I posted this to another thread dealing with the same subject, so I thought I'd post it here to.
A European friend of mine who has traveled and studied the Soviet Union and Russia extensively recently sent an email to me. Here is an excerpt of his remarks:
"In Soviet era, that was even more bureaucratic, but today, it might be easier for some people to emigrate than to move from their home town to Moscow, if only they would get a visa from a foreign country. That is why Israel has been flooded by more and less genuinely Jewish Russian immigrants."
There is no doubt that many Russian Jews made Aliya for genuine reasons. However, many of the Jews who immigrated from Russia to Israel weren't even Jews at all. Still others, with a residual connection to their Jewish heritage, were not committed to Zionism or Israel. I know, because I interviewed many of them during my stay there. Plus, you can bet, the Russians were sure to mix-in plenty of FSB agents (to spy on Israel) for good measure. In short, many of the people we see going back to Russia were never committed to Eretz Israel (as the article makes abundantly clear) and therefore never belonged there in the first place IMHO.
Many of them went to Israel against their will. In 1989 Israeli leaders persuaded USA and other Western countries to restrict admittion of Jewish emmigrants from Russia. As a result a great number of them was redirected to Israel:
"Until 1989 Soviet Jews, who could leave the Soviet Union only if they had Israeli visas, were free to head for the United States after stopping over in Vienna. They did so under an American refugee program designed to help victims of repression who had no other place to go. Israel hoped to stanch the flow of immigrants elsewhere by providing direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv or by having immigrants stop in Bucharest, where they could be better controlled. To limit the Jews' options, Israel persuaded the United States to cap the number of Soviet refugees. The Soviet quota was set at 50,000, about 90 percent of whom have been Jewish. Germany also virtually ended Jewish immigration after being pressured to do so by Israel in early 1991. Before then more than 100 Soviet Jews were registering each day for entry into Germany.(18)"
(Let the Soviet Jews Come to America)