Yerida () is emigration by Israeli Jews from the State of Israel (or in religious texts, Land of Israel). Yerida is the opposite of aliyah (), which is immigration of Jews to Israel. Zionists are generally critical of the act of yerida and the term has traditionally carried a negative connotation. The term applies specifically to Jewish emigrants and does not include the emigration of non-Jewish Israeli citizens.
According to a 2025 report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 630,000 Israeli citizens live abroad, of whom roughly half were born abroad. Another 325,000 people outside Israel have at least one Israeli parent. Reasons commonly cited for emigration include the high cost of living, a desire to escape from the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, academic or professional opportunities abroad, and dissatisfaction with Israeli society. In 2024 and 2025, Israel experienced net negative migration: yerida was higher than aliyah.
Etymology Jewish emigrants from Israel are known as yor(e)dim (), meaning "those who go down [from Israel]", while Jewish immigrants to Israel are known as olim (|link=no), meaning "those who go up [to Israel]". The terminology reflects a longstanding metaphor in Hebrew sources that associates movement toward the Land of Israel with ascent and movement away from it with descent.
The use of the term yored is a modern application of language found in biblical and rabbinic texts. In the Torah, similar phrasing appears in passages such as Genesis 46:4 ("I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again", ) and Genesis 12:10 ("Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there because the famine was severe", ) Related concepts appear in rabbinic literature, including the Mishnah’s statement that "all may compel [a spouse] to go up to the Land of Israel, but not all may compel [a spouse] to leave it" () and the Talmudic assertion that "the Land of Israel is higher than all other lands" ().
In the biblical narrative, Abraham is described as the first figure to "go down" from the land of Israel, followed later by Joseph and Jacob in the context of their migration to Egypt in Genesis. Rabbinic interpretation later developed the concept of yerida letzorekh aliyah (, "descent for the purpose of ascent"), a concept similar to the contemporary expression of hitting "rock bottom". Jewish law Jewish law (halakha) addresses emigration from the Land of Israel and sets out circumstances under which departure is permitted. According to Maimonides, permanent emigration and resettlement outside the land is permitted primarily in cases of severe famine. Joseph Trani ruled that departure from the Land of Israel may also be permitted for purposes such as marriage, Torah study, or earning a livelihood, including in situations where famine is not present.
In traditional and Orthodox Jewish legal thought, residence in the Land of Israel is generally regarded as a religious value. Emigration or even temporary departure is not thought of as a worthy act for a man.
History Estimating the scale of Jewish emigration from Palestine between the beginning of the Zionist movement in the 1880s and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 is difficult, as is determining the proportion of emigrants relative to settlers. Estimates of emigration during the period of early Zionist settlement, including the First Aliyah (1881–1903) and the Second Aliyah (1904–1914), range from approximately 40% of immigrants, according to an estimate by Joshua Kaniel, to as high as 80–90%. David Ben-Gurion estimated that "90% of the Second Aliyah despaired of the country and left”. Although precise figures are unavailable, historical accounts indicate that many European Jewish settlers during this period left after less than a year, often due to hardship, hunger, and disease.
During the latter part of the Fourth Aliyah, during 1926–1928, Mandatory Palestine authorities recorded 17,972 Jewish immigrants, while the Jewish Agency estimated that approximately 1,100 additional immigrants were not officially registered. In the same period, authorities recorded 14,607 Jewish emigrants.Hope Simpson Report, Appendices 22–23. The Jewish Agency counted about 1,100 Jewish immigrants not registered with the authorities. (McCarthy, Population of Palestine, p227.) It is estimated that about 60,000 Jews emigrated from Mandatory Palestine between 1923 and 1948, and that approximately 90,000 Jews emigrated from the beginning of the Zionist movement until the establishment of the State of Israel.
Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the country experienced a period of mass Jewish settlement between 1948 and 1951, primarily from Europe and from Arab and Muslim countries. During this period, Israel absorbed approximately 688,000 immigrants. In subsequent years, an estimated 10% of these immigrants left the country, primarily emigrating to Canada, Australia, and South America. A smaller number emigrated to the United States; contemporary assessments suggested that the United States might have received a larger share had immigration restrictions imposed by the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 not remained in effect.
By 1953, immigration levels had stabilized while emigration increased. Early post-state emigration consisted largely of immigrants dissatisfied with living conditions in Israel. From the mid-1970s onward, an increasing number of native-born Israelis also emigrated.Lev Ari, Lilakh and Rebhun, Uzi: American Israelis: Migration, Transnationalism, and Diasporic Identity
Between 1948 and 1961, Israeli citizens were required to obtain both a passport and an exit visa to travel abroad, including for temporary travel. This policy was intended to prevent the departure of Jews who were expected to be fighting in the Israel Defense Forces, along with a perception that Jews emigrating harmed national solidarity. Additional restrictions were imposed on foreign currency transfers, including requirements that airline tickets be purchased using funds sent from abroad. The exit visa requirement was abolished in 1961 following court rulings and decisions by the Knesset, and further restrictions were eased after the Six-Day War, although administrative barriers to emigration remained.
