Immigration from Ukraine to Israel during the first 10 months of 2024 has dipped below 1,000 newcomers—a nadir since Ukraine became independent in 1991, a JNS end-of-year analysis showed on Wednesday.
The data demonstrates a dramatic decline in aliyah this year over the previous one from both Ukraine and Russia, which have for years been the main sources of olim. This, in turn, produced a 36% fall in overall aliyah in the first 10 months of 2024, despite increases in aliyah from Western countries.
This decrease follows two years of increases in aliyah from Ukraine and Russia in 2022 and 2023 due to the war that erupted between them two-and-a-half years ago.
Yet, as noted above, aliyah from elsewhere increased in 2024 over 2023, despite the war between Israel and Iran’s proxies.
From Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, 850 olim arrived from Ukraine, according to data published by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. More than 2,000 olim arrived from Ukraine in the corresponding period of 2023.

A total of 16,695 olim arrived from Russia in the first 10 months of 2024, accounting for 61% of the total global figure of 27,372. The figure for Russian aliyah in the corresponding period of 2023 was also much higher than this year: 30,202, constituting 70% of the total new Israelis.
Globally, aliyah in the first 10 months of 2024 from all over the world was 36% lower than in the corresponding period of 2023. However, aliyah this year is already higher than the total for the whole of 2020 and almost identical to that of 2021, before the spike in aliyah from Russian-speaking countries.
In previous years, including 2022 and 2023, thousands of Ukrainian olim immigrated to Israel. More than 14,062 came from Ukraine in the first 10 months of 2022. In February of that year, Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering an ongoing and deadly conflict, as well as a financial crisis in both countries.
In 2022 and 2023, aliyah from Russia and Ukraine dwarfed movement into Israel from the rest of the world. Over the past five years, about 160,000 olim came from Russia and another 30,000 made aliyah from Ukraine. Most Russians who came to Israel since 2019 did so before the outbreak of the current war, as did 40% of the Ukrainians.
Following the invasion, Ukraine declared a state of emergency that included a ban on the departure from the country of men younger than 60 with fewer than three children. This has prevented the aliyah or departure of many Jewish families who do not want to be separated.
Western countries, and especially ones in the European Union, have facilitated immigration by asylum seekers from Ukraine, providing opportunities that many prospective olim found more attractive than moving to Israel, said Linda Pardes Friedburg, the founder of the Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli nonprofit for Israelis from Russian-speaking countries.
Some aliyah from Russia, meanwhile, is tied to how “freedoms are declining” there, she told JNS on Wednesday. Overall, she noted, aliyah from Russian-speaking countries is higher now than before the war in Ukraine, and despite the war in Israel. This means “we have a historic window of opportunity” to attract more olim, she added.
Despite the outbreak of war in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, aliyah rose from a number of key countries. Aliyah from the United States increased from 2,479 throughout all of 2023 to 2,786 in the first 10 months of this year. In France, aliyah jumped from 1,029 people throughout 2023 to 1,846, and in Canada, it rose slightly from 294 in 2023 to 317 from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31.
In the past five years, aliyah figures from November and December added 7%-20% to the total annual tally.
Separately, data published in September by the Central Bureau of Statistics revealed that in the first seven months of 2024, Israel saw the emigration of some 40,000 people, a 58% increase over the number who left in the corresponding period of 2023. At the same time, more than 11,500 Israelis who had left Israel returned during the first seven months of 2024, a 19% drop over returnee data from the first seven months of 2023.
Factoring in aliyah, Israel had a negative immigration balance of about 13,000 leavers in the first seven months of 2024. The country has a population of about 10 million citizens.
The Central Bureau of Statistics considers any citizen who spends fewer than 275 days in one year in Israel as having emigrated. The bureau has not yet published immigration data from after July 31 of this year.
Meanwhile, olim in Israel are experiencing difficulties during the war against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran that other Israelis who have more family here are better equipped to handle, Pardes Friedburg said.
Hila Silsky, who made aliyah 11 years ago from Russia, is among those grappling with those difficulties. Her husband, Alex, was called up to serve in the Israel Defense Forces reserves for many months, leaving her to take care of their three children with virtually no help from family. “It’s an incredibly intense time, and things at home are especially tough,” Silsky said.
Community frameworks like Shishi Shabbat Yisraeli have become her “lifeline, offering emotional and social support,” she said.
(JNS)