Emigration from Russia to Israel: flow dynamics and its components in 1990-2023
Abstract
The article analyzes in detail the numerical dynamics and demographic structure of the largest migration flow to Israel, that of the immigrants from Russia from 1990 to 2023. The annual change in the number of migrants over this period is studied. Migration peaks caused by events in the country of origin occurred in 1990–1991 and 1999–2000, and a new one began in 2022. To analyze the new peak of migration, the dynamics in the numbers of migrants for individual months were examined and divided into two groups: those who arrived in Israel with a repatriate visa (“direct aliyah”) and those who initially entered this country as tourists, and after that received repatriate status. The impact of negative net migration on the decline of the Jewish population in Russia in 1990–2022 is also assessed.
The analysis shows that the current old age structure of the Jewish population in Russia cannot cause large-scale emigration. However, Israel’s Law of Return applies to a much wider range of persons of Jewish descent and their spouses. According to annual Israeli statistics, the share of Jews among immigrants from Russia fell throughout the period under study. Until the end of the last decade, the age structure of migrants from Russia to Israel was close to the age composition of the entire urban population of the country of origin; according to the most recent data, it even became younger. For most of the period, women numerically predominated in the overall composition of the migrants, but in the latest migration wave, according to the 2022 data, men began to predominate slightly.
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