by Hila Amit at +972 Magazine
Over 150,000 citizens have left the country in the past two years alone — many of them with a one-way ticket and no plans of returning.
From Israel’s establishment in 1948, its leaders viewed the expansion of the Jewish population as essential to the survival of the Zionist project: a way to ensure a lasting demographic majority over the Palestinian population and a steady supply of soldiers to defend the state’s borders. Alongside efforts to increase Jewish birth rates, the promotion of Jewish immigration has been central to this strategy. Near-automatic citizenship under the Law of Return, coupled with financial incentives, were designed to draw Jews from across the globe and anchor them permanently in the new state.
The flip side of this policy was the state’s response to those who left, which was often openly hostile. Jewish emigrants were officially referred to as yordim — “those who go down” — a term coined in opposition to olim, who were said to “ascend” by immigrating to Israel.
The moral hierarchy embedded in this language framed emigration as a personal and national failure rather than a neutral life choice (it is worth noting, for example, that Israel does not permit citizens abroad to vote in elections, making this division concrete). In 1976, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin famously dismissed Jewish emigrants as “the fallout of weaklings,” a remark that captured the state’s prevailing contempt for those who choose to leave…
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