International Migration and American Aliyah

This chapter deals with international migration of Jews to and from North America. A new reconstruction of the numbers of immigrants and their geographical breakdown is suggested, based on institutional data, such as those from HIAS, and the combined processing of the sequence of national Jewish population studies between 1970 and 2020. Over a million Jews, plus their family members, landed in the US since the end of World War II. This contributed to Jewish population growth. However the numbers were tempered by some emigration – especially to Israel – and by the rapid integration of new immigrants into the American general social fabric. The chapter also examines the contribution to Jewish identity by Jewish immigrants to the US from different countries of origin. Finally, a more detailed look is thrown to aliyah – migration to Israel – from the US and Canada. These were the two countries worldwide with the lowest percent of emigrants to Israel per 1000 of local Jewish population. The expected ideological components are evaluated in the light of a systematic analysis of socioeconomic determinants of Jewish emigration from North America.