Why more Jewish people in Switzerland are considering a move to Israel

Police monitor the entrance to a synagogue in the week following the anti-Semitic attack on a 50-year-old man in spring 2024. Keystone / Michael Buholzer

Anti-Semitism is not the main reason the Swiss community in Israel is growing. But more and more Jewish people are thinking about emigrating for this reason.

The Swiss community in Israel is growing by several hundred people each year. In 2023, there were an additional 833 Swiss citizens living in the Middle East state – a combination of new emigrants and births registered to Swiss nationals.

That said, emigration is on the rise, Ralph Steigrad said in an interview with the platform Audiatur Online.

Steigrad, a member of the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA), pointed to figures from the Swiss consulate in Israel. The Swiss foreign ministry did not comment on the figures.

Hostility driving emigration?

“I would have expected many Swiss people in Israel to return to Switzerland after October 7 [2023],” Steigrad said in the interview. However, according to the Swiss consulate in Tel Aviv, immigration to Israel has increased slightly. “With the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe, the Swiss community is likely to continue to grow,” he added.

Is a rise in anti-Semitism in Switzerland compelling Jewish people to leave? Increasing numbers of Jewish people from France have been emigrating to Israel in recent years, for example, because they no longer feel safe and at home in light of anti-Semitic attacks and discrimination. In Switzerland, emigration at such a scale would be a new development. The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) will publish 2024 statistics on the Swiss Abroad at the end of March.

Switzerland ‘no longer a special case’

New figures are already available on the level of anti-Semitism in Switzerland. The recently published Report on Anti-Semitism 2024External link shows just how much it has grown since October 7, 2023. “Anti-Semitism in Switzerland… has visibly prevailed against all resistance and taken a frightening turn. What was thought and discussed in private before October 7, 2023, has washed to the surface,” said the organisation behind the report, the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG).

“It has always been assumed that Switzerland is a special case when it comes to anti-Semitism – that it’s different than other European countries,” said Jonathan Kreutner, general secretary of the SIG. “That is no longer the case.”

Terror attacks triggered hatred

Verbal abuse, spitting, physical assault and even attacks on life and limb were previously only “distant occurrences happening abroad”, but are now a reality in Switzerland, according to the report.

The Report on Anti-Semitism 2024

The annual anti-Semitism report provides a thematic, chronological overview of the incidents included in the statistics. August 2024 was a conspicuous month, with a wide range of attacks on the Jewish community in Switzerland.

Two men attacked a young Jewish man in Davos, slapping him in the face, spitting at him and shouting “free Palestine”. On a mountain railway, a man described a Jewish family as “a real plague, like locusts”. In Zurich, someone tried to set fire to a synagogue. In canton Aargau, a footballer said to a Jewish football team: “They should burn you all, you fucking Jews!”  In universities, on the streets and in alternative pubs, a slogan is doing the rounds that can also be understood as a call for Israel’s erasure: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. At the same time, Israel’s actions in Gaza are being compared to the Holocaust.

“2024 saw the largest number of anti-Semitic incidents in Switzerland that we have ever had,” said Kreutner. He also noticed that the largest wave of assaults against Jewish people in Switzerland in 2023 took place immediately after the Hamas terror attacks, that is, before Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip led to antipathy towards Israel within sections of the population.

“At that time, it was still clear to everyone that Jewish people were the victims,” he said, “and it was precisely this opportunity that some people took to act on their subliminal hatred of Jewish people”.

In the years prior to 2023, the authors of the anti-Semitism report were able to attribute most peaks in the number of anti-Semitic incidents to specific events: in other words, incidents that attracted attention or caused resentment and triggered anti-Semitic reactions.

Knife attack in Zurich a turning point

Since then, however, long-term triggers have dominated, according to the report. “This began with the coronavirus pandemic, then the war in Ukraine, and since October 7, 2023, the Hamas attack and the escalation of the war in the Middle East have been the main triggers”.

In particular, a knife attack on an Orthodox Jewish man by a radicalised 15-year-old from Zurich with a Tunisian background in March 2024 was a turning point for many. The victim was seriously injured but survived. The incident resulted in significant changes for the lives of Jewish people in Switzerland, said the SIG: “For many people today, being identified as Jewish is too high a risk.”

According to Kreutner, Swiss authorities and politicians have reacted quickly and decisively to the flare-up in anti-Semitism. Justice Minister Beat Jans of the left-wing Social Democratic Party condemned the knife attack in Zurich “with a clarity that I have never heard before”, said Kreutner, while Transport Minister Albert Rösti of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party found “the right words” at a memorial service. “We share your grief, we share your horror,” said Rösti, speaking on Switzerland’s behalf after October 7.

Police protect a synagogue in Zurich, March 2024. Keystone / Michael Buholzer

Security expenditure was also quickly adjusted to the changing reality, added Kreutner.

Growth in ‘avoidance behaviours’

Nevertheless, according to a study by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), the subjective sense of security among Jewish people has deteriorated. One manifestation of this is that more Jewish people are thinking of leaving Switzerland. It is one of the ‘avoidance behaviours’ that ZHAW criminologists were able to identify among the Jewish population: members hide their Jewishness – and think about emigrating.

The proportion of Jews who are considering emigrating has risen by 10% in just one year, to 28.4%.

However, there has not yet been a wave of migration like the one that followed the Six-Day War in 1967 or after Israel’s economic growth at the turn of the millennium. The reasons behind the steady growth of the Swiss community in Israel are more complex than elsewhere.

For one thing, the migration of this community is very circular, with many returning after some time. This is another reason the number of Jewish people in Switzerland has remained constant for years, at around 18,000, despite continuous emigration.

With the exception of 2023, net migration in recent years has always been lower than 100 people.

“Everyone has their own story,” Steigrad told Audiatur Online, explaining that the community is very mixed. “Some move for professional reasons; others marry in Israel; and still others feel culturally or religiously drawn to the country. And some immigrants are ultra-orthodox Swiss Jews who have little contact with the rest of the community.”

On the other hand, the birth rate among Swiss women in Israel is also higher than elsewhere. A glance at the population pyramid of this community indicates a higher number of children compared to the average for the Swiss Abroad.

The biggest driver of the statistical growth curve, therefore, is to be found among the emigrants themselves and is not an obvious consequence of rising resentment against Jewish people. 

However, the issue has “taken root at a much higher level”, writes the SIG. As in previous years, the organisation is calling for “effective measures”, now more urgently than ever before.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl. Adapted from German by Katherine Price/gw.