Some 20,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel over the past 12 months, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry said Monday ahead of the Rosh Hashanah holiday that marks the Jewish New Year.
The ministry declined to provide a more exact figure, with a spokesperson saying the final number was still subject to change. If it holds, the number provided for the Hebrew year 5786 — which included data from September 23, 2025 through September 3, 2026 — is a decline of about six percent from the 21,244 that arrived in the previous year. It is also the lowest annual number since the Covid pandemic in 2020-2021, and barring that period, the lowest number in over a decade.
Immigration — aliyah in Hebrew — actually increased from most Western countries, but was countered by a sharp decline in Russian immigrants. Some 5,685 immigrants arrived from Russia in the past year, compared to 9,282 in 2024-2025 and 19,407 in 2023-2024. That decline was expected, as Russian immigration spiked sharply after the country declared war on Ukraine in 2022, and has been leveling out ever since.
The ministry argued that the rising numbers arriving from Western countries showed that rising antisemitism throughout the world, alongside growth in Zionist fervor and Jewish identity following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, were leading more Jews to move their lives to Israel.
