Immigration to Israel increased by 2% in 2013, with over sixteen thousand new olim arriving, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced on Tuesday. French aliyah also increased, with 2,904 immigrants, a 43% bump over 2012.
Of the 16,884 immigrants who arrived last year, 43% came from the former Soviet Union, primarily Russia and the Ukraine, 17% came from France, 13% from the United States and 8% from Ethiopia.
At the end of March the Jewish Agency announced that French immigration “risen sharply since the start of the year” with 854 French Jews having moved to Israel since the beginning of the year. This increase, an Agency spokesman stated, marks a 312% increase over the comparable period in 2013.
Last year there were 2.1 immigrants for every 1000 Israelis the CBS reported as opposed to a ratio of 17 immigrants per 1000 Israelis as in the 1990s. The bureau also found that of the 3.2 million olim that have arrived in Israel since the establishment of the state and of that group, 41% came since 1990.
The extent of immigration to Israel has been “relatively low” since the end of mass immigration from the FSU, the CBS stated, citing an annual average of 16,700 newcomers. During the immigration wave of the 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet empire, approximately 88,300 new immigrants arrived yearly.
Europeans formed the majority of immigrants in 2013, 64%, followed by American and Oceania, 21%, Africa, 9% and Asia, 6%. While European immigration increased, combined immigration was America and Oceania remained stable.
The biggest decline in immigration came from Ethiopia, the CBS reported. Earlier this year the government and Jewish Agency celebrated the end of Ethiopian aliyah at a welcoming ceremony for 450 immigrants at Ben Gurion Airport, leading to protests from some Ethiopian activists.
The central district of Israel saw the highest number of new immigrant settlement, with 3391, or 20% of immigrants choosing the region for their first place of residence. Eighteen percent of new immigrants settled in Jerusalem and seventeen percent chose Tel Aviv.
The average age of immigrants to Israel was also slightly higher in 2013 than in the previous year. There were more female immigrants than male.
“The median age of immigrants from France was 38.3 years in 2013” compared to a median age of 31.6 years among the general immigrant population.
European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor announced earlier this week that “Normative Jewish life in Europe is unsustainable if such huge numbers of European Jews are forced to live in fear and insecurity.”
A third of Jews polled by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency last year stated that they refrained from wearing religious garb or Jewish symbols out of fear and 23% avoided attending Jewish events or going to Jewish venues. Almost a third were mulling emigration as a response to heightened anti-Jewish sentiment.
Anti-Semitic incidents are now “an almost daily phenomenon,” as Kantor stated, an increasing number of Jews are seeking an exit from Europe.