Israel is not an escape. It is a strategy.

"Aliyah" cannot eliminate antisemitism, but it can give Jews the strength, sovereignty, and agency to confront it.

photo: Cole Keister/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Sabrina Soffer, co-author of forthcoming book “Of Good Courage” with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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In the 1990s, President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Dr. Dan Diker, made aliyah from New York City — not because of antisemitic mayors, pro-terror protests, encampments, or attacks on religious Jews in the streets. He in fact described New York City as a “paradise” for its Jewish inhabitants.

Rather, Diker felt a calling: one of promise and prophecy, of joining a historic moment, and of taking part in the extraordinary story of an exceptional people who, after thousands of years of exile, returned to their ancestral homeland.

Diker’s aliyah story resonates with many immigrants to Israel (known in Hebrew as olim). But today, the situation appears to have changed, as once-paradisiacal cities like New York have become increasingly infected by antisemitism. Indeed, the explosion of anti-Jewish animus that followed October 7, 2023 has been cited as a driving force behind aliyah from the West, particularly from Western Europe and North America.

Olim must acknowledge that Israel is not spared from threats to their security or livelihood, albeit in a different way. Israel is the central battlefront in the fight against antisemitism — and while it is often viewed as an escape, it is not the solution.

Drivers of aliyah have shifted in recent years. Data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, compiled by the Jewish Virtual Library, demonstrates that aliyah since 2022 has been driven substantially by immigration from the former Soviet Union, with a marked spike following the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war:

Israel experienced an extraordinary surge in aliyah in 2022, welcoming 71,354 new immigrants. The vast majority — approximately 63,112 — arrived from Russia and Ukraine, reflecting the upheaval caused by the war and growing instability across the region. That year also brought 3,019 olim from the United States and Canada, 1,680 from Ethiopia, and 1,651 from France.

The pace slowed considerably in 2023, when 46,101 olim arrived, including 39,490 from Russia, 2,622 from the United States, 1,812 from Ethiopia, and 1,006 from France. The decline continued in 2024, with total aliyah falling to 29,859. Of these, 22,628 came from the former Soviet Union, while 3,590 arrived from the United States and Canada. France emerged as a notable source of growth, contributing 2,145 olim — a 76 percent increase from the previous year.

By 2025, aliyah had fallen further to 19,894 newcomers from roughly 100 countries. The former Soviet Union remained the largest source, with 11,018 olim, but immigration from Western countries accounted for a growing share of the total. The United States and Canada contributed 4,041 arrivals, followed by France with 3,306 and the United Kingdom with 872. Together, the figures reveal a sharp retreat from the exceptional levels recorded in 2022, alongside a gradual shift toward a more geographically diverse aliyah.

While immigration from the former USSR has declined since 2022, aliyah from Western Europe and North America has grown proportionally — a trend some analysts describe as a prospective “Great Western Aliyah.”

The notion that the stronger Israel becomes in the Middle East, the more antisemitism in the diaspora intensifies is a dangerous misconception. This argument frequently invoked by Israel’s critics (many of whom claim to care about Jewish life) suggests that Israel’s strength causes antisemitism, or that antisemites are more likely to identify Jews with Israel’s power and its military conduct.

The history of antisemitism teaches precisely the opposite. Neither Jewish weakness nor assimilation has ever spared Jews from hatred or persecution. Time and again, the more Jews have shed their identity or relinquished their strength, the more antisemitism has grown. Indeed, for Israel to renege on its position as the strong horse in the region in hopes of minimizing antisemitism abroad would be both an abysmal failure and an impossibility.

Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, has argued in his book “No Retreat” that settlement and security are directly linked. To strengthen Israel’s national security, he has called for an additional three million Jewish immigrants distributed across the Negev, the Galilee, Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley — regions of the country situated on the front lines of Israel’s security challenges. According to Avivi, regions lacking a substantial Jewish population foster weaker governance and sovereignty.

Aliyah and Integration Ministry and Jewish Agency data from the end of 2025 indicate that one-third of new immigrants were between the ages of 18 and 35; Avivi noted that a significant share of these young olim are now serving in elite IDF combat and intelligence units, marking unprecedented integration.

Avivi’s vision for strengthening Israel through security and aliyah does not mean relinquishing responsibility for the diaspora. As Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, Senior Envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has argued, antisemitism is not merely a Jewish problem but a national security and democratic resilience problem. It functions as a symptom rather than the underlying disease: When Jews are attacked, made to feel unsafe, or forced to flee, it signals a deeper deterioration in the democratic institutions and social fabric of Western societies.

