User:Danamag/Yerida

Emigration and Zionist ideology[edit]

The rejection of emigration from Israel is a central assumption in all forms of Zionism as a corollary of the "Negation of the Diaspora" in Zionism which according to Eliezer Schweid was a central tenet of Israeli Zionist education until the 1970s when there was a need for Israel to reconcile itself with the Jewish diaspora and its massive support of Israel following the Six-Day War.

Many hold the belief that the Yerida phenomena is the failure of the Zionist movement, yet some people hold the belief that it is actually its success. When asked about it in interview, the poet Irit Katz said that she thinks the fact Israeli Jews are comfortable emigrate to other countries is because Israel is finally "normal" and that they are finally "allowed" to do so without hurting their county.

History[edit]

Before the Establishment of the State of Israel

It is difficult to estimate the number of people who emigrated from Ottoman and Mandate Palestine between the start of the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel, or the proportion of emigrants compared with the number of immigrants into the country.^{[citation needed]} Estimates of the extent of emigration during the period of the initial Zionist settlement in Palestine with the First Aliyah, as well as the Second Aliyah, range between approximately 40% (an estimation made by Joshua Kaniel) of all immigrants and up to 80–90%.^{[citation needed]} Although the precise number is unknown, it is known that many of the European Jewish immigrants during this period gave up after a few months and left, often suffering from hunger and disease. In the latter part of the Fourth Aliyah, during 1926–1928, the mandatory authorities recorded 17,972 Jewish immigrants, and the Jewish Agency counted about 1,100 more who were not registered with the authorities. During the same period, the authorities recorded 14,607 Jewish emigrants. Overall, it is estimated that about 60,000 Jews emigrated from Mandatory Palestine between 1923 and 1948, and that the total number of Jews who emigrated from the start of the Zionist project to the establishment of the state was around 90,000.

After the Establishment of the State of Israel

After Israel was established in 1948, the country experienced a wave of mass immigration lasting from 1948 to 1951, primarily from post-Holocaust Europe and Arab and Muslim countries, absorbing 688,000 immigrants during this period. However, some 10% of these immigrants would leave the country in the following years, primarily to Canada, Australia, and South America. A small number went to the United States, and it was thought that the US would be the primary destination had immigration restrictions set out by the Immigration Act of 1924 not still been in place. By 1953, the wave of immigration had leveled off, and emigration was increasing. Initially, emigration from Israel was composed largely of immigrants who were unsatisfied with life there, but in the mid-1970s, number of native Israelis leaving the country grew.

From 1948 until 1961, Israeli citizens required an exit visa as well as a passport to travel overseas even temporarily. Initially the intention was to prevent the departure of Jews who ought to be fighting, but also due to a perception that those leaving harmed national solidarity. After the six day war the restrictions were eased somewhat but still many administrative hurdles were put in front of those wishing to leave. To prevent the outflow of foreign currency, tickets could only be purchased with money sent from abroad. The general need for an exit visa was finally abolished in 1961 after several court cases and Knesset decisions.

In 1980 deputy Prime Minister Simha Erlich and the Director of the Jewish Agency Shmuel Lahis studied emigration to the United States. The Lahis Report estimated that there were 300,000 to 500,000 Israelis living in the United States, mainly in New York and Los Angeles. In 1982, Dov Shilansky, a Deputy Minister who was tasked with heading efforts to prevent Yerida, noted that some 300,000 Israelis had emigrated since 1948, and attributed a housing shortage and high unemployment as the primary reasons for Israeli emigration at the time.

Yerida skyrocketed in the mid-1980s, due to a combination of the effects of the 1982 Lebanon War, exposure of Israeli tourists to other cultures and new opportunities in other Western countries, and an economic crisis brought on by the 1983 Israel bank stock crisis. In 1984 and 1985, more Jews emigrated from than immigrated to Israel. At the time, the Israeli government became alarmed over the large amount of emigration, and politicians and government entities often cited statistics claiming that hundreds of thousands of Israelis were living abroad. However, these statistics may not have been accurate; around this time, Pini Herman, a demographer, interviewed an Israeli government statistician in charge of compiling data on yordim. According to Herman, the data showed that since 1948, fewer than 400,000 Israelis had moved abroad and never returned. When he asked him how other government entities regularly claimed much higher figures, the statistician said that his bureau was never actually consulted.

