Emigration from Israel increased in 2023 and 2024 compared with previous years, and those leaving were disproportionately from higher tax brackets, according to a study by the Israeli tax authority published earlier this month. A Tel Aviv University survey published in August reached a similar conclusion, finding that roughly 270,000 Israelis left the country over the past three years, with the bulk being better educated and more prosperous.
Israeli emigration rose in 2023 and 2024, with higher earners disproportionately leaving, studies find
Emigration from Israel increased in 2023 and 2024 compared with previous years, and those leaving were disproportionately from higher tax brackets, according to a study by the Israeli tax authority published earlier this month. A Tel Aviv University survey published in August reached a similar conclusion, finding that roughly 270,000 Israelis left the country over the past three years, with the bulk being better educated and more prosperous.
The Tel Aviv University study, drawing on Central Bureau of Statistics data, recorded more than 86,500 departures in 2023, approximately 91,500 in 2024, and a similar number in 2025. Researchers described the profile of recent emigrants as increasingly concentrated among highly educated, high-achieving young families.
Many Israelis who self-identify as liberal have cited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government as a factor, saying it has made the country less secular and weakened the independence of its institutions, particularly the judiciary. The government's efforts to curtail judicial oversight in 2023 brought tens of thousands of Israelis into the streets. Concerns deepened, according to the source, following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent military campaigns on multiple fronts.
Israel's migration balance has tipped negative before, but only briefly and typically in response to short-term financial crises, according to Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio Della Pergola. He described the current sustained outward flow as alarming, distinguishing it from comparable experiences in countries such as Ireland and New Zealand.
The Hebrew term for Jewish immigration to Israel, aliyah, means 'ascent,' while emigrants have traditionally been called yordim — 'those who descend.' In the 1970s, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin described Israelis who left as 'a cascade of wimps,' a phrase later adopted across the political spectrum.
- The source does not state the methodology or sample size of the Israeli tax authority study published earlier this month.
- The source does not state the methodology or sample size of the Tel Aviv University August survey.
- The source does not provide the Israeli government's official response to the emigration data or to the parliamentary committee's warning.
- The source does not state what elections are referred to in the opening sentence or when they are scheduled.
- The source does not define the time period covered by 'the past three years' in the Tel Aviv University figure of nearly 270,000 departures.
- The source attributes the characterisation of Israel's military campaign as 'a genocide in Gaza — killing more than 73,000 Palestinians' without attribution to a named authority or data source; the basis for the 73,000 figure is not identified.
Read the original at Al Jazeera English