Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the cabinet meeting at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday, July 31, 2014.
Israel’s immigrants rose to 26,500 in 2014, making it a ‘historical shift’ for the country.
The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency for Israel reported that immigration had hit their 10-year record-breaking high in the previous year. This is a 32% increase of arrival of immigrants from different parts of the world, making France the number one in the list of countries who have immigrated in Israel.
France has 32% of the total number of people, making it 7,000 new immigrants in the country, compared to only 3,200 in 2013. While, Ukraine were among the most number of immigrants with 5,840, due to the current uncertain status in the Eastern part of Ukraine.
Natan Sharansky, a Jewish agency chairman, stated that, “2014 was a year of record-breaking immigration. This year also saw a historic shift: For the first time in Israel’s history, the number of immigrants who came to Israel from the free world is greater than that of immigrants fleeing the countries in distress.”
He added, “This trend is evidence of Israel’s attractiveness as a place where it’s good to live, as well as of the success of our joint efforts to promote immigration and strengthen connections between Jews around the world and the State of Israel.”
Tel Aviv is the city with the most number of immigrants, welcoming 3,054 new citizens. Next city that immigrants went to was the city of Netanya, having a number of 2,923 new people. While, Jerusalem came in third, taking in 2,808 new citizens./Christian today
