Yoni Goldstein: Jews, everywhere, appear to have moving on their minds
The Hebrew word for emigration is “yeridah,” which translates to “descent.” Its connotation is not kind. In Israel, emigration is often judged as a failure of the individual, rather than the state. Yeridah is a word used to suggest that the émigré couldn’t handle the Israeli lifestyle, namely, conscription in the Israeli army and the economic and social difficulties that come with living in a Jewish state surrounded by belligerent enemies. The word signifies a profound spiritual failure that leads to personal, more than communal, degeneration.
By contrast, the Hebrew term for an immigrant, “oleh,” translates to “one who has ascended,” implying a sort of metaphysical growth that is inherent to living in Israel, bestowed upon an individual in the literal first moments one moves to the country or simply announces their plans to do so. To come to Israel is to grow; to leave Israel is to decline.
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Israel has historically had fewer emigrants than immigrants. Except for brief periods in the 1950s and 1980s when emigration spiked amid intensifying conflicts and economic stagnation, immigrants to Israel have almost always outnumbered Israeli emigrants in any given year. But since 2023, the data indicates the opposite is occurring — the number of people leaving Israel for prolonged periods now outnumbers new people coming in.
Various factions in Israel have laid blame for the change at the feet of the government, the ultra-Orthodox, the security situation and economic fragility, among other explanations. Certainly, extended military service and spiking reserve duty that keeps people away from their families for increasingly longer periods are factors.
Whatever the specific reason for any individual, though, the numbers don’t lie: Israelis are leaving — descending — of their own volition at alarming rates, and with the country’s protracted wars and political strife there is no end to the trend in sight.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on nationalpost.com — the content belongs to National Post.
