased, the percentage of master’s holders among them reached 23.5%, while the percentage of doctorate holders reached 3.7%.
In a study prepared by economists Itay Ater, Nitai Bergman and Doron Zamir from Tel Aviv University, and published by the “Times of Israel” website, it monitored the departure of about 90,000 Israelis between January 2023 and September 2024, based on census data, the Population and Immigration Authority, and the Tax Authority.
The researchers excluded from their sample anyone who had resided less than 3 years, completely omitting those arriving to flee the Ukrainian war, which contradicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that most of those leaving “are Ukrainians who arrived temporarily because of the war.”
These include at least 19,000 university degree holders, 633 STEM doctorate holders, three thousand engineers, and more than 400 doctors in 2023 alone. Researchers estimated the treasury’s loss at about 1.5 billion shekels ($461 million) from income taxes alone.
The bleeding is concentrated in the economically most important sector. According to a report by the Israeli Innovation Authority for the year 2025, published by newspapers including The Times of Israel, 8,300 high-tech workers left between October 2023 and July 2024, or about 2.1% of the total number of workers in this sector, in which the number of workers declined for the first time in a decade.
Although the entire high-tech sector comprises less than 8% of Israel’s workforce, it contributes about a quarter of the state’s tax revenues.
The bleeding was not limited to minds, but also to capital. According to a Ynet report in 2025 about the migration of the wealthy, based on data from an international consulting company, about 1,700 millionaires left the country in 2024, an indication that migration has become both human and material.
Where do they go and why do they leave?
The transformation appears not only in numbers, but in destinations. According to the “Israel 2025: Demographic Crossroads” report issued by the Taub Center in December 2025, traditional destinations such as the United States, Australia, and Britain are declining in favor of Germany, Cyprus, and countries in East Asia, which researchers read as a search for a different lifestyle, not just an economic opportunity.
Israeli sources agree on three intertwined reasons: the attempted judicial amendments in late 2022, the war on Gaza that began in October 2023, and the erosion of confidence in state institutions.
Ahmed Hleihel, Director of the Demography Department at the Central Bureau of Statistics, added the Corona pandemic as a previous factor.
A previous survey by the “Sciences Abroad” organization, which communicates with more than 11,000 Israeli scientists and doctors in more than 30 countries, revealed the depth of the transformation, as 61% of the scientists said before traveling that they intended to return, and only 9.5% thought about permanent immigration.
However, after settling abroad, the percentage of those wishing to return fell to 16%, and the percentage of those who decided to stay rose to 31%. 45% attributed their decision to judicial reforms, and 47% attributed to the war.
A crisis without a government address
What the document revealed most embarrassingly for the government was the institutional vacuum. Karev says that when he assumed the chairmanship of the committee, he asked about the party responsible for the file, “and I discovered that there is no single government agency coordinating this file, nor a strategic plan to reverse the trend.”
Last January, Netanyahu tried to downplay the phenomenon, saying that most of those leaving were Ukrainians who had recently arrived.
However, the data shows that 52% of those leaving in 2024 were born in Israel, while Kariv continued that the Prime Minister “tried to reduce the phenomenon, but the data refute this false claim.”
What does Israel fear?
Professor Dan Ben David, director of the Shoresh Institute, warned in statements to Haaretz of a “downward spiral,” explaining that “about 9,000 of the brightest minds are the ones who train doctors, engineers, and researchers, and if hundreds of them leave, we will lose those who will keep Israel in the developed world.”
As for Professor Ater, he warned that continued bleeding might turn Israel into a model for countries that suffered from brain drain, such as Lebanon, Venezuela, Argentina, and South Africa.
In conclusion, today Israel, whose ideology was based on attracting Jews, finds itself facing a question that overturns its founding equation: Why does its elite choose to leave at the moment its leadership describes as “existentialism”?
