1990s post-Soviet aliyah

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Aliyah
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Yishuv Sabra Yerida Jewish refugees History of the Jews in the Land of Israel Demographic history of Palestine (region) Historical Jewish population Yom HaAliyah
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In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and for just over a decade thereafter, a particularly large number of Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. The majority of these emigrants made aliyah, while a sizable amount immigrated to various Western countries. This wave of Jewish migration followed the 1970s Soviet aliyah, which began after the Soviet government lifted the ban on the country's refuseniks, most of whom were Jews who had been denied permission to leave the country.

Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6 million Soviet Jews and their relatives left the country.^[1] About 979,000, or 61%, were received by Israel under the Law of Return, which allows Jews and their non-Jewish spouses to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. Another 325,000 and 219,000 immigrated to the United States and Germany, respectively.^[2][3] According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 26% of olim and olot from the former Soviet Union did not have their Jewishness recognized by the halakhic definition, but were still eligible for Israeli citizenship due to patrilineal Jewish descent or through marriage to a Jew.^[4] While most of the immigration wave was made up of Ashkenazi Jews, a significant proportion of Mizrahi Jews also made aliyah from the Soviet Union's Asian territories during this time, such as the Mountain Jews, the Georgian Jews, and the Bukharan Jews, among others. The overwhelming majority of these immigrants were successfully integrated into the Israeli economy: in 2012, the average salary of Israelis originating from the post-Soviet aliyah was comparable to that of born-and-raised Israelis.^[5]