Official estimates of Israelis living in Berlin range from 5,000 to more than 15,000. Counting is complicated because German officials do not consider those with European passports outsiders, and Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics does not record as emigrants anyone who returns to visit within a year.

Asaf Moses, 32, said there were “no Israelis around” when he moved to Berlin a decade ago, but now he could hardly walk a mile from home “without picking up some Hebrew from the sidewalk.” There are at least three Israeli restaurants in Prenzlauer Berg, a central neighborhood near a synagogue and Jewish cemetery. What began as a casual monthly book exchange over coffee has grown into a Hebrew lending library with 2,000 volumes.

“Our community is growing every day,” said Diana Reizman, 32, who moved to Berlin as a student and now owns Elfenbein, a kosher cafe and caterer. “Israel will always be the place where you go when you have nowhere else to go, but eventually you have to pay your bills.”

Sergio DellaPergola, a leading demographer, said emigration was actually lower now than at any time in Israel’s 66-year history, and also lower than in comparably developed countries. Far more people left Israel in the 1970s and 1980s, when inflation skyrocketed, he said, adding that today, 70 percent of Israel’s Jews and nearly all of its Arab citizens are native-born and thus less likely to leave.

But facts seem to matter much less than feelings.

The brouhaha began Sept. 29 with the creation of a Hebrew-language Facebook page called “Olim L’Berlin,” the very name of which some found offensive for appropriating a Hebrew word — literally, “those who go up” — usually reserved for immigrants to Israel. (There are now also “Olim L’Prague,” “Olim L’Detroit” and even “Olim L’Mars” pages.) It intensified Oct. 4 with the posting on that page of the supermarket receipt, which included pudding topped with cream for .19 euros, or 24 cents. Israel’s beloved version, under the brand name Milky, goes for three times that price (and the cup contains 40 percent less).