From Russia to Israel – And Back?

Contemporary Transnational Russian Israeli Diaspora

Vladimir Ze'ev Khanin

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110665208
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du Moyen-Orient

Of about a million Jews that arrived to Israel from the (former) USSR after 1989 some 12% left the country by the end of 2017. It is estimated that about a half of them left "back" for the FSU, and the rest for the USA, Canada and the Western Europe. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of this specific Jewish Israeli Diaspora group through cutting-edge approaches in the social sciences, and examines the settlement patterns of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrants, their identity, social demographic profile, reasons of emigration, their economic achievements, identification, and status vis-à-vis host Jewish and non-Jewish environment, vision of Israel, migration interests and behavior, as well as their social and community networks, elites and institutions. Vladimir Ze'ev Khanin makes a significant contribution to migration theory, academic understanding of transnational Diasporas, and sheds a new light on the identity and structure of contemporary Israeli society. The book is based on the unique statistics from Israeli and other Government sources and sociological information obtained from the author's first of this kind on-going study of Israeli Russian-speaking emigrant communities in different regions of the world.

Chapter 1 Introduction

The modern period in the history of Israel has been marked by a crisis in “melting pot” ideology and practices, as well as final adoption of the norms and principles of multi-culturalism in Israeli society. This, in turn, led to the formation, or strengthening, of the diverse types and models of Israeli identity. In fact, this is true not only for relations between various ethno-confessional groups of Israelis, but also for the situation inside the Israeli Jewish community.

Recent decades have witnessed the formation in Israel of relatively new culturally identifying communities that have acquired their structures in Israel both on the basis of close-knit groups of repatriates (olim, literally meaning “ascenders”, in Hebrew – Jewish returnees from the diaspora to their historical homeland) and their descendants representing certain Jewish communities of the diaspora, and also in the wake of growing diversity of the Israeli social organism structure. Many of these communities, whose existence is completely legitimized in today’s post-modern Israeli society, are characterized by high-level stability. Israeli identity models associated with them are transmitted not only through generations but in some cases get preserved – for a long time or even permanently – among many of those who emigrated from the country at different times.

Unlike other groups of Jewish emigrants from Israel, a practically unexplored example of this process are Russian-speaking Israelis, including those who arrived in the country as a part of the last two waves of mass aliya (Jewish repatriation, literally meaning “ascent” [to the Land of Israel]) from the USSR and post-Soviet countries, but who left Israel for different reasons.

Soviet and Post-Soviet Jewish Emigration and Formation of Russian Jewish Community in Israel

More than a million-strong community of Russian-speaking Israelis, the bulk of whom arrived in the country from the territory of the former USSR with the “Great Aliya” (Jewish repatriation) in the 1990s, left a huge impact on various aspects of Israeli socio-political, cultural, and economic life. Their arrival coincided with the final legitimization of the idea of ​​“multiculturalism” in Israel, and to a large extent contributed to the legitimization of the identity and institutions of the “Russian-Jewish-Israeli” community. Israeli society and its cultural and political establishment reacted relatively calmly to the emergence of a “Russian” immigrant subculture in the country. The shaping of this subculture has been going on since early nineties, and its material dimensions have been repeatedly described by researchers (for instance: Feldman 2003, 125–155, 351–415; Ben-Rafael et al. 2006, 55–78, 119–139; Leshem 2008, 333–360; Khanin et al. 2011).

The first factor was an unprecedented increase in the number of Russian-speaking Israelis. According to official data, over 1.133 million Jewish people and their families¹ arrived in Israel from the USSR and post-Soviet countries from September 1989 to January 2020. Given the natural population fluctuations, fertility (over 300,000) and mortality (approximately 130,000), as well as emigration from the country (over 120,000), the “Russian-speaking” community of Israel still amounted to over 1.1 million people at the beginning of 2020. In addition there are, according to our estimates, about 35–40,000 people of 174,000 repatriates who arrived from the USSR during the previous aliya wave from the USSR from 1969 to 1988 who were alive by early 2020 and consider themselves part of the Russian-speaking community of Israel. Also, in Israel there are currently about 4,000 people who were born in the former USSR but repatriated to Israel from third countries and therefore are not considered “Russian-speaking” Israelis in the official statistics.

