Masked radial pro-Hamas demonstrators in France on November 16, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect.

For generations, the movement of the Jewish people has served as a silent barometer for the stability of certain countries. It is a phenomenon that transcends simple demographics. When the Jewish community begins to leave a country where it had been settled for some time in significant numbers, they are not merely seeking better economic utility or responding to spiritual yearnings; they are signaling a major cultural and political shift that can precede a wider systemic failure.

To understand the future of Europe, Russia, and elsewhere, we must look at the benchmark of migration — and what it tells us about the crises of today.

How so?

When significant developments occur in the political arena, leaders and journalists often scramble for insights into whether a major shift is on the horizon. The Jewish community, however, asks a more visceral set of questions: What does this new reality promise? Is this the end of the chapter for Jews in this place? What is the right time to leave? Because Jews historically link uncertainty and suspected danger to migration, their movement becomes a signal — a mirror reflecting the strength and timing of a major political crisis.

History confirms that Jewish migration is not just a reaction to a crisis, but a predictor of its depth. It is a “canary in the coal mine.”

It is important to distinguish between routine migration and a mass migration, an avalanche. It is a sudden and unusually looking mass migration that is a signal of a terminal societal breakdown. And to capture that, we must establish a benchmark.

Historically, when a society is on the brink of or undergoing a total transformation or failure, we have seen between 50% and 75% of the Jewish population migrate within a five-to-ten-year window. The sample is small, but these figures are not speculative. They are the markers of history’s most significant ruptures:

• Nazi Germany (1933–1939): In the seven years following the rise of the Third Reich, 50% of the initial 503,000 Jews left the country.
• The Former Soviet Union (1989–1995): As the Soviet empire crumbled, 53% of its 1.5 million Jews migrated within seven years.
• North Africa (1960–1969): In Morocco and Tunisia, 72% of the Jewish population departed within a decade. In Algeria, that figure reached a staggering 75%.

These numbers represent more than just a move; they represent the liquidation of a presence. When 50% to 75% of a community leaves in a single decade, it is a definitive statement that the social contract in that nation has been broken. This is the benchmark against which all modern migration must be measured.

What does the oracle say about today’s realities then? In the aftermath of the October 7 attacks and the subsequent surge in global antisemitism, the media has often spoken in apocalyptic terms about the future of Jews in Europe and the West.

Questions like “Could it happen here?” have returned to the forefront of communal discourse across all Diaspora communities. Yet, if we look at the hard data of actual migration toward Israel, the “oracle” is telling a surprisingly different story.

Despite the ongoing conflicts and the visible rise in hostility, we are not seeing a mass movement of Jews of the Diaspora out of their countries at mass levels.

In Western Europe, the numbers of Jewish immigrants, to Israel and elsewhere, remain remarkably low. As of 2025, the projected percentage of would-be migrants over a seven-year period for the United Kingdom is only 3%. In France, a country often featured as the epicenter of European Jewish anxiety, the figure is 7%. Germany and the Netherlands sit at a mere 2% and 1% respectively. These figures are a far cry from the 50-75% threshold that signaled the end of Jewish life in 1930s Germany or 1960s Algeria.

In Russia, the initial shock of 2022 saw a spike where 68% of the population were considered would-be migrants — a figure that sat squarely within the benchmark of collapse. However, by 2025, that number had plummeted to 17%. Similarly, in Ukraine, the 2022 figure of 62% has dropped to just 7% by 2025.

All of this suggests that, for all the very real anxieties and the genuine rise in antisemitic incidents, the Jewish communities in the West still perceive a level of underlying stability in their host nations that is not reflected in the headlines.

If Jewish migration is a mirror of world peace, the current data suggests that while the mirror is cracked, the frame has not yet shattered. The mass exodus that characterizes the end of a chapter is simply not happening in London, Paris, or Berlin.

Equally importantly, the predictive power of this data remains a warning. The benchmark exists so that we can recognize the abnormal when it arrives. The fact that we have not reached the 50% threshold in Europe is categorically not an invitation for complacency; it is a baseline for measurement.

