By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM — Emigration from Israel is one of those issues that erupts every so many years to excite the fearful. Americans might think about abortion, prayer in the schools, gun control, or the placement of a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah on a public place. What is common to them all is a capacity to excite, without really threatening to untip the society from meandering among other issues.
Emigration from Israel has a constituency that sees it as a threat to what is essential about the society, that must be combatted one way or another. Jews are supposed to migrate to Israel. Emigration is an offense against history and the future, as well as threatening the integrity of the society.
Relax. It ain’t all that bad.
Migration is part of every nation’s history. Jews have been doing it from at least several hundred years before the Common Era. While the history of Jews and other people includes incidents of forced migration, a great deal of movement (Jewish and other) has been voluntary, i.e., looking for better opportunities.
You want figures? Wikipedia has a decent array of different numbers from a variety of sources in recent years. You’ll see that figures for Israel are not all that different from those of other countries, and that Israel is not alone in trying to attract back emigrants, or at least those who would benefit the economy.
Other data shows Israel with a net inflow of migrants, i.e., more coming than leaving.
There is no end of the studies indicating that migration is difficult, and that immigrants contribute disproportionately to subsequent emigration.
Currently the issue is reaching the media once again, now focusing on a campaign by Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption to encourage emigrants to return home. American commentators are reacting badly to a series of video clips distributed by the Ministry. My own reading of them differs greatly from the responses I have read. I see no basis in the clips for the accusation that Prime Minister Netanyahu, or the Natanyahu government, is urging Israelis not to marry Americans, or American Jews.
The following citations carry the clips and commentary about them. A knowledge of Hebrew will help with understanding and judgement.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/164903/netanyahu-israeli-jews-dont-marry-americans http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/netanyahu-government-suggests-israelis-avoid-marrying-american-jews/249166/
The campaign appears to be that of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, and not of the Prime Minister or the Government. Immigrant Absorption is one of the least prestigious and newsworthy ministries. During a time of minimum immigration, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption is seldom in the news.
Ha’aretz reports that an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the weightiest of bodies, expressed dismay at the mounting of a campaign.that risked insulting American Jews without consulting with Foreign Affairs. “We only found out about it from the complaints that reached the consulates.” http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/u-s-jewish-groups-furious-over-campaign-to-bring-expat-israelis-back-home-1.399057
Modesty usually keeps me from quoting myself, but there are exceptions. Way back in the late 1980s I caused a small flap in the Ministry of Immigration Absorption by an article entitled “Avoiding the Irresistible: Should the Israeli Government Combat Jewish Emigration?” (Jerusalem Quarterly Winter, 1987). At a meeting called of soldiers in my military unit (the lecture corps) to deal with the issue of emigration, the minister complained about a university professor who went so far as to describe benefits to Israel as a result of emigration. Then his assistant, a former student, whispered to him that the offender was in the audience.
Aside from people turning around to look at me, there is no evidence that my military career suffered from the episode.
The mission of the lecture corps soon turned from combating emigration to facilitating immigration.
In 1987 there were 4.4 million Israelis. Now there are 7.7 million. In the interim, about one million people came from the crumbling Soviet Union. Now as before, emigration is the right of people in a free society to live where they can do better for themselves, and to leave where they are uncomfortable. May the discontented be unhappy somewhere else.
Israel is even more crowded than in 1987. Natural increase and a modest inflow will keep emigration from easing congestion on the roads and in parking lots.
It would help if Americans stop reading more in Israeli advertisements than has been placed there, and if the Ministry of Immigration Absorption consulted more widely before embarking on something capable of ruffling sensitive feelings.
Other than that, all is well.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted at ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com