Israelis Fear Election Results Could Increase Emigration

Many Israelis are nervously anticipating the Oct. 27 elections, believing the outcome will determine whether they stay in Israel or emigrate as a growing number of Israelis have done in the past few years.

A recent study by Israeli public broadcaster Kan indicated that, of some 20 percent of Israelis who are considering emigrating, more than half of surveyed respondents reported that the result of the upcoming national elections could directly influence their choice to stay or leave. Other surveys by the nonpartisan research center Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) showed that more than 25 percent of Israelis have considered emigration under certain circumstances.

The Kan study added that one-third of poll respondents said they personally know someone who has emigrated in the past two years.

The IDI study indicated that public opinion is split on the emigration issue. About 46 percent of poll participants expressed no worry over the departure figures, while 41 percent voiced deep concern regarding a potential “brain drain.” Interestingly, among voters who support the current government, only 22 percent said they were concerned by emigration. On the other hand, 59 percent of those who voted for opposition parties said they are worried about the issue.

According to the IDI survey, the rate of those considering emigration is noticeably higher among secular Israelis, high-income earners, those between the ages of 18 and 34, and professionals in high-tech or medical fields.

Concern about future emigration is not just hypothetical. In September, researchers from Tel Aviv University analyzed data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics showing an estimated 90,000 people emigrated from Israel in 2025, about the same number as in the prior year, but higher than the 66,000 logged in 2023. Prior to 2023, the annual number of Israelis leaving for at least three months was about 60,000.

Notably, the three years studied coincided with the first three years of the current government which is considered the most right-wing and religious government in Israel’s history. In 2023, the government began its divisive overhaul of the country’s judicial system, prompting thousands of Israelis to protest weekly, believing that the country’s democracy was at stake. Those protests only stopped after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by thousands of Hamas-led Gazans, resulting in the murders of at least 1,200 and the abduction into Gaza of another 250 people.

Concern about future emigration is not just hypothetical. In September, researchers from Tel Aviv University analyzed data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics showing an estimated 90,000 people emigrated from Israel in 2025, about the same number as in the prior year, but higher than the 66,000 logged in 2023. Prior to 2023, the annual number of Israelis leaving for at least three months was about 60,000.

In retaliation, Israel launched its longest war, requiring the country’s military reservists to leave their families and jobs for months on end.

In a recent briefing on Zoom, Haaretz correspondent Linda Dyan stated that the brain drain in the last four years is having a “catastrophic” effect on Israel’s economy, citing particularly the major impact on the high-tech industry. “These are the people involved in running the state today. They’re subsidizing how we live as a country,” she said.

Indeed, the taxes paid by those in the high-tech industry constitute a high percentage of the total taxes collected by the government, with estimates of more than 30 percent. Other presumably high tax-paying Israelis come from the medical field.

One of the most recent studies reported by Israeli media in September focused on the number of Israeli physicians who have left the country for at least 12 months in the last few years. Conducted by Tel Aviv University, the study, as reported by Times of Israel (TOI), raised the alarm over the deepening brain drain in the nation’s healthcare system.

The researchers recorded 416 departures in 2023, 530 in 2024, and an initial estimate of 419 in 2025. The total number of departures over these three years exceeds the entire medical staff of well-known Israeli hospitals. Additionally, over the three-year period, the number is nearly double the 705 physicians who relocated abroad between 2013 and 2015.

“Even after accounting for Israeli physicians who returned home after spending time abroad, the net loss reached 509 doctors between 2023 and 2024 alone. This annual net loss of approximately 255 doctors is nearly five times the average net loss of 54 doctors per year recorded between 2010 and 2019,” TOI reported.

The researchers further pointed out that there’s a growing proportion of experienced physicians leaving the country. More than 20 percent of those who relocated between 2023 and 2025 were aged 45 or older, representing 281 veteran doctors. A decade ago, senior physicians made up only 14 percent of departing doctors.

One of the three researchers who conducted the study was quoted as claiming, “Since 2023, the State of Israel has been losing its best people. All of us have family members waiting for surgery or other medical care,” said Itai Ater, professor in the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. “The departure of nearly 1,400 doctors translates directly into longer wait times, less effective medical care, and ultimately severe harm to our quality of life,” added Ater, who is also the head of the Economists for Democracy Forum.

Ater was also one of three researchers who conducted a study this year that showed emigration, in general, over the last three years, had reached a record high. According to the study, nearly 270,000 Israelis left the country during that time frame, and the study concludes that the trend could have long-term economic and security implications. The other two researchers were Nittai Bergman, professor and head of Tel Aviv University’s School of Economics, and Doron Zamir, doctoral student at the Coller School of Management.

Based on data from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the study showed that between 2023 and 2025, 268,509 Israeli citizens left Israel for at least three consecutive months, compared with 183,219 during the corresponding three-year period a decade earlier. According to their analysis, between 45,000 and 50,000 Israelis are estimated to have emigrated in 2025 for one year or longer.

By comparison, 183,219 Israelis left the country for at least three consecutive months during the corresponding three-year period a decade earlier (2013–2015).

But it’s not just physicians and high-tech engineers who are emigrating, or considering emigrating, from Israel. Concern about the economy, wars, and politics also impact Israelis already living abroad who consider returning to their homeland.

In the case of local Israeli parents Avishay and Shirley Ben Zvi, they want an Israel in which their daughters might want to live. “The Israel I grew up in is not this one and these people,” said Shirley Shani Ben Zvi, referring to the officials who have been leading the current government for the last four years. This is why the parents are going to Israel to vote, bringing with them their teenage daughters who are too young to vote.

“If I want my daughters to have the option to be in Israel”, she continued, she and her husband have to go vote. “This version of the country is not an option for living there, and we still consider it. I want the option to exist.”