By monitoring these levels and intensities of migration and societal turmoil, we gain the ability to see the strength and timing of political shifts before they fully manifest. The oracle may be quiet for now, but its history tells us that when it speaks, the rest of the world ignores it at its own peril. Because Jewish migration is not about Jews, it is about the rest.

Dr. Daniel Staetsky is an expert in Jewish demography and statistics. He is based in Cambridge, UK.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Earlier this week, Israel remembered the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust, along with those who valiantly fought the Nazis.

Israel learned from the Holocaust that we must always remain vigilant, and this remains an absolute survival directive, living as we do next to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which, like the Nazis, celebrates the murder of Jews and Israelis.

One of the terrorists released by Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages in last year’s Hamas extortion deal was a Palestinian terrorist who murdered 12 people. He was expelled to Egypt, where he died from an illness last week. The mass murderer is now being eulogized by Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials as exemplifying the values cherished by all Palestinians.

The terrorist, Riyad Al-Amour, was no exception.

The PA honored the terrorist with a “mourning tent” — which was visited by top officials, including Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub.

Official PA TV reporter: “The Fatah Movement, the Ramallah and El-Bireh District, the [PA-funded] Prisoners’ Club, the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners’ [Affairs] … set up a mourning tent for Martyr and released prisoner deported to Egypt Riyad Al-Amour, who died as a Martyr…”

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “The most sacred thing in the eyes of the Palestinians is those who sacrificed their lives and their freedom – our Martyrs.”

[Official PA TV News, April 9, 2026]

Fatah issued an official statement revering the terrorist as “an example of sacrifice, courage, and perseverance” who was imprisoned by Israel since he “did not hesitate to fulfill his national duty.” [emphasis added]

Posted text: “Fatah announces with sorrow the death of released deported prisoner Riyad Al-Amour…
Al-Amour died while being distanced from his homeland, after a path of struggle in which he constituted an example of sacrifice, courage, and perseverance.

…

Martyr Al-Amour joined Fatah in his youth and added that he did not hesitate to fulfill his national duty against the occupation until he was imprisoned in the occupation’s prisons, where he spent 23 years.

Fatah expressed its sincere condolences to the family…

High-level Fatah officials also mourned the terrorist on social media:

Posted text:“Fatah Central Committee members Abbas Zaki and Tawfiq Tirawi expressed their condolences over the death of released prisoner Riyad Al-Amour during a visit to the mourners’ house in Bethlehem.

The delegation expressed its deep sorrow over the death as a Martyr of Al-Amour, and emphasized that the sacrifice of the prisoners [i.e., terrorists] will remain present in the hearts of our people and that the struggle for freedom and independence must continue.”

[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, April 5, 2026]

The family of Al-Amour — a “Pay-for-Slay” millionaire — will now have to wait and see if they will qualify for continued payments as family members of a “Martyr killed resisting the occupation,” since many PA officials also libeled Israel as being responsible for his death.

The Palestinian salute to Al-Amour is shameless, but as we have seen time and time again, for the PA and its leadership, terrorism is never something to be embarrassed about or part of one’s past to run away from.

On the contrary, in the PA’s “terrocracy,” the more you kill, the greater the respect you are given in life — and in death.

An additional homage to Al-Amour was made by Fatah’s “Shabiba” youth movement:

Fatah Deputy Chairman and Fatah Central Committee member Mahmoud Al-Aloul: “These Martyrs, Rashida [Mughrabi], and Riyad [Al-Amour], are among the patient ones fighting for their people, seeking freedom and independence for this Palestinian people.” …

Fatah Shabiba Youth Movement Nablus District Coordinator Rawhi Oudeh: “The message is a message of loyalty to their sacrifices, and a message of loyalty to keep their wills, and it is also a message that if Rashida and Riyad have departed in body, they will remain as a path, an idea, and an essence in the eyes, hearts, and conscience of the Fatah youth.”

[Official PA TV News, April 4, 2026]

Itamar Marcus is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Ahron Shapiro is a contributor to PMW, where a version of this article first appeared.