In 1980, Deputy Prime Minister Simha Erlich and Director of the Jewish Agency Shmuel Lahis commissioned a study of Israeli emigration to the United States. The resulting Lahis Report estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 Israelis were living in the United States, primarily in New York City and Los Angeles. In 1982, Deputy Minister Dov Shilansky, who oversaw efforts to limit yerida, stated that approximately 300,000 Israelis had emigrated since 1948, citing housing shortages and unemployment as primary contributing factors.
Yerida increased significantly in the mid-1980s, associated with the aftermath of the 1982 Lebanon War, increased exposure to opportunities abroad, and economic instability following the 1983 Israel bank stock crisis. In 1984 and 1985, the number of Jewish emigrants exceeded the number of immigrants to Israel. During this period, Israeli officials and public institutions frequently cited figures suggesting that several hundred thousand Israelis were living abroad. Some of these estimates were later questioned. According to demographer Pini Herman, an Israeli government statistician responsible for tracking emigration data reported that fewer than 400,000 Israelis had emigrated since 1948 without returning, and stated that higher figures cited by other agencies had not been based on data from his bureau.
In 2003, Israel's Ministry of Immigration and Absorption estimated that approximately 750,000 Israelis were living abroad, primarily in the United States and Canada, representing about 12.5 percent of Israel’s Jewish population.. In 2008, the ministry revised its estimate to approximately 700,000 Israelis living abroad, including about 450,000 in the United States and Canada and an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 in the United Kingdom.
In 2012, the Global Religion and Migration Database compiled by the Pew Research Center estimated that approximately 330,000 native-born Israelis, including about 230,000 Jews, were living abroad, representing roughly 4% of Israel’s native-born Jewish population. This figure did not include immigrants to Israel who later emigrated. That same year, Danny Gadot of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles stated that many Israelis counted in overseas population estimates were not native-born Israelis but rather children of Israeli expatriates, who are registered as Israeli citizens if born abroad. In the same period, Israel National News reported that yerida had reached its lowest level in four decades, while the number of Israelis returning from abroad had increased.
Demography Between 1948 and 1958, more than 100,000 Jews emigrated from Israel. Analysis of Israel’s net international migration balance and total immigration between 1948 and 1994 indicates a long-term migration retention rate of approximately 80%, implying that emigrants constituted about 20% of total immigrants during this period. This retention rate is higher than that of other major immigration-receiving countries such as the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.
In 2000, Sergio Della Pergola attributed Israel's comparatively high migration retention to two primary factors. One is the family-based character of aliyah, which often involved the relocation of entire households, including children and elderly family members, thereby reducing the likelihood of return migration. The second factor was the limited feasibility of returning to countries of origin where discrimination or persecution had been among the principal reasons for emigration.
According to the Pew Research Center’s Global Religion and Migration Database, in 2012 the estimated number of Israeli-born Jewish international migrants originating from Israel was approximately 230,000. In 2014, estimates suggested that more than 100,000 Israeli citizens were living in Russia. Israeli cultural events and institutions serve the Russian-Israeli population, including cultural centers located in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg, and some members of this population divide their time between Israel and Russia.
Available evidence indicates that the United States has been the primary destination for Israeli emigrants. In 1982, demographer Pini Herman estimated that approximately 100,000 Israeli emigrants resided in the United States, about half of them in the New York metropolitan area and an additional 10,000–12,000 in Greater Los Angeles. The relative stability of the New York Israeli population was supported by a 2009 study for the UJA Federation of New York by Steven M. Cohen and Judith Veinstein, which estimated that approximately 41,000 Israeli immigrants lived in New York. Cohen and Haberfield estimated that in 1990 there were between 110,000 and 130,000 Israeli immigrants in the United States.
Data from the United States Department of Homeland Security indicate that between 1949 and 2015, approximately 250,000 Israelis obtained permanent residency in the United States, although these figures do not account for subsequent return migration to Israel. The 1990 United States census recorded 94,718 persons born in Israel/Palestine living in the United States, increasing to 125,325 in the 2000 United States census. The 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, defining Israelis as Jews born in Israel, estimated 63,000 Israeli-born adult Jews living in the United States, with an additional 30,000 children residing in their households. Of these children, approximately 7,000 were born before their parents emigrated, yielding an estimated Israeli-born Jewish population of about 70,000 adults and 23,000 U.S.-born children of Israeli immigrants..