I am writing from my home in Israel, a New Yorker living in Israel.
Last year, 21,900 olim arrived in Israel from 105 different countries - the broadest geographic spread in modern Aliyah history. France grew 45 percent year-over-year. Australia 67 percent. Germany 34 percent. The United Kingdom 19 percent. North America held steady. Russia, the historic top source, dropped 57 percent as the Ukraine-war wave normalizes. For the first time in thirty-five years, the center of gravity of global Aliyah has shifted from East to West. And the door has just opened wider than it has ever been.
Zero percent income tax.
On March 30, the Knesset signed into law the most generous immigration tax package the State of Israel has ever offered. New olim arriving between November 5, 2025 and December 31, 2030 will pay zero Israeli tax on all foreign-source income for ten years - salary, rental income, dividends, capital gains, interest, retirement distributions, profits from a foreign-domiciled business. No cap. They will also pay zero Israeli tax on Israeli-source earned income up to roughly ₪3.1 million cumulative over five years. And as of February, American olim no longer double-pay national insurance if they are paying U.S. Social Security. A major financial opening for Diaspora Jews has arrived.
It is also worth saying clearly: Israel today is the strongest economy of its size in the world. AI usage in Israel is the highest per capita on earth - Anthropic's Claude is being adopted across Israeli enterprise faster than in almost any other market. The startup nation is still the startup nation, and the work coming out of Tel Aviv, Herzliya, and Be'er Sheva is among the most interesting in the world right now.
The professional opportunities are vast, the universities are world-class, the medical system is excellent - and on top of all of that, you wake up in a Jewish country, on Jewish time, surrounded by Jewish neighbors. Our grandparents would have given anything for the circumstances under which Diaspora Jews are now choosing to come home.
The room for growth is enormous. A Jerusalem Post report last summer found that 38 percent of French Jews - roughly 200,000 people - are actively considering Aliyah. In 2025, 3,300 of them came. Jewish Agency Chairman Doron Almog has set a public five-year target of 300,000 new olim. Given current trajectories, that target is achievable.
Where do these olim land?
Jerusalem leads. Tel Aviv follows. The proven Anglo absorption corridor - Beit Shemesh, Ra'anana, Modi'in, Netanya, Herzliya - continues to receive disproportionate volume because it works. Shared language, established communities, anchor employers, English-language schools and synagogues. Retention in those cities runs measurably higher than in scattered placements.
The strategic priority for the next five years is the periphery. The Negev. The Galilee. The Golan. The "Go Beyond" program already steered 1,505 North American olim to those regions in 2025; the next step is to multiply that number by ten, with concentrated tax incentives, real infrastructure, and proper anchor employers built around new arrivals.
A few practical priorities will turn this moment into a generation-defining wave.
Tell the tax story. Most Diaspora Jews still have no idea about the new ten-year exemption. Shuls, men's clubs, day schools, Federations, congregations, Jewish media, and family WhatsApps need to be saturated with the actual numbers. This is the lowest-cost, highest-leverage intervention available right now.
Match olim to Israeli employers before they board the plane. Income certainty is the single most-cited barrier among prospective olim who choose not to move. This is not primarily a government function. It is a job for a focused private non-profit, and there is real philanthropic appetite for it.
Bring back the 125,000 Israelis who left between 2022 and 2024. Native Hebrew, existing networks, military service complete, family ties intact. These are the easiest cohort in the world to win back. The Aliyah Ministry has begun this work; it deserves first-tier resources.
Keep building the community clusters that work. Anglo, Francophone, and Spanish-speaking olim concentrated into the proven Beit Shemesh / Ra'anana / Modi'in / Netanya pattern retain at materially higher rates than scattered placements. This isn't new knowledge - it is unevenly applied.
One more detail, less talked about than it should be: Israel has now drilled for a possible mass-arrival scenario - an emergency Aliyah of thousands of Jews in a single week. That is not a fantasy. That is a country actively preparing to absorb its people.
And it should be: when the mayor of New York rescinds the IHRA definition of antisemitism on his first day in office, vetoes legislation to protect Jewish students at schools within his first four months, and his administration confirms it has no codified definition of antisemitism at all, American Jews are paying attention. So is Paris. So is London. So is Sydney. The Diaspora is reading the room.
For the first time since the 1990s, every Western Diaspora is contributing meaningful numbers. For the first time, the financial math is structurally on the side of moving home. For the first time, the question facing Israel is not how to attract olim but how to absorb them at the scale they are now ready to come.
That is not a problem to manage. That is a future to build. The door is open wider than it has ever been. Come home.
Ronn Torossian is an American-Israeli public relations, author and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) expert.