More than 600,000 Israelis live elsewhere.
And Israel wants them back.
For the first time, government officials are traveling around the United States and Canada — where a majority of Israeli immigrants live — to talk to native Israelis, find out why they haven’t returned and help them connect to employment opportunities that could entice them to come home.
The minister of immigrant absorption and his staff visited the Bay Area last week as part of the six-city campaign that also included New York, Toronto, Boston, Los Angeles and Miami.
Ze’ev Boim, a Kadima party member who was appointed minister of immigrant absorption in April, said encouraging Israelis to move back is a central goal of his office. That 600,000 Israelis — or eight percent of the country’s population — do not live in its boundaries is a problem, he said.
About 6,000 return each year. Boim wants to double that number. And he thinks it’s a feasible goal.
“Israelis still live like Israelis in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley,” Boim said. “They have more possibilities to succeed in North America, but the fact they remain in an Israeli way of life is something unique.”
According to a study conducted by the Absorption Ministry in 2005, 46 percent of the Israelis living abroad said that employment is the most important factor in their decision to return, before education and housing opportunities.
As such, the conference last week invited representatives from many companies, including Intel, to tell Israelis about job openings in their home country.
The minister of immigrant absorption said he’s worried less about why Israelis left and more about why they haven’t returned.
“I’m asking people: In what ways can I convince you to come back? Tell me!” he said. “What can Israel do to ease your way?”
He said the government is prepared to take their concerns seriously, and predicts his trip could lead to changes in tax and military policies. When he returns, he plans to compile a report of what he’s learned and share it with other members of the Knesset.
Sarit Burstein, an Israeli native who has lived in the Bay Area for six years, hopes that Boim tells Knesset members about the concerns of young Israeli parents with American-born children.
“My children are American,” she said of her two sons, 7 and 4. “Even though they speak Hebrew, they don’t read or write it, and it’s a problem if they get to Israel and need to fit in school. There’s no program for Hebrew as a second language in Israel.”
Boim is worried Israelis do not entertain the idea of returning for fear of being ostracized if they do. In the ’60s and ’70s, Boim said, people who moved out of Israel were viewed as traitors. They were shunned and called insulting names.
This attitude has totally changed, Boim said.
“The most important thing now is for me to say ‘I represent the government, and I want to tell you that you are very welcome in Israel,'” he added. “I want to give them the feeling that they are wanted in Israel, and let them know that someone will take care to ease their way back.”