leaving the Villa and touching a Raw Nerve

Professor Sergio DellaPergola is one of the most distinguished scholars working on Israeli demographic and migration issues. I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to his critical consideration of my article published in the previous issue of Israel Studies Review. I appreciate his agreement about the political and ideological significance of the question of the Jewish migration balance and about the challenge of arriving at correct estimates of emigration from Israel (3, 8). Making no claim to be a demographer, I am also particularly pleased with his suggestion that demographers and political scientists work collaboratively on these problems. Indeed, I consider this interchange to be a kind of 'serial collabora-tion' that I hope can continue and inspire a wider conversation. DellaPergola has offered numerous criticisms of my article, related to factual claims, presentational techniques, and under-exploited literatures. I will respond to some of these within the space afforded me to allow readers to infer how I would deal with the others. I must begin by suggesting that in the length of his comment, its sometimes sarcastic tone, and its focus on numbers of immigrants and emigrants, we can identify the two real sources of his displeasure. First, DellaPergola disapproves of a nor-mative position regarding Israel that he imputes to me. Second, he fundamentally misconstrues my argument, thereby holding it to inappropriate expectations. As I shall suggest, by stressing the economic determinants that he sees operating on Israeli migrants and potential migrants and by ignoring my focus on the " re-emergence of the 'demographic problem' " (Lustick 2011: 33) and the heated debate in Israel associated with yeridah and the Jewish migration balance, he fails to engage with, but inadvertently corroborates, my primary theses. Although much of his critique is expressed with the vocabulary of the professional social scientist, DellaPergola uses his strongest and most vivid language to appeal to what he believes are the political preferences of our