In November 2003, the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption estimated that 750,000 Israelis were living abroad, primarily in the United States and Canada—about 12.5 percent of the Jewish population of Israel. In April 2008, the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption estimated that 700,000 Israelis were living abroad, of those, 450,000 were living in the U.S. and Canada, and 50,000-70,000 in Britain.

In 2012, a new Global Religion and Migration Database constructed by the Pew Research Center showed that there were a total of 330,000 native-born Israelis, including 230,000 Jews, living abroad, approximately 4% of Israel's native-born Jewish population. Immigrants to Israel who later left were not counted. Danny Gadot of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles claimed that although some 600,000-750,000 Israelis were estimated to living in the United States, many were not native-born and in fact the children of Israeli expatriates, as the children of Israelis born abroad are counted as Israeli citizens. That year, it was reported that yerida had hit a 40-year low, while the number of Israelis returning from abroad had increased.

Reasons for emigration phenomenon[edit]

The main motives for leaving Israel are usually connected with the emigrants' desire for improved living standards, or to search for work opportunities and professional advancement, for higher education. Polls amongst emigrants have shown that the political situation and security threats in Israel are not among the main factors in emigration. Emigration is also common amongst new immigrants who failed to successfully integrate into Israeli society especially if they were unable to master the Hebrew language, failed to integrate into the labor market, or who already made one major residence change in their lives and therefore found an additional change easier to make. Some of the immigrants move to a third country, almost always in the West, and some of them return to the country of their origin, a phenomenon which increases when the conditions in the country of origin improve, as occurred in the former USSR in the first decade of the 21st century.

Since the founding of the State of Israel, polls have shown that those leaving the country were on average more educated than the ones who remained in Israel. This phenomenon is even more extreme amongst new immigrants who leave Israel than amongst native-born Israelis who leave Israel. Therefore, the emigration from Israel has occasionally been referred to as a Brain drain. An OECD estimate put the highly educated emigrant rate at 5.3 per thousand highly educated Israelis, actually placing Israel in the lower third compared to OECD countries where the overall average was 14 per thousand highly educated emigrants. Israel, with its well developed technical and educational infrastructure and larger base of highly educated citizens, is retaining a greater percentage of its highly educated persons than developed countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and New Zealand.

Circular migration[edit]

The migration of Israeli Jews was often thought to be unidirectional and described as yerida, but there is reason to believe that a significant pattern of return, hazara (חזרה hazara, "return"), has been described as returning to Israel after relatively long periods, of at least a year or more, where homes and livelihoods have to be established or re-established. Most Israelis who emigrate do not leave permanently, and eventually return home after an extended period abroad. This circular migration may be especially pronounced for highly skilled and highly educated Israeli migrants and their families.

In 2007 a special program by the Immigrant Absorption Minister of Israel was announced, intended to encourage Israeli emigrants to return to Israel. It was further decided that by 2008 the Ministry would invest 19 million shekels to establish lucrative absorption plans for the returning emigrants. (see: Taxation in Israel). Until then, 4,000 Israeli expatriates returned each year. In 2008, these numbers began growing. Since the start of this campaign, the number of Israelis returning home has doubled. Return reached a peak of 11,000 in 2010. From 2010 to October 2012, a record 22,470 Israelis returned, including 4,837 academics and researchers, 2,720 technical professionals, and 681 business managers.

Israel has granted the legal status of Toshav Hozer (תושב חוזר toshav hozer, "returning resident") to Israeli citizens having resided abroad for at least two years (1.5 years for students); during his/her time abroad, has not visited Israel for 120 days or more per year (365 days); has not used his/her rights as a returning resident in the past.

According to demographer Pini Herman, this circular migration has been an economic boon to Israel. Israel does not have the technological, academic, and other infrastructural resources to absorb its disproportionate number of highly trained and skilled population, second only to the United States. As a result, many Israelis have worked overseas for extended periods of time. Upon their return, they have often attracted or repatriated with them to Israel new infrastructure, such as that provided by companies like as Intel, Google, Microsoft, and IBM.