Israel must fight harder to keep its doctors in the country - editorial

Israel is losing doctors at an alarming rate. It should be doing everything possible to keep them. But it should also recognize an opportunity: Israel can recruit more Jewish doctors from around the world to make aliyah.

The Jerusalem Post recently reported that 1,370 Israeli doctors left the country for more than a year between 2023 and 2025, a 94% increase compared with the equivalent period a decade earlier.

Not every doctor who spends a year abroad is gone for good. Physicians leave for fellowships, research, specialist training, and other reasons before returning. But the trend should concern policymakers. After accounting for returning physicians, Israel recorded a net loss of 509 doctors in 2023 and 2024, roughly five times the annual average of the previous decade.

The government’s first responsibility is obvious: Find out why doctors are leaving and give them reasons to stay.

Israeli physicians work under enormous pressure. The healthcare system must offer competitive conditions, professional advancement, adequate staffing, and a sense that young doctors can build their futures here.

Israel's two-pronged path toward doctor retention

But retention should be only half of Israel’s strategy. The other half should be recruitment.

Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, and Jewish communities worldwide contain doctors, nurses, researchers, therapists, and other healthcare professionals. Some already dream of making aliyah. Others might consider it if Israel made the process easier and they saw a clear opportunity to contribute.

Israel already has an International Medical Aliyah Program, run by Nefesh B’Nefesh with the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, Health Ministry, and Jewish Agency. Its goal is to facilitate the aliyah of 2,000 physicians by 2029 by streamlining licensing and helping doctors find placements.

The government should expand and accelerate that effort.

That means removing unnecessary barriers to recognizing foreign qualifications, expanding professional Hebrew programs, helping immigrants find placements, and assisting families with the practical difficulties of moving countries. Israel should also strengthen incentives for immigrant doctors willing to practice where shortages are most severe, particularly in the North and South.

There is ample precedent.

Former waves of aliyah provide a historical blueprint

Successive waves of aliyah have transformed Israel demographically and professionally. Immigration from the former Soviet Union brought thousands of doctors and nurses, alongside scientists, engineers, musicians, and academics. Their contribution to Israeli medicine, science, and technology is difficult to overstate.

There are encouraging signs. More than 1,100 North Americans made aliyah through Nefesh B’Nefesh in August alone. Approximately 2,700 had arrived since the beginning of 2026, and the organization expects more than 4,000 by year’s end. The current wave includes doctors and nurses.

Imagine a Jewish doctor in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, or Melbourne wondering whether Israel might someday become home. Israel could actively make the case: We need you. We will help you navigate licensing, learn professional Hebrew, and connect with hospitals and communities where your skills can make a difference.

That is not merely immigration policy. It is national planning.

None of this should become an excuse for ignoring why Israeli doctors are leaving.

It would be absurd to recruit a physician from New Jersey while failing to address the conditions driving a physician from Jerusalem abroad. A successful healthcare strategy must make Israel attractive both to the doctor considering aliyah and the Israeli medical student deciding where to build a career.

Nor should aliyah be viewed merely as a mechanism for filling labor shortages. People make aliyah for reasons of identity, family, community, faith, Zionism, and belonging. They are citizens building lives, not numbers on a manpower spreadsheet.

But Zionism has always involved matching individual aspirations with national needs.

Israel needs doctors. There are Jewish doctors around the world who may want to make Israel their home. Connecting the two is a natural proposition for a country that prides itself on creative solutions to difficult problems

The physician crisis is a warning and a call to action

The rise in doctors leaving Israel should serve as a warning and a call to action.

Israel must fight harder to keep the medical professionals it has. At the same time, it should open the door wider to those who want to join them.

A brain drain demands a brain-gain strategy. For Israel, part of that strategy may be waiting in Jewish communities around the world.