Israel must seize historic opportunity to welcome one million olim in 2025 - opinion

In the early 1990s, one million new olim arrived in Israel and gave it a big boost forward. In 2025, we should and can bring the next million.

In the early 1990s, the unprecedented wave of aliyah followed the fall of the USSR. A million olim came to Israel and ensured that the country would keep growing. Academics, doctors, teachers, and others pushed Israel to become an emerging country in the West and one of the most promising.

Israel is now on the verge of a similar opportunity – in 2025, a million Jews could arrive in Israel. A combination of tragic circumstances – the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, a nearly unprecedented rise in antisemitism and violence against Jews in the US and Europe, and an awakening of Zionist sentiments among the Jewish people – have created a historic opportunity for Zionism.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War, over 30,000 Jewish people worldwide have applied for aliyah. Reports in the US say that since October 7, there has been an increase of 200% in antisemitic incidents. And on American campuses? We’ve seen the farce of leaders from the most prestigious universities in the US refusing to admit that calling for the murder of the Jewish people is racism. This might explain a rise of 500% in antisemitic incidents on campuses this past year.

The pogrom in Amsterdam, one of the safest cities for Jews in Europe, has shown that under the surface, the hatred of Jews and of Israel is worse than it has been in a long time. In France, antisemitic incidents have become four times more common in the last year. And the result? Some 38% of French Jews, or about 200,000 people, are now considering leaving the country.

Until October 7, the trend in America had been clear and unfortunate – American Jews had been detaching themselves slowly but surely from Israel. Then it flipped. Zionism has taken center stage again.

Israel should take advantage of an opportunity

Key people in the Jewish community whom I know personally, who work in tech, medicine, and academia, have started talking positively about making aliyah. Some of them are families of Israelis who have already emigrated to the US; some are Jews who have never spent a day in Israel, but all of them decided it is time to come back. 

Many have children who have already made aliyah so that they can be conscripted into the army. They’ve joined elite combat units, despite and because of the times we live in.

WHAT HAS Israel done to take advantage of this opportunity? Basically, nothing. Instead of starting a massive campaign to encourage aliyah and create special benefits for olim, the state is canceling existing benefits.

The new state budget is making a dramatic cut in the “absorption basket” of financial assistance given to new olim. It boggles the mind to read these clauses hiding in the new Economic Arrangements legislation. 

According to the law, olim holding assets worth more than half a million shekels (about $135,00) will not receive an absorption basket. Thus, Israel is deliberately discouraging the affluent, academics, families, and property owners from making aliyah. But these are exactly the potential olim whom we want and who are able to come to Israel – the people who are needed in Israel now more than ever.

The State of Israel must do two things immediately:

1. Launch a campaign to encourage aliyah. Use Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) and communication platforms – both the official government one (which for some reason has yet to be established), and the unofficial one (social media influencers and the hasbara organizations that citizens have started this past year) to reach Jews worldwide through social media. Take advantage of the ability of the Jewish Agency and other international organizations to attract Jews from all over the world to Israel.

2. Set generous benefits for olim. The Aliyah and Integration Ministry should, through the finance minister, cancel the benefit cuts. Instead, the government should triple the size of the absorption basket that new olim receive. Olim who own many assets must be encouraged more, not less.

The goal: One million olim in 2025. It’s possible, it’s necessary, it’s time.

The writer is a tech entrepreneur and a social entrepreneur. He is a senior vice president at Palo Alto Networks, founder and chairman of the social initiative Place-IL, and founder of the Israeli Tech Negev Fund.