Common reasons for emigration given are the high cost of living, a desire to escape from the ongoing Arab–Israeli conflict, academic or professional ambitions, and disillusionment with Israeli society.
The use of the Hebrew word "Yored" (which means "descending") is a modern renewal of a term taken from the Torah: "אנכי ארד עמך מצרימה ואנכי אעלך גם עלו" ("I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again" Genesis 46:4), "ויהי רעב בארץ; וירד אברם מצרימה לגור שם כי-כבד הרעב בארץ" ("Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there because the famine was severe."
[3] Rabbinical scholars later interpreted this principle as yerida letsorech aliyah which translates to "to sink in order to rise" (a concept similar to the contemporary expression of hitting "rock bottom").
Joseph Trani determined that it is permissible to emigrate from Israel for marriage, to study Torah or to support oneself, including in cases where famine is not present.
[citation needed] Although the precise number is unknown, it is known that many of the European Jewish immigrants during this period gave up after a few months and left, often suffering from hunger and disease.
[8][9] Initially, emigration from Israel was composed largely of immigrants who were unsatisfied with life there, but in the mid-1970s the number of native Israelis leaving the country grew.
[12] In 1980 deputy Prime Minister Simha Erlich and the Director of the Jewish Agency Shmuel Lahis studied emigration to the United States.
However, these statistics may not have been accurate; around this time, Pini Herman, a demographer, interviewed an Israeli government statistician in charge of compiling data on yordim.
[16] In November 2003, the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption estimated that 750,000 Israelis were living abroad, primarily in the United States and Canada—about 12.5 percent of the Jewish population of Israel.
The main motives for leaving Israel are usually connected with the emigrants' desire for improved living standards, or to search for work opportunities and professional advancement, for higher education.
From the beginning of the 1980s, the emigration phenomenon in Israel gained momentum because of the social, financial, cultural, and political changes that occurred in the country.
[citation needed] In Berlin for instance the main reasons for Israeli migration to the city were found to be the following: dissatisfactions with life in Israel, a realization of personal potential career and academic wise, following the relocation of a spouse / having a German spouse, and the relatively low cost of living in Berlin integrated with the cultural value and diversity the city has to offer.
The other countries offer better opportunities with their research centers and funding, allowing that sufficient qualified income to support themselves financially while often going through school.
Israel does not have the technological, academic, and other infrastructural resources to absorb its disproportionate number of highly trained and skilled population, second only to the United States.
In a 1976 interview, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin identified the Israeli emigrants as "fall-outs of weaklings" (נפולת של נמושות).
The main problem for Israeli society in the past was the idea that people born in Israel could choose to emigrate, despite the fact that they did not face the same difficulties as new immigrants who decided to leave after failing to integrate.
The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place—cutting edge in science, education, culture, quality of life—that even American Jewish young people want to come here.
This was in the mid-range of desire to migrate and less than, for example, the residents of Denmark, Belgium, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Poland, Hungary, South Korea and Chile.
In 2009, Hebrew University sociologist Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi said the fact that it has become commonplace for Israelis to move abroad, either permanently or for a stint, makes it contradictory for their families to look down on Diaspora Jews.
Haifa University sociologist Oz Almog said in a 2009 interview: "Ask Israelis now what they think about Jews coming from countries where they aren't persecuted, like the U.S. and Britain, to live in Israel, and they'll say, 'Those who do are nuts.
[citation needed][61] In 1998 Janet Aviad, a leader of the Israeli group Peace Now, noted, "As soon as our people hear Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu], they turn off the radio.
[citation needed] In 2023, Israelis and media started using "relocation" instead of "Yerida", in response to Prime Minister Netanyahu's return to power with a far-right coalition and policies perceived as undermining democracy.
[69][71] The apparent return of many Israeli emigrants to Israel was considered a sign of the severity of the Great Recession and noted by Jewish-American media outlets.
Some argue that yerida contradicts the values they wish to instill in their children and that having yordim (emigrants) in leadership positions in synagogues and schools is at odds with the community's religious Zionist goals.
[citation needed] The 2006 Canadian quinquennial census counted 26,215 persons who reported Israeli citizenship, of whom two-thirds (67 percent) lived in the Ontario region.
Named Olim L'Berlin (Hebrew: עולים לברלין, progress towards Berlin) 2014 a Facebook website coined a snowclone and the so-called 'pudding or milky protest' in Israel, as the prices for comparable household items in Germany are rather low in comparison.
[77] Israeli Band Shmemels' song parodying Jerusalem of Gold with the notion, 'Jacob went down to Egypt, because the rent was a third and salaries double - Reichstag of Peace, Euro and Light' grew as well famous in the context.
[81] Greece is a popular emigration destination for Israelis due to its relatively low property prices, the "Golden Visa" program (permanent residency in exchange for investing €250,000 in the Greek economy), and proximity to Israel.
[92] The Israeli-American Study Initiative (IASI), a start-up project based at the UCLA International Institute, is set out to document the lives and times of Israeli Americans—initially focusing on those in Los Angeles and eventually throughout the United States.
At the end of the 2005 film Munich, the main character Avner (played by Eric Bana), who is an Israeli Mossad agent, decides to move from Israel to Brooklyn, New York, to reunite with his wife and their child.