Some 21,900 new immigrants moved to Israel in 2025, the Immigration and Absorption Ministry said Monday, a steep drop of about one-third from last year’s numbers as arrivals from Russia dried up.

However, aliyah (Hebrew for immigration to Israel) from the United States, France, the UK and other Western countries rose sharply, amid skyrocketing antisemitism affecting Jewish communities around the world, including high-profile deadly terror attacks against Jewish targets such as the Yom Kippur attack on a Manchester, UK, synagogue and this month’s massacre at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia.

Some 13,600 non-Russian immigrants arrived in 2025, a 23.6 percent increase from about 11,000 in 2024 and an 81% increase from the 7,500 new immigrants in 2023, according to an analysis of ministry data.

As in every year since the 1990s, the largest number of immigrants came from Russia, with about 8,300 arriving in 2025. That was a 57% decline from the 19,500 who came in 2024, and a fraction of the 43,500 who arrived from Russia in 2022 following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Most of Israel’s dramatic rise in immigration and subsequent decline since 2022 is attributable to the surge from Russia and Ukraine at the start of that war, demographers have noted.

About 3,500 immigrants came from the US, an increase of 5% from the previous year and up 30% from 2023. French immigration rose approximately 45% to 3,300, compared to 2,200 in 2024. Immigration from the UK rose 19% to 840, reflecting an ongoing upward trend.

Some 420 people immigrated from Canada, 220 from South Africa, and 180 from Australia, ministry data showed.

About a third of all new immigrants........

© The Times of Israel