The most important condition for the structuring of this community into a certain communal and (sub-)cultural framework was and is concentration of a significant part of new immigrants in relatively few Israeli cities. These are Ashdod, Ashkelon, Haifa, Bat-Yam, Beer-Sheva, Netanya, Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, and some others, where they are represented by large communities (from 40,000 to over 60,000 people). In 30 cities, Russian-speaking repatriates make up more than a fifth of the population, including 10 cities (Ashdod, Bat-Yam, Ashkelon, Kiryat-Yam, Arad, Ma’alot-Tatshikha, Ariel, Sderot, Katsrin, and Bnei-Aish) where their share in the population exceeds one third, and two cities (Ariel and Nof Ha-Galil) where the share of Russian-speaking citizens is already more than 40% (MOIA 2019). We should add to this the phenomenon of concentration of immigrants from the former USSR not only in certain cities, but also in certain neighborhoods and districts. Thus, about a quarter of respondents polled during the 2011 survey said that their “doubly compatriots” constitute either majority or vast majority of the residents of their area, while another quarter claimed that in their area there are about half of them. No significant age differences were recorded between members of these categories of respondents (Leshem 2012). It is easy to see the critical role of community-forming social networks emerging in these places, which have become a kind of “social compensator” for some negative aspects of the “direct absorption” policy of aliya that has justified itself in general.² This situation naturally led to the effect of “cultural self-sufficiency” and creation of psychologically comfortable conditions for the preservation and reproduction of familiar social, cultural, professional, and consumer standards of behavior in regions of high concentration of new repatriates.

One manifestation of this trend was the emergence of a wide “self-help” infrastructure in culture, education, vocational orientation, and social security, as well as the “Russian” business sector. This sector included hundreds of food and book stores, “Russian” restaurants and cafes, medical offices and law firms, construction and consulting companies, clubs, classes, hairdresser salons, interest groups and kindergartens, advertising and travel agencies, etc., and in recent years, start-up companies and hi-tech firms. And at different stages of its development, this sector, according to Remennik (2002), employed up to 25% of new repatriates (cf. Cohen-Goldner and Paserman, 2005).

Various studies conducted at the end of the last decade and in this decade showed that even 15–25 years after the beginning of the “Great Aliya”, Russian-speaking repatriates still preferred to live in “immigrant districts”, and this trend was more noticeable among young people of 18–29 years of age. And 70–90% of respondents said that at home, they speak either two languages ​​or Russian only (Leshem 2008). A November 2010 survey showed that only one third of respondents have family and friends in family relationships with persons who are not immigrants from the former USSR (Mutagim 2010). In addition, a 2011 study demonstrated that at least four out of five of respondents’ closest friends are repatriates or children of repatriates from the former USSR and post-Soviet countries. In fact, among young people aged 18–28 this figure was 3.6. More than 57% of representatives of this age group said that four or all five of their five closest friends came from the former USSR versus almost 70% of 30–44-year-olds and more than 80% of middle-age and old people.

This however does not keep them from feeling quite comfortable in a different environment. According to the same survey, 90% of young people say they speak Hebrew “well” or “fluently”, while the portion of young respondents actively involved in social relations with native Israelis and repatriates of “non-Russian” origin was more than 57%, which is twice higher than the average (28.1%) and four times higher than among older repatriates (14.3%).

The third factor was the use by the natives of the former USSR in Israel of the Russian language as an important community symbol, as well as a living and legitimate means of communication and identification, along with its “Israeli version”, which, according to experts, is already significantly different from the “Russian language of Russians” (Donnitsa-Shmidt 2007, 57–64; Olshtain and Kotik 2000). The same relates to the use of the Russian language not only by the first generation of repatriates but also by representatives of the second and especially “one and a half” generation of Russian-speaking families, for whom, according to researcher of the Russian language phenomenon in Israel and the identity of its young native speakers, Marina Niznik (2010, 6), Russian is no longer their native language but rather their “heritage language”.

