Leaving Israel is easy, Shira Z. Carmel thinks, because it is now. But you know better.
For an Israeli-born musician and a growing number of relatively well-off Israelis, i October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas it destroyed any sense of security and with it, Israel’s original promise: to be a safe place in the world for the Jews. That day, thousands of Hamas terrorists stormed across the country’s borders, killing 1,200 Israelis and dragging another 250 into Gaza in a siege that caught the Israeli army by surprise and stunned a nation proud of its military prowess. In this case, during what is known as 9/11 for the Israelis, the army did not arrive for many hours.
Ten days later, a pregnant Carmeli, her husband and their toddler boarded a flight to Australia, which was looking for people to work for her husband. And they responded to the description from friends and family as something that was not permanent – “emigration” is a term that is easy to swallow – knowing full well the hardships of family and the shame that surrounds Israelis who leave forever.
“We told them we would be out of the fire for a while,” said Carmel a year later in her new home in Melbourne. “It’s not a difficult decision. But it was very difficult to talk to them about it. It was difficult to admit it to us.”
Thousands of Israelis have left the country since October 7, 2023, according to government statistics and immigration statistics released by destination countries such as Canada and Germany. There are concerns that it will lead to a “brain drain” in fields such as medicine and technology. Immigration experts say it is possible that people leaving Israel will outnumber immigrants in Israel by 2024, according to Sergio DellaPergola, a statistician and professor from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Thousands of Israelis have chosen to pay the financial, emotional and social costs of leaving since October 7, according to government figures and families who spoke to The Associated Press in recent months after moving to Canada, Spain and Australia.
Israel’s population continues to grow to 10 million people. But it is possible that 2024 ends with more Israelis leaving the country than entering. That comes as Israel and Hezbollah reach a point of weakness. stop firing at the Lebanese border Israel and Hamas headed for peace in Gaza.
Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics estimated in September that 40,600 Israelis left long-term in the first seven months of 2024, which is a 59% increase over the same period last year, when 25,500 people left. Every month, 2,200 more people left this year than in 2023, the report said.
Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Transport, which does not deal with the movement of people, said more than 33,000 people have moved to Israel since the start of the war, about the same as in previous years. The interior minister declined to comment on the matter, a spokesman said.
Other clues, too, point to a significant Israeli departure since the Oct. 7. Gil Fire, the deputy director of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, said that some of its astrologers who had fellowships sent for several years abroad began to hesitate to return.
“Before the war, they always came back and it was not considered an option to stay. And during the war, we started to see a change,” he said. “They said to us, ‘We will stay another year, maybe two years, maybe more.’
Fire says it’s “a matter of concern” enough that he plans to personally visit the doctors to try to get them back to Israel.
Michal Harel, who moved to Toronto with her husband in 2019, said almost immediately after the attack, the phone started ringing — with other Israelis seeking advice about moving to Canada. On the 23rd of Nov. 2023, the couple launched a website to help Israelis navigate their travels, which can cost at least 100,000 Israeli shekels, or about $28,000, said Harel and other Israeli travel experts.
Not everyone in Israel can just pack up and go overseas. Many of those who have done this have foreign passports, jobs in international companies or can work remotely. The people of Gaza, where local health officials say more than 45,000 people have been killed, have little choice. Harel reported that the site received views from 100,000 unique visitors and 5,000 direct contacts in 2024 alone.
Aliya – the Hebrew word for immigration, literally the “ascension” of Jews to Israel – has always been part of the secular system. But “yerida” – the word used to leave the land, literally “descendant” of Jews from Israel to the diaspora, did not emphasize.
A sacred trust and social contract began to emerge in Israelite society. The terms go – or went – like this: Israeli citizens will serve in the army and pay high taxes. Instead, the army would keep them safe. In the meantime, it is the duty of every Jew to live, work and fight for the survival of Israel.
“Immigration was dangerous, especially in the early years (when) there were issues of nation-building,” said Ori Yehudai, a professor of Israeli studies at Ohio State University and the author of “Leaving Zion,” a history of immigration to Israel. . “People still feel they have to justify their decision to move.”
Shira Carmel says she has no doubts about her decision. She has long opposed the Netanyahu government’s efforts to reform the legal system, and was one of the first women to wear the blood-red dress in the “Handmaid’s Tale” scene of the 2023 anti-government protests. He was scared. as a new mother, and pregnant, during the Hamas attack. This was not the life he wanted.
Meanwhile, Australia begged. Carmeli’s brother had lived there for twenty years. The couple had the equivalent of a green card because of Carmel’s husband’s job. He says that the basic mind is towards movement. They managed to catch a free flight without seven hours notice.
And yet, Carmeli remembers the anxious hours before the plane took off when she said to her husband in the privacy of their bedroom: “My God, are we really doing this?”
They decided not to decide. They pack a little. But the weeks in Australia became months, and the couple decided to have a baby there. They told their families back in Israel that they were staying “for now.”
“We don’t define it as ‘forever,'” Carmel said Tuesday. “But we are confident of staying for the foreseeable future.”
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