Why We Don’t Stay: The Post-Israel Aliyah Dilemma
In the last few years, there has been a trend of post seminary and yeshiva students making aliyah right after their year in Israel. This past year, I attended Midreshet Lindenbaum and watched as twenty out of my sixty classmates stayed in Israel to do sherut le’umi, army service or begin pursuing their undergraduate degrees. Many of them even uprooted their plans to attend prestigious colleges in America to stay in Israel.
This upward movement in aliyah triggered the formation of programs for students to have an easier transition into life in Israel, including Lindenbaum’s sherut sheli and mechina program in collaboration with Garin Tzabar, MMY’s shana bet-bet and Orayta’s work-in-progress hesder program. The Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, in collaboration with the Jewish Agency for Israel, helped bring 450 young teens to Israel this past summer to draft into the IDF. Even YU, an institution which serves American students, is clearly aware of this rising trend in aliyah and has created programs through the Shevet Glaubach Center to help students leverage their American undergraduate degrees for successful careers in Israel.
Yet despite the copious infrastructure that exists to help young people succeed in Israel, many students who developed a deep love of Israel during their gap years and hope to eventually live there nonetheless choose to delay their aliyah. At YU, I’ve come to realize that there are many students like myself experiencing the same dilemma; they wanted to make aliyah, and they had the support to do it — but they didn’t. Many Israelis will ask Americans why they haven’t made aliyah yet, and I’m asking the same: Why did these students choose not to make aliyah? After thinking about this question for some time, I have come to identify three main reasons why I think students who want to make aliyah after their year in Israel choose not to.
1. Israeli Economics
Everything in Israel is so expensive. According to Masa Israel, the cost of living in Israel can be 20–40% higher than in American cities. From everyday necessities like groceries, rent, transportation and healthcare to recreational activities like entertainment and eating out, expenses add up quickly. Buying a car can cost nearly double its American counterpart once taxes are included, and gas can reach as much as $10 a gallon! Additionally, the current exchange rate in October 2026 stands at approximately ₪3.12 per U.S. dollar, a significant decrease from October 2025, with a rate of ₪3.45 per dollar. This continuous appreciation of the shekel means that Americans receive fewer shekels for every dollar they exchange, making everyday expenses in Israel more costly for those relying on American income or savings.
2. American College and Undergraduate Degrees
By earning an undergraduate or graduate degree in the United States, young Americans may have access to higher-paying career opportunities, including positions with international companies that allow them to work remotely from Israel while earning a salary in U.S. dollars. Since the dollar is worth more than the Israeli new shekel, this can offer a financial advantage. For example, the average American pediatrician earns over $250,000 annually, compared with approximately ₪822,000 in Israel, equivalent to roughly $207,000. Other careers are similar, and this salary gap illustrates why some young Americans view completing their education and establishing their careers in the United States as a way to achieve greater financial security before moving to Israel.
Additionally, many Americans view an American undergraduate or graduate degree as a form of insurance or a fail-safe. When considering aliyah, they often worry about what might happen if things don’t work out as planned. What if adjusting to Israeli society proves more difficult than expected? What if the cost of living becomes too overwhelming, or life in Israel simply isn’t what they imagined? An Israeli degree may limit one’s job prospects to options in Israel, given that American employers may be less familiar with Israeli universities and their qualifications. Having an American degree provides a safety net: if these students eventually decide to return to the United States, they have a familiar and potentially valuable qualification to help them enter the American job market and support themselves financially.
Beyond the financial benefits of attending college in America, many young Americans simply don’t want to miss out on the traditional American college experience. They want to experience city life, explore the country, walk across a beautiful campus like they’ve seen in the movies and enjoy a big college social scene. Recreating that same experience in Israel can be difficult. The language and culture are different, the American student community is much smaller and many Israeli students are significantly older than their American counterparts. According to The Times of Israel, Israeli women typically serve in the army for two years and men for three (although those who choose hesder programs may serve for up to five years). Given the prevalence of delaying one’s degree until after completing one’s army or national service, many students enter university at a different stage of life than Americans who begin college immediately after graduating high school. This creates a reality in which Israeli college communities are less permanent and tight-knit than those in American universities.
3. Family
Students want to make aliyah, but what if they don’t have any biological family there? Moving to another country by yourself and leaving your entire family behind is extremely difficult and emotionally taxing. Some may also feel that they are abandoning their family and putting strain on their daily family dynamic by removing themselves from it.
Additionally, not all parents are supportive of their children making aliyah. They want them to come home to America, go to college, be with their family and maybe reevaluate aliyah at another time. This past summer, I asked the rosh kollel of Camp Morasha and esteemed rosh yeshiva of YU, Rav Mordechai Willig shlit”a, about halacha’s stance on children making aliyah without parental approval. He responded that as long as parents don’t need support or help with their physical health, then the child doesn’t have to stay in America. However, while the halacha permits one to refuse their parents’ requests, the moral dilemma remains. This decision can cause lasting tension, disappointment and damage to families, and it may not warrant taking the step to leave.
After identifying three of the potential reasons as to why some delay their aliyah, the question then becomes how aliyah-oriented students maintain their dream of moving to Israel despite not fulfilling that reality at the present moment. This past summer I asked my friend in Brandeis for advice on how to keep the flame and dream of aliyah alive long enough until it actually comes true. She responded that “after a while, aliyah becomes less of a need and more of a want. It becomes less urgent and easier to wait for.” It is so easy to make excuses for yourself and get caught up in America with college, jobs and a family, and at one point aliyah just won’t make sense anymore. I have so many teachers and neighbors that have wanted to make aliyah their whole lives, but are still evidently living in America. I’m sure you do as well.
So then what do you do to keep the flame for aliyah alive? Some people proudly wear their tanakhiot sandals down the streets of midtown when it’s too cold to be wearing open-toed shoes anymore. (In addition to that, I’ve never seen more people wear Blundstones in my life!) Some people hang up Israeli flags in their dorm or make sure to say the tefilla lesh’lom haMedina and Mi sheberach for chayalim everyday. And some people keep the kotel as their phone screensaver.
As for me, when I walk down the streets of the city, I think about how when I was in Israel I would dream of walking the streets of Manhattan, but now I long to walk the streets of Yerushalayim again. My thoughts constantly wander to my friends doing sherut, my chavruta who recently drafted and the many others like them. I am grateful to be in America, but so envious of what my friends are doing in Israel and of the mere fact that they get to live there. It is difficult to fully appreciate what it means to live in Israel while you are there. Only when you return to America do you begin to realize that something essential is missing from your life.
But perhaps that very feeling of longing is what will ultimately strengthen our resolve to make aliyah. After all, how can we remain in America knowing that a part of us will always be missing, that something will never quite feel right and that we may never feel completely whole until we return to the place we long to call home?
It is possible to hold on to that missing piece, to nurture it and to allow it to grow until the time comes when you are ready to make aliyah. The path may look different for each person, and it may take longer than you once imagined, but that does not make the dream any less meaningful. So many people have held on to their connection to Israel and eventually made aliyah, so why can’t you?
Photo Caption: Three American students at Midreshet Lindenbaum make Aliyah in May 2026
Photo Source: Shosh Benjamin
