Thousands of Jews have left Israel since the October 7 attacks

Leaving Israel is easier, Shira Z. Carmel thinks, saying it’s just for now. But she knows better.

For the Israeli-born singer and a growing number of relatively wealthy Israelis, the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack it shattered any sense of security and, with it, Israel’s founding promise: to be the world’s safe haven for Jews. That day, thousands of Hamas militants overran the country’s border defenses, killed 1,200 Israelis and dragged 250 more into Gaza in a siege that caught the Israeli military by surprise and stunned a nation prides himself on his military prowess. This time, during what became known as Israel’s 9/11, the army did not come for hours.

Ten days later, a pregnant Carmel, her husband and young child boarded a flight to Australia, which was looking for people in her husband’s profession. And they explained the explanation to friends and family as something other than permanent – “relocation” is the easier term to swallow – well aware of the family tension and shame they’ve put in the shadows the Israelis who are leaving for good.

“We told them we’re going to be out of the line of fire for a while,” Carmel said more than a year later from her family’s new home in Melbourne. “It wasn’t a hard decision. But it was really hard to talk to them about it. It was hard to even admit it to ourselves.”

Thousands of Israelis have left the country since October 7, 2023, according to government statistics and immigration records released by destination countries such as Canada and Germany. There are concerns about whether it will lead to a “brain drain” in sectors such as medicine and technology. Migration experts say it is possible that people leaving Israel will outnumber immigrants in Israel by 2024, according to Sergio DellaPergola, a statistician and professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Thousands of Israelis have chosen to pay the financial, emotional and social costs of moving since the Oct. 7 attack, according to government statistics and families who spoke to The Associated Press in recent months after emigrate to Canada, Spain and Australia.

Israel’s population continues to grow to 10 million people. But it is possible that the year 2024 will end with more Israelis leaving the country than entering. This is even when Israel and Hezbollah reached a fragile situation. ceasefire on the border with Lebanon and Israel and Hamas are headed for a Gaza standoff.

Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics estimated in September that 40,600 Israelis left long-term in the first seven months of 2024, up 59 percent from the same period a year earlier, when 25,500 people left. On a monthly basis, 2,200 more people left this year than in 2023, the office reported.

Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, which does not deal with people leaving, said more than 33,000 people have moved to Israel since the start of the war, roughly the same than previous years. The Home Secretary declined to comment for this story, a spokesman said.

Other clues also point to a notable exodus of Israelis since the October 7 attacks. Gil Fire, deputy director of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, said some of its star specialists with several years’ worth of fellowship postings in other countries began to hesitate about returning.

“Before the war, they always came back and it wasn’t really considered an option to stay. And during the war, we started to see a change,” he said. “They told us, ‘We’re going to stay another year, maybe two years, maybe more.'”

Fire says it’s “an issue of concern” enough for him to plan face-to-face visits with these doctors to try to get them to return to Israel.

Michal Harel, who moved with her husband to Toronto in 2019, said that almost immediately after the attacks, the phone started ringing, with other Israelis asking for advice on moving to Canada. On November 23, 2023, the couple set up a website to help Israelis move, which can cost at least 100,000 Israeli shekels, or about $28,000, according to Harel and other Israeli relocation experts.

Not everyone in Israel can pack up and move abroad. Many of those who have made the move have foreign passports, jobs in multinational corporations or can work remotely. People in Gaza, where local health officials say more than 45,000 people have been killed, have even fewer options. Harel reported that the site has received visits from 100,000 unique visitors and 5,000 direct contacts in 2024 alone.

Aliya, the Hebrew term used for immigration, literally “the ascent” of Jews to Israel, has always been part of the country’s plan. But “yerida” – the term used for leaving the country, literally the “descent” of Jews from Israel into the diaspora – is not.

A sacred trust and social contract took root in Israeli society. The terms go – or went – like this: Israeli citizens would serve in the army and pay high taxes. In return, the military would keep them safe. In the meantime, it is the duty of all Jews to stay, work and fight for the survival of Israel.

“Emigration was a threat, especially in the early years (when) there were nation-building issues,” said Ori Yehudai, professor of Israel studies at Ohio State University and author of “Leaving Zion,” a history of Israeli emigration. . “People still feel they have to justify their decision to move.”

Shira Carmel says she has no doubts about her decision. She had long opposed the Netanyahu government’s efforts to overhaul the legal system, and was one of the first women to don the red robe in the “Handmaid’s Tale” that became a fixture of the protests anti-government activists of 2023. I was terrified. as a new and pregnant mother, during the Hamas attack. This was not the life she wanted.

Meanwhile, Australia was beckoning. Carmel’s brother had lived there for two decades. The couple had the equivalent of a green card because of Carmel’s husband’s profession. The basic logic, he says, pointed toward movement. They were able to catch a free flight seven hours in advance.

And yet, Carmel remembers the frantic hours before departure when she said to her husband in the privacy of their bedroom, “Oh my God, are we really doing this?”

They decided not to decide. They packed lightly. But the weeks in Australia turned into months and the couple decided to have the baby there. They told their families in Israel that they would stay “for now.”

“We don’t define it as ‘forever,'” Carmel said Tuesday. “But we’ll certainly be staying for the foreseeable future.”