Immigration to Israel from Ukraine, Russia jumps amid conflict
Israel has a large Russian-speaking population of more than 1.3 million - around 15 percent of the population
Over 31,000 people from Ukraine and Russia have immigrated to Israel since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, a massive increase from a similar pre-war period.
Between February 24 and July 31, Israel received 12,175 new immigrants from Ukraine and 18,891 from Russia, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, citing data from the Immigration Ministry.
That's 318 percent higher than a similar period in 2019 when almost 10,000 immigrants arrived from the two countries.
Most of the immigrants from Russia and Ukraine are Jewish, but some may only have close relatives who are Jewish. Under Israel's Law of Return, a person needs at least one Jewish grandparent to be entitled to immediate citizenship.
Some 63 percent of Ukrainian immigrants are women, while those from Russia were split mainly evenly between men and women.
Israel has a large Russian-speaking population of more than 1.3 million - around 15 percent of the population.
The statistics bureau also said that in 2021, immigration to Israel - called aliyah in Hebrew - rose nearly 30 percent from 2020 to 25,497. Half of the immigrants came from former Soviet republics, mainly from Russia and Ukraine. About 14 percent each - or around 3,500 - came from the United States and France.
In 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic, Israel recorded 33,247 immigrants.