In 2024 Israel saw fewer than a million tourists. Last year the numbers rose slightly, to 1.3 million tourist entries. As flights have grown scarcer and shekels more valuable, the cost of tickets has skyrocketed, with a recent study by the Jewish Federations of North America finding that educational trip providers are paying 55 percent more in operating costs than they did before COVID and the October 7 attack.

 

...“If these conditions continue, the field risks losing some of the range that allows Israel educational travel to reach different participants in different ways,” Anna Langer, executive director of the Jewish Federations’ Israel Educational Travel Alliance, said in a statement accompanying the study showing a 55% cost increase. Maintaining the trips, she said, will “require advancing practical solutions that keep high-quality, transformational Israel travel opportunities operationally possible.”

 

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