Overlapping threats confront Western democracies today, including Islamism, the alignment of segments of the Far Left with Islamist networks, and elements of the Far Right. Patterns of antisemitic mobilization long observed in Europe are becoming increasingly visible in North American cities. Addressing antisemitism is therefore not only a moral obligation toward Jewish communities but an essential component of safeguarding Western democracies.

Rodan-Benzaquen further argues that states that portray Israel as an aggressor while declining to confront the ideological sources of antisemitism deepen this crisis. She frames the resulting challenge as one of “reputational security”: Israel’s capacity to defend its international legitimacy amid coordinated efforts to delegitimize it, alongside a parallel challenge facing Western states seeking to preserve social cohesion.

She claims that while many Jews — notably French Jews — may choose to make aliyah, whether due to antisemitism or a Zionist pull, the concern is not only what may happen to Jewish communities of the West if radical actors continue to infiltrate Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States undeterred. Israel, she conceded, serves as a model stand-up security nation for these societies.

Fundji Benedict, President of the Liberty Values Institute, describes a contemporary pattern that distinguishes 21st-century antisemitism from that of the 20th century. She calls it “state antisemitism by omission.” Her framework asserts that states may formally avoid direct harm to Jewish citizens while failing to actively uphold their equal protection, producing a form of antisemitism without a clear decree, perpetrator, or singular act of persecution.

Benedict argues that this pattern of omission drives aliyah, while warning that communities in Western countries may not grasp the dangerous impact that “antisemitism by omission” has on their societies.

In recent years, aliyah has not produced sustained Israeli population growth. According to the Times of Israel, more than 69,000 Israelis emigrated (yerida) in 2025, compared with approximately 19,894 arrivals; in 2024, 82,700 Israelis left while only 29,859 arrived, marking the second consecutive year in which emigration exceeded immigration.

In 2025, approximately 19,000 of those departing eventually returned after extended periods abroad, and 5,500 arrived for family reunification. Accounting for these figures, Israel’s net migration balance for the year was a loss of roughly 20,000 people.

Israel’s population nonetheless grew by 1.1 percent, reaching 10.18 million. Analysts attribute yerida principally to security concerns and domestic political frustration, including disputes over judicial reform and the aftermath of the October 7th attacks.

Benedict argued that Israelis who are leaving due to frustration with the government are making a categorical error: A government is replaceable, but a homeland is not. Mistaking a political season for a permanent climate risks becoming an abdication of agency — the very agency the Jewish state was created to provide the Jewish People. Nonetheless, among Israelis who have left, it remains uncertain how many intend to return after the elections or once the war subsides.

Hostile actors, including Iran-aligned groups, have been exploiting yerida statistics for propaganda purposes. In 2021, Hezbollah produced a comedic infomercial in 2021, providing “hints and tips” for Israelis on how to leave Israel. In November 2025, Middle East Eye published an interview in which economist Dr. Shir Hever — an Israeli-born citizen who relinquished his citizenship and now resides in Germany — argued that Israeli emigration has accelerated since 2022 and disproportionately involves Israeli Jews, contrasting this with Palestinian “sumud” (steadfastness).

Researchers note that similar claims regarding Jewish emigration and the viability of the Zionist project have recurred since 1948, and that such narratives typically omit corresponding aliyah data. Israel detractors focus on yerida because it supports the narrative that Israel is losing its war of survival.

Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, was wrong when he predicted that Zionism and the revival of the Jewish state would end antisemitism. Yet, he was right when asserting that the restoration of the Jewish homeland would provide Jews with the agency, strength, and power to reclaim their dignity and capacity for self-defense.

These trends point to converging conclusions for Israeli and diaspora policy. First, Israel should invest further in countering Iran-, Hamas-, and Qatar-linked networks that fuel antisemitism abroad to secure communities where Israel has allies and as a responsibility to Jews and Israelis abroad.

Second, Israel’s public diplomacy strategy should shift from a defensive hasbara posture toward a more assertive approach to fortify reputational security.

Addressing both antisemitism in the diaspora and demographic and security pressures within Israel requires treating the two as linked policy priorities: sustaining safe and equal conditions for Jewish communities abroad, emphasizing their eternal and ironclad connection to Israel, while reinforcing the sovereignty, security, and demographic resilience of the Jewish state.

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