Tel Aviv - Once constant, the stream of immigrants to Israel is dwindling 60 years after the foundation of the Jewish state in 1948: In 2007, less than 20,000 people came to set up a new life in Israel, according to the country's central statistics office. Numbers have declined even further in the current year, with only 3,424 new immigrants in the first quarter - bringing immigration levels down to those of the time before the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
At the time, the end of the communist bloc prompted an influx of almost one million people to Israel, mainly from the former Soviet Union.
"The number of people who leave Israel now approaches the number of immigrants," according to immigration ministry spokeswoman Meital Noy.
The ministry is now seeking out new target groups in order to counter the declining trend in immigration.
"We are coming home for Israel's 60th birthday", the latest campaign calls on Israelis abroad and on former immigrants who left Israel to return home.
Returnees are courted with enticements such as special offers for employment and health insurance deals, and Jewish doctors have been promised a bonus payment of 60,000 US dollars to immigrate to Israel in the anniversary year.
Up to 700,000 Israelis are currently living abroad, about 450,000 of them in the US, according to immigration ministry estimates.
Jewish immigration strikes powerful chords in Israel and it has both political and emotional significance. In Hebrew it is called "Aliya" - ascension. By contrast, Jews emigrating from Israel are called "Yordim" - those who descend from a better place.
They also used to be seen as traitors as emigration has always been perceived as a threat to Israel's continued existence.
Jewish immigration, especially from Eastern Europe, actually began long before the foundation of Israel in response to anti-Jewish pogroms and the growing strength of the Zionist movement in the late 1800s.
At the time, Palestine was still under Ottoman rule, which ended in 1917 when Britain assumed a mandate over the region which lasted up to independence.
Under the British mandate, immigrants initially came especially from Russia and Poland, and immigration took place in five large waves.
The last one between 1929 and 1939 brought almost 200,000 Jews, among them many who were fleeing from Nazi Germany to escape the Holocaust, in which ultimately more than 6 million Jews were killed.
Responding to pressure from its Arab partners, Britain curtailed Jewish immigration to Israel from 1939 - a policy which increased the hardship of Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany, prompting many to try to reach Palestine illegally.
After Israel's foundation on May 14, 1948, however, the doors were finally open to Jewish immigrants who mostly came from European and Arab countries.
From Europe alone, about 600,000 - most of them survivors of the Holocaust - came between 1948 and 1970, and Israel's population rose from 657,000 to more than 3 million by 1973.
While Israel pursued its development with what is still recalled as a pioneer spirit, the foundation of the Jewish state signified a catastrophe for the Palestinians - more than 700,000 Arabs resident in Palestine lost their homes in the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, either by expulsion or as refugees.
In Israel, meanwhile, each group of immigrants had to face prejudices and resentment against their individual ethnic backgrounds. The German "Yekkes" were regarded as tidy and punctual, but also as bullheaded and without a sense of humour.
By contrast, immigrants from Morocco were portrayed as uneducated and prone to violence. And for decades, Jews of North African and Middle Eastern origin - the Sephardim - complained about discrimination at the hands of what they perceived as the European Jewish elite, the Ashkenazim.
"Today, Jews are immigrating to Israel out of free will and for ideological rather than for economic reasons," said Noy.
New immigrants could be attracted from Europe in the wake of new anti-Semitic tendencies there, especially in France, Noy said.
"We have to do everything possible also in the future in order to continue to help Jews to come to Israel," she added.
