How aliyah numbers actually get counted

Two organizations put out aliyah numbers most years, and they don't always match exactly. The Jewish Agency for Israel says it helped 22,270 olim from 105 countries immigrate in 2025, roughly half of them between 18 and 35, ranging from infants to a 100-year-old woman from Uruguay. About 60% of that group lived in Jewish Agency absorption centers or used other Agency support after arriving. ² A separate national tally reported by the Times of Israel put 2025's total closer to 21,900, a drop of about a third from 2024. That count broke down by country: about 8,300 from Russia, down 57% from 19,500 the year before; about 3,500 from the United States, up 5%; about 3,300 from France, up 45%; and 840 from the UK, up 19%. ³ Both counts point the same direction, a steep Russian falloff offset by growth from Western countries, they just don't land on the identical figure.

What's harder to count, and gets far less attention, is who's leaving. A Tel Aviv University study cited by JTA found that 40,000 to 50,000 Israelis have left the country for at least a year in each of the past three years, a pace the study calls a record. That wave started with the political upheaval of 2023 and continued through the wars that followed. The same research found current emigration levels don't yet pose a serious economic or security risk to Israel, but warned that could change if the numbers keep climbing. A separate Israel Tax Authority study found the people leaving earned about 50% more than the national average before they left, with doctors and engineers showing up disproportionately among departures. ¹

Nefesh B'Nefesh, the North American aliyah organization, reported a different kind of number: more than 2,300 North American Jews had summer 2026 moves to Israel planned, about a 15% increase over recent years, movement in the opposite direction from the emigration trend the same period is producing. ¹