The critical question for any immigrant community is whether these steps meet future needs of the “language market”. According to the large-scale studies of Russian-speaking Israelis in 2011–2013, the answer to this question is apparently positive. Thus, according to these studies, from more than a third to almost half of the repatriates from the former USSR prefer to use Russian, or another language of the country of origin, exclusively for family communications, while another quarter prefer to use it as their main language of family communications. From one fifth to about a quarter of the participants in these studies said they use Hebrew and the language of their country of origin to communicate with close relatives, and only 10–12% use only or mostly Hebrew. These naturally made twice the average number in both cases among young people aged 18–29, while among people over 60/65 years old who interact with relatives and friends only, or mostly in Hebrew, they were absent completely. Nevertheless, a high proportion of young respondents who claim Hebrew and Russian as equal languages ​​of communication at their homes confirms the opinion of researchers about the actual formation of sustainable Russian-Hebrew bilingualism not only among young repatriates who arrived in the country relatively recently, but also among the “one and a half” generation that repatriated here in preschool or early school age.

The next factor was the approval of the ideas of community-cultural continuity as an important element of the identity and value system of many repatriates from the former USSR. Thus, studies of recent years, including those conducted with the author’s participation, show that more than 90% respondents consider it “important” or “very important” that their children and grandchildren (already born or those who may appear in the future) speak fluent Russian. More than 80% consider it important or very important that their children and grandchildren were familiar with Russian and/or Russian-Jewish culture, and over 50% support the continued existence of “Russian” schools in Israel. Finally, 70–84% support the continued existence of Russian-language media in Israel along with libraries, theaters, clubs, and other institutions of Russian culture.

It is natural that, in all cases, popularity of these parameters of subcultural identification was directly proportional to age, but among young people, the portion of those who considered it important to support the existence of Russian-language institutions in Israel and to bring their (future) children to the Russian-language culture was 3–4.5 times more than the proportion of those who believed the opposite. Thus, a large-scale representative study of the cultural and political preferences of Russian-speaking Israelis in 2014 showed a high portion of consumption of newspapers, television, radio, and internet resources in Russian. The younger the respondents were, the longer they lived in the country, and the higher their income was, the less expected they were to need Russian-language media. Nevertheless, in 21 out of 22 socio-demographic categories of respondents (divided by gender, age, length of stay in the country, and family income level), a vast majority of respondents answered this question in the affirmative.

The next factor is the involvement of immigrants from the former USSR and their children born after repatriation to Israel in a single Russian-language information space. That, unlike the previous period, contributed to the preservation of opportunities for broad ties with the “country of origin” – Russia and/or other CIS countries. A critical role in this regard was played by the Israeli-based internet sources in Russian, whose rapid development began in the late 1990s (Elias and Zeltser-Shorer 2007). Meanwhile, the same studies showed that we are talking about the cultural needs of the group located, for the most part, within the Israeli Jewish community. This can be a factor in their cultural and political choice but not national identity. In fact, from 60% to almost 80% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union surveyed in 2009–2017 demonstrated a strong Israeli identity.

This specific cultural group was and remains within the framework of the infrastructure of the Russian-speaking community of Israel, whose formation took place in the 1990s. It is contoured by leadership groups in all spheres of the country’s social, political, and economic life; numerous institutions providing specific services and structures of community identification, and finally, an extensi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Emigration of Russian-Speaking Israelis in the Context of Modern Jewish Emigration from Israel
• Chapter 3 Factors, Causes, and Motives for Russian-Jewish Emigration from Israel
• Chapter 4 Israeli Community in Russia: Socioeconomic Structure, Ethnocultural Characteristics, and Demographic Dynamics
• Chapter 5 Identity and Identification of Israeli Citizens in FSU
• Chapter 6 Emigration, Religious Identity, and Culture
• Chapter 7 Organizational Structure and Social Environment of the Israeli Communities in Russia, Ukraine, and Beyond Them
• Chapter 8 Conclusion: Russian Israeli, “Hebrew Israeli”, and World Russian Jewish Diasporas: Conversions and Diversions
• Index of persons
• Index of subjects