By Moshe Feiglin, JEWISH PRESS
At one of our Rosh Hashanah meals, my son-in-law mentioned that of the team of 23 soldiers he commands in an elite IDF unit, six have left Israel. That is over a quarter. One is in Italy, two are in Germany, one is in Bulgaria, one is in Spain, and one is wandering around the world.
In other words, most of them have left Israel for less economically-sound countries. Yet, they are doing well. I asked my son-in-law to tell me about each of those soldiers. They are all salt-of-the-earth, he said. They are volunteers and of high socio-economic background, and all of them feel it is important to retain their identity. But when one of them compared the salary his wife would earn as a doctor in Israel as opposed to in Germany, he was astounded by the difference.
“You have to understand,” my son-in-law said, “they all want to remain here. But young people in Israel – even those who are successful – are busy with survival. Do you know how much we had to pay just to get through the summer with our children? And who can think about saving for the future? One of those six soldiers won the right to buy an apartment at a discount in the government housing lottery. Now he is working in Milano in order to pay the mortgage here…”
As he spoke, I remembered Netanyahu’s clever video for the New Year – about how everything is so wonderful here that it is boring. There is no doubt that Israel is advancing at an amazing pace, and I am happy to give Netanyahu the credit he deserves. But the bottom line is that if one quarter of my son-in-law’s elite team has left the country, and if French Jews prefer to leave France for Canada and not Israel, and if the children of both will almost certainly intermarry, we have failed miserably.
Israel’s economic progress has amplified the failure. If in the past 30 years Israel’s economy has grown ten-fold, but our children work more hours than we did at their age and all they manage to do is survive, and if the chance to own a home is more distant and they are leaving the country at a frightening pace – then something here is rotten to the core.
The abundance is not reaching the places it should. It is being blocked by a million state workers, 20 ministerial offices that are extraneous, budget-based pensions, a bloated, ineffective army, truckloads of cash and free electricity to Gaza, and more. In short, it is getting stuck in government and its political interests. The root of the evil is government interference in the economy. To get the abundance to the people, Zehut therefore proposes:
- Eliminating duty charges
- Eliminating extraneous regulations
- Lowering taxes
- Drastically reducing government
- Transferring land for construction from the Israel Lands Authority to the public
- Simplifying the construction authorization process.
With Zehut’s economic platform, our grandchildren will be Jewish and will celebrate the holidays with us in Israel.
Articles about Israeli demographics tend to be very political; and the numbers tend to get fudged to fit the agenda of the report. In an article in Ha’aretz, for example,
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-more-israelis-left-israel-than-moved-back-data-reveals-1.5442809
“Among those leaving, in 2015 the average age was 27.6 years and 53% were male. Among returnees, the average age was a slightly older 29.8 and 55% were male. Nearly two thirds of the returnees had been abroad for no more than three years.”
What does that tell us? It tells us that on aveage, people left Israel at age 27.6 and returned 2.2 years later. That seems like normal behavior for a young adult. I left home for abroad at age 18 and returned a year later. Then I left again at age 21, and returned some five years later. Then my wife and I left when I was 36, and we returned three years later. Then we left when I was 46, and we have remained abroad for over 24 years. Young, middle-class adults are mobile and adventurous. That shouldn’t surprize anyone.
Again, from the Ha’aretz article:
“Around 95% of those leaving were Jews, who account for 80% of the overall population. However, 54% were born outside Israel and had immigrated to Israel from Europe (64%), or America and Australia (25%), while 11% moved to Israel from African or Asian countries.”
I dare say that the majority of Jews leaving Israel who were originally from Europe (including European Russia and Ukraine) never intended to stay in the first place: Their priority was to get OUT of Europe; then, after they had saved up enough money, they or their children completed their migration to the places they intended to live in in the first place.
Of course, MK Feiglin is correct, in that the high cost of living in Israel, mixed with the political situation, is a major factor in the current net emigration. A parallel situation is happening today in California, for similar reasons. Interestingly, in both cases the center of emigration is a High Tech capital: Tel Aviv on the one hand, and Silicon Valley on the other. The coincidence is enough, for the reader to suspect that trends in Hi Tech may be a major cause.
So much for Jewish yeridah. All this movement of people makes me hopeful that in the near future, we will witness an ARAB yeridah:
“Around 20% of Israel-born immigrants in the U.S. are Israeli-Arabs who have different economic and social patterns of integration in the U.S. such as an economic and educational disadvantage. Yet their pace of advancement is fast and over time in the U.S. they catch up with their Jewish counterparts”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerida
I don’t wish a wave of Pals upon the US. Instead, I would like to see all the Pals relocate to places like Spain, France, Belgium, Germany and Sweden — countries that have been so friendly to them in the past, an who now welcome Muslim immigrants. Europe’s trouble can then become Israel’s boon.
Moshe Feiglin is absolutely right. Young people are leaving Israel.
on our pacific island litre petrol is 1.45 converted to NIS 4.02 so why are you paying around 7.?? for a litre of petrol that we both pay the same price per barrel?
cars i think are taxed about 90-100%?? funny everyone drives a new car so between rent and car payment not to much left for bingo night.
supermark shopping question at check out paying by card ‘how many payments?’ generally its 3. not to much left for the flicks.
gov must be loaded with moohla, funny how nutunyahoo can afford a house in Qesarya and e. barak in whats most prob T A’s most expensive building. not to much for a meal from the chippy.