Yerida: The Saddest Story in Israel

Last week, the press here in Israel joyously reported that Neesh b’Nefesh, the organization fully committed to increasing and facilitating Aliyah to Israel, recorded its 100,000^th immigrant who has been assisted by the organization.  Founded in 2002, they have worked tirelessly and efficiently to ease the financial, professional, and logistical hurdles of Aliyah.  Equally important, the organization reports a high success rate, with approximately 90% of its total assisted immigrants remaining in Israel.  Well done for sure!!!

However, there is a back story to this achievement that is not getting anywhere near enough publicity and is being handled badly by the authorities here.  According to data from Tel Aviv University researchers and Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, roughly 268,000 Israelis have left the country for extended periods over the three-year period, 2023-2026, creating an unprecedented negative migration balance where departures significantly outpace returnees.

Statistics show that approximately 86,500 left in 2023 amid the onset of the war with Hamas. In 2024, roughly 91,500 citizens departed, setting historic modern highs.  Worse yet, in 2025, close to 91,000 citizens departed, while return numbers dwindled to roughly 19,000.

Data is just data, but this morning I saw it firsthand. I was sitting in my car on the arrivals level of Ben Gurion Airport at about 0700 waiting to meet my sister-in-law who lives in Florida and had arrived on ELAL’s daily non-stop from Miami. At one point, two vehicles pulled up next to me (double parked, of course) and what looked to be three generations in one family spilled out of the vehicles.

It was clear to me that in addition to two small children, there were two sets of grandparents, the parents of the two children and a small group of whom were probably brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law of the children’s parents, about 12 people total.

Moments later, two airport porters showed up with a luggage cart. Not the type you release from the vending points on the departure level, but rather a very commercial gurney that was about 1.5 meters long and a half meter wide with three sets of wheels.

At that point, the rear doors of the van that was driven by one of the presumed grandfathers opened up.  The back of that van was packed top to bottom, side to side, with absolutely not an inch to spare.

And with what?  Eight pieces of luggage, not suitcases, but heavy fabric bags, each as wide as the cart and 40 cm high, filled to bursting with what one might assume is everything this family wanted to take with them as they left Israel.  After the bags were piled on the gurney, they were topped off by a child’s car seat as well as a bassinet that formed part of the baby carriage for the youngest child.

Once the gurney was fully loaded, the entire family except for the two grandfathers, who were the drivers of the vehicles, left the scene, presumably to begin the young family’s check in process. I have no doubt that after the vehicles were properly parked the grandfathers went inside the terminal as well.

For me it was a very painful moment because it was clear to me that this young family was leaving Israel.  I stopped one of the younger women, either a sister or sister-in-law, and respectfully asked if the family was making yerida (the Hebrew word for “going down” which is how the process of citizens leaving Israel is described)?  She said he hopes they will come back but at a minimum they’ve decided to leave for 3-5 years.

One does not have to have a PhD to understand that losing our citizens, many of whom have skills that are in high demand here and have contributed to making the country the tech giant that it is, is not in the best interest of this country.   Yet clearly thousands of our best and brightest are making that choice.

How do we or can we stop this drain on our economy and the distancing of our families?  Certainly, one way is to change the government so that new leadership can set us on a different path that does not project to a segment of our population that there is no future for them here/  That would be the most important thing that we could do right now and an opportunity to do so will present itself on October 27th.  There is a trend, the numbers are growing and the economists are sounding the alarm bell that, long term, this is a disaster for our country.

Yet there is also something else we should be doing.   We should not be passive about this trend.

91,000 people leaving each year means, on average, 250 people a day, every day, 365 days a year. The people who are leaving are easy to identify at the airport. They are the people who arrive not with one or two suitcases for a vacation abroad but with everything they own loaded onto a massive gurney with their extended families in tow.  They are also accompanied by those who remain behind, grandparents whose faces tell you they worry about when they will see their grandchildren again, siblings who wonder if the traditional family gatherings that everyone savored will ever be the same, or if they will lose the closeness that came from shared values nurtured in a land of our own will now be torn asunder?

At a minimum, there should be people like us at the airport every day, arranged either by the government or some volunteer organization, to tell each and every individual leaving Israel that we hope they will come back. That those of us who remain will do all we can to right the ship that has listed so far to the side that it has caused them to leave the country.  That while they have taken their physical possessions with them, we know that their souls remain with us and that we will be waiting for them to come and reclaim those once the ship has been put back on course. That there will always be a place for them here whenever they want to claim it.

We need to internalize the Talmudic precept we hold dear, that all Jews are responsible for one another, or as it is known in Hebrew, Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh (כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה).  Hopefully, for the good and welfare of Israel and the Jewish people, we will take this charge seriously and meet this challenge.

Carthago substituenda est!