Repatriates from the former USSR are leaving Israel — alarming report by CBS

Fresh data from the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel shows not just migration statistics, but a serious signal for the state: some of the recent immigrants, especially those from the former USSR, do not stay in the country for long. Israel remains a point of salvation, legal protection, and Jewish connection, but for many new citizens, it increasingly becomes not a final home, but a temporary route.

According to data published with reference to the CBS, in 2024, Israel faced a high level of citizen departures abroad, and a preliminary estimate for 2025 also shows a large negative migration balance: 69,500 Israelis were identified as having left, while 18,800 were identified as having returned.

The very “alarming report” in the strict sense is a document of the Knesset Research and Information Center in Hebrew:

עולים חדשים שעזבו את ישראל סמוך לעלייתם
that is: “New immigrants who left Israel shortly after aliyah”.

Aliyah after 2022: salvation, passport, or new home?

Over the past 15 years, Israel has accepted hundreds of thousands of new citizens. The main direction of aliyah remained the post-Soviet space: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia. It was from there that after 2022, a particularly noticeable flow of people came, for whom war, sanctions, fear of mobilization, economic instability, and uncertainty became the reason for urgent relocation.

But the report shows a painful detail: a significant part of this aliyah turned out to be not a classic repatriation in the old Israeli sense, but a crisis migration. People arrived quickly, processed documents, obtained status, tried to understand the country — and already within months decided to move on.

This does not mean that the connection with Israel was fictitious for them. More often the picture is more complex: some could not withstand the cost of living, others did not find work in their profession, others faced language barriers, bureaucracy, lack of housing, internal tension after October 7, and war on several fronts.

Why exactly people from the former USSR became the key group

Since 2009, about 445,000 new citizens have arrived in Israel, and approximately 64% of this flow were from the former USSR. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this share sharply increased: in 2022–2023, immigrants from the post-Soviet space became the overwhelming majority of new arrivals.

For Israel, this is not a new story. The great aliyah of the 1990s changed the country: science, medicine, culture, the army, business, urban environment. But the current wave is different in that many people initially had not one route, but several: Israel, Europe, Canada, the USA, Germany, Cyprus, Georgia, Serbia.

And here the main question arises: could Israel offer these people not only the right to enter but also a clear path to a normal life?

Departure from Israel: numbers have become a political and social signal

Until 2021, about 40–41 thousand people left Israel annually on average. After the pandemic, political turbulence, war, and economic pressure, the curve went up. In 2024, according to CBS data, the number of departures reached 82,800 people, and the number of returnees was 24,200; the final balance was negative — minus 58,600.

It is important to understand the methodology. The CBS does not count every tourist or temporarily departed person as an “emigrant.” Since 2023, a refined approach has been used: it refers to people who spent at least nine months abroad within a year from the moment of departure, with the first three months continuously.

That is, this is not vacation statistics, not airport panic, and not emotional conversations on social networks. This is already a transfer of the center of life.

It is especially sensitive for Israel that not only new immigrants are leaving. Among those leaving are young families, specialists, students, people of working age, those who could build the economy here, pay taxes, serve, open businesses, and raise children.

Transit aliyah: when Israel becomes an intermediate station

One of the most alarming blocks of the report is related to those who leave the country in the first months or in the first year after arrival. In 2022, 18,100 people left Israel within the first year after repatriation — this is about four times more than the year before.

If in 2009 about 5% of immigrants left in the first year, then in 2022 this figure rose to 36%. Among such “quick” departures, the share of people from the former USSR in peak years exceeded 90%.

For readers in Israel, this is important not only as demographics. It is a question of how well the country can retain people who already have the right to be part of the Jewish state but do not always feel they can settle here.

It is in this context that NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency views this statistic not as a dry table, but as a symptom of a deeper process: Israel attracts people at a moment of danger, but then must compete for their future with other countries, labor markets, and social support systems.

What this says about Israel now

A negative repatriation balance does not mean that Israel has ceased to be the center of Jewish life. But it shows that the very idea of aliyah in the 21st century has become more complex. A historical right, emotional connection, and an Israeli passport are no longer enough if a person does not see a clear perspective here.

Cost of living and profession

For many immigrants from Ukraine, Russia, and other countries of the former USSR, the main blow is prices. Rent, food, transport, kindergartens, medicine, taxes, adaptation expenses. Even people with a good education often face the fact that diplomas need to be confirmed, experience is not always recognized, and Hebrew becomes a barrier to normal employment.

As a result, a doctor, engineer, teacher, IT specialist, or entrepreneur may find themselves faced with a choice: start almost from scratch in Israel or use Israeli status as temporary protection and then look for a more convenient country for work and life.

The war has intensified doubts

After October 7, Israel lives in a different reality. Shelling, mobilization, anxiety for children, economic pressure, crisis of trust in institutions, war in the north and south — all this affects not only the old-timers but also the new immigrants.

For a person who fled the war of Russia against Ukraine, moving to a country that is itself in a state of war can become a psychologically difficult decision. Israel provides one type of security — legal, national, Jewish. But the everyday sense of security does not always coincide with this concept.

The main challenge is not arrival, but retention

For decades, Israel has been able to organize aliyah as a national project. But current data shows: today we need to talk not only about the number of arrivals but also about the quality of integration.

Quick language programs, clear professional routes, family support, housing, work with teenagers, adaptation in cities where immigrants actually live, and not just beautiful state slogans are needed. Otherwise, Israel will continue to accept people at the moment of crisis but lose them at the moment when ordinary life begins.

Formally, a person can become a citizen in a short time. But for them to become part of the country, that is not enough.

It is important for Israeli society to see in these numbers not an accusation against immigrants, but a question to its own system: why do people who have already arrived, received documents, tried to live here — leave further?

Until an answer is found, each new wave of aliyah will be accompanied by the same risk: Israel will remain an important door for Jews and their families from the former USSR, but will not always become a home for them.