December 28, 2010

by Robyn Rosen

The number of people moving to Israel from Britain has gone down by 11 per cent.

A total of 756 people made aliyah this year, 11 per cent less than 2009, when 853 people moved from Britain.

A spokesman from the Jewish Agency, which released the figures today, said: "One has to look at the bigger picture. You cannot base a trend on one year. It's still a very large number compared with before the 21st century. I wouldn't read into it."

All together, 16,465 people around the world moved to Israel in 2010, 16 per cent higher than the previous year.

The number of North American Jews rose from 3,767 in 2009 to 3,980 in 2010 while Venezuela saw the biggest proportional increase of 284 per cent from 38 olim in 2009 to 146 in 2010.

Figures also rose in olim from India, France, Belgium, Argentina and Switzerland but decreased from countries including Spain, Chile, South Africa and Holland.