The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) published today the number of people leaving Israel, and discovered that there was a sharp jump in the number of Israelis who left the country in 2023.
The CBS changed the counting method for those leaving the country, now considering anyone who lives abroad for 275 days a year (9 months) as an emigrant. The new method inflated the numbers, but even without it, there was a sharp increase in the number of people leaving the country.
The media attributed the reason to the judicial reform, which led many secular leftists to relocate to other countries, but a quick glance at the data reveals that this is a complete fake.
First of all, the 2023 data is a summary of 2022, before the announcement of the judicial reform (the government started working in January '23). Secondly, the CBS itself reports that about half of those leaving are new immigrants, about 60% of whom immigrated in 2022 and 80% of them were born in the Soviet Union.
About half (49.6%) of those leaving were immigrants in the past. In more detail, 27 500 Jews and others, born abroad, were among the long-term leavers in 2023. Of these, 6500 people immigrated up to 2017 (23.6% of the total leavers whose year of immigration is known); and 21 000 people (76.4%) immigrated in the last 5 years (2018-2022) before the estimation year - 2023, the vast majority (17.1 thousand people) immigrated in 2022*.
The main countries of birth of the leaving immigrants were: USSR (former) (78.9%), USA (5.2%) and France (4.1%)," the CBS statement said.
So, let's look at what happened in 2022.
After the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians of Jewish origin immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return, received an absorption basket and Israeli citizenship, and with the Israeli passport and grant, they moved to other Western countries.
In other words, instead of a jump in emigration data, what we have here is a glimpse into the cynical exploitation of the Law of Return.
And the headlines about emigration due to the judicial reform? Well, facts don't really need to change the attitude of the Israeli media.
