Russian Jewish emigration spans movements from the Russian Empire through the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet states. It unfolded in waves, shaped by legal status (Pale of Settlement), violence and discrimination (pogroms, quotas), ideology (Zionism, socialism), Cold War politics, and – later -- economic restructuring and new national borders. Over the past two centuries, about 4,250,000 Jews left Russia, of whom approximately 1,300,000 (30.6%) emigrated to Palestine and the State of Israel, and the remaining roughly 2,950,000 went to other countries of the world, mainly in the West.[1]
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Major waves of Russian Jewish emigrationMajor waves of Russian Jewish emigration
Late imperial exodus (1860–1914)Late imperial exodus (1860–1914)
The Jews “moved” to Russia without leaving their homes. In 1772, as a result of the first partition of Poland, about 60,000 Jews found themselves within the empire.[2]
Jewish emigration from Russia became noticeable in the first half of the 19th century and intensified in the 1860s. Its main destinations were Israel and the United States. In total, between 30,000 and 50,000 Jews emigrated from Russia during this period -- possibly more.
1881 was the year of pogroms following the assassination of Emperor Alexander II and became a turning point in the history of the Jews of the Russian Empire. Jewish emigration, once a marginal phenomenon, became a factor of paramount importance, one that significantly influenced the history of the entire Jewish people. The number of those leaving grew year by year and reached its peak during the expulsion of Jews from Moscow in 1891.
The pogroms of the early 20th century -- the Kishinev and Gomel pogroms in 1903, and especially the pogroms of 1905–1906 linked to the First Russian Revolution -- caused a sharp rise in emigration during this period. In total, during the third and fourth waves (1881–1914), roughly 2 million Jews left Russia: about 80% went to the United States, and the rest to Canada, Argentina, the Land of Israel (more than 40,000), South Africa, England, France, Germany, and other countries.
After that, the proportion of Russian Jewry in relation to the global Jewish population began to steadily decline, reaching 39% by 1914.[3]
Interwar & early Soviet period (1917–1939)Interwar & early Soviet period (1917–1939)
Driven by the upheavals of revolution and civil war, redrawn borders (notably in Poland and the Baltic states), and modest legal and clandestine flows in the 1920s, emigration was ultimately curtailed as the USSR consolidated and sealed its exits.
During this period, more than 300,000 Jews left Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union, mainly in 1918–1922. Emigration to Palestine continued legally until 1936; about 30,000 Russian Jews moved there in that time. Most Jews who left Russia in the first years after the Revolution settled in Western Europe. Thus, in Germany in 1918 there were about 100,000 Russian Jews (including natives of the Polish provinces). Their number gradually declined, reaching 63,500 by 1925 and continuing to fall thereafter. A significant share of the Russian Jews who had emigrated to Germany after the Revolution moved on in the late 1920s–early 1930s to France, and later to the United States. In all, about 100,000 Russian Jews emigrated to the U.S. during this period.
The period that began at the end of World War II and lasted about a decade was marked by substantial Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, which, however, chiefly involved Jews holding Polish, Czechoslovak, or Romanian citizenship. In all, at least 325,000 people emigrated then; apparently only a small share were Soviet citizens who legally left for the West and for Israel. About 20,000–25,000 Jews—citizens of the USSR—emigrated illegally, among them hundreds of servicemen from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, about a thousand Chabad Hasidim, and several thousand who left with the help of the organization Brikha (Heb. “flight”), which operated in the Soviet Union in 1944–1946.
Thaw and Refuseniks (1960s–1980s)Thaw and Refuseniks (1960s–1980s)
Emigration to Israel, halted by the Soviet authorities after the 1967 Six-Day War, was resumed by them in September 1968, primarily for propaganda and intelligence purposes. But the move slipped out of their control and turned into a massive exodus of Soviet Jewry. Soon, however, the repatriation of Soviet Jews to Israel shifted into emigration to the West, mainly to the United States. Of the 294,000 Jews who left the Soviet Union at that time, more than half (168,000) arrived in Israel, while the remainder (126,000) chose to go West, largely to North America. [4]
After the 1967 Six-Day War, Jewish identity in the USSR revived; Hebrew circles spread as anti-Zionist propaganda and quotas pushed many to seek emigration. Those denied -- refuseniks such as Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky, Ida Nudel, Vladimir Slepak, and Yosef Begun—faced reprisals, and the 1970 Leningrad hijacking affair galvanized the global “Let My People Go” campaign. International pressure produced policy shifts (a surge of exit visas, the brief “diploma tax,” and the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment) and large departures to Israel via Vienna and to the U.S. via Rome. Khrushchev’s “Thaw,” which also continued into the early years of the Brezhnev–Kosygin era, affected emigration to Israel as well -- 6,916 Soviet Jews arrived there during this period. In addition, about 25,000 Jews left for Poland in 1956–1959, most of whom soon repatriated to Israel. [1]
Post-Soviet “Great aliyah” (late 1980s–2000s)Post-Soviet “Great aliyah” (late 1980s–2000s)
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With Perestroika and the USSR’s collapse, exit controls lift. Over a million people from the former USSR move to Israel; large numbers to Germany (Kontingentflüchtlinge program), US, Canada.
In the late 1980s, two events dramatically changed the scale and direction of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union: first, the U.S. State Department’s decision (October 1989) to stop issuing visas to Soviet Jews in Vienna -- the transit hub for emigrants for many years -- requiring them instead to apply at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow; and second, the collapse of the Soviet Union. These developments triggered a massive surge in emigration, which peaked in 1990–1991.
In all, 1,670,000 Jews left the Soviet Union and the CIS during this period: 1,060,000 went to Israel and 610,000 to the West (to the United States -- more than 350,000 Jews and their family members; the remaining ≈260,000 to Germany, Canada, Australia, France, and other countries).
21st-Century Movements21st-Century Movements
In the twenty-first century, emigration continues in smaller but steady streams driven by education, careers, and politics, with episodic spikes during regional crises -- especially after 2014 and again after 2022. Routes remain familiar: to Israel under the Law of Return, and to the EU, the UK, and North America via skilled-migration channels and family reunification. Decisions are shaped by enduring push-and-pull factors: on the push side, legal segregation and violence in the imperial era, the curtailment of religious and cultural life in the USSR, professional glass ceilings, political instability, and local antisemitism; on the pull side, safety and civil rights, Zionism and statehood, economic mobility, family networks, and legal pathways such as Israel’s Law of Return, U.S. Lautenberg provisions, and Germany’s quota policies.
The largest wave of migration from the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union is the emigration from Russia following the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been. Estimates suggest that between 500,000 and 1.3 million people left Russia within the first year of the war. According to The Bell (as of July 2024)[3], around 650,000 Russians have emigrated since early 2022. Among the leading destinations were visa-free countries such as Armenia (about 110,000 people), Kazakhstan (80,000), and Georgia (74,000). Israel also ranked among the top destinations, with roughly 80,000 Russians resettling there under the Law of Return.
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/206/kabinet.htm#_ftn5
- ↑ https://imwerden.de/pdf/evrejskaya_emigratsiya_iz_rossii_1881-2005_2008__ocr.pdf
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://thebell.io/posle-nachala-voyny-iz-rossii-uekhali-i-ne-vernulis-bolshe-700-tysyach-chelovek-issledovanie-the-bel
- ↑ https://litbook.ru/article/2878/