Second thoughts about the Promised Land (Jews leaving Israel)

These days, even Jews who have never been to a synagogue are happy to assert that separateness: they are rossiiskiye, Russian citizens, but not russkiye, “Russians”.

As many as 100,000 Russian-Israelis have gone back to Russia, says Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, the director of the Lubavitch-run Federation of Jewish Communities, one of Russia's two main (and rival) umbrella groups. In a fast-growing market with a population over 20 times the size of Israel's, they often get better work. Today, a Russian Jew in Moscow will be more expensively dressed than his cousin in Tel Aviv: a big reversal from ten years ago.

Israel's government dislikes acknowledging this apparent yeridah, but as Rabbi Berkowitz argues, “It's a win-win situation for both Israel and Russia.” Most of the returnees retain ties with Israel; they often leave families there, and invest earnings there, in homes and education. This makes for a new kind of diaspora: these days, as one listens to the sound of Russian in Old Jerusalem or Hebrew on the canals of St Petersburg, it can be hard to tell where Israel ends and Russia begins.

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Sharon regrets not ‘liquidating’ Arafat

Arafat, along with his top lieutenants and many fighters, was forced to board ships under the eye of the Israeli army and leave for Tunisia. An Israeli sniper said later he had Arafat in his gunsights, but instead of pulling the trigger, he took a picture of the defeated Palestinian leader.

“In Lebanon, there was an agreement not to liquidate Yasser Arafat,” Sharon told the Maariv newspaper. “In principle, I’m sorry that we didn’t liquidate him.”

Who Murdered Cleo Noel?-Why does State Dept cover up Arafat's role in murdering a US diplomat
Ambassador Cleo A. Noel Jr. and George Curtis Moore - do you remember these names? You should. Ambassador Noel and Moore were among a group of men seized and held hostage by Yassir Arafat’s Black September terrorists during a reception at the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum. Their lives hung by a thread, a thread that Yassir Arafat ordered cut. His words ordering the execution of these top American officials and a Belgian diplomat were recorded by the Israelis who gave the tape to the State Department and President Nixon in March 1973. This was later confirmed by Gen. Ariel Sharon.
Cleo A. Noel Jr. and George Curtis Moore were among a group of men seized by Black September terrorists during a reception held at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum [Sudan]. The terrorists demanded the release of Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian assassin of Robert Kennedy, as well as terrorists being held in Israeli and European prisons. President Nixon refused to negotiate. The tape was of conversations between Arafat in Beirut and his thugs in Khartoum. Execute the diplomats, ordered Arafat. The terrorists obeyed, machine gunning the unarmed, hapless Noel and Moore. They also killed a Belgium diplomat. The authenticity of the tape was verified in U.S. laboratories by both the State Department and the White House.
On March 2, 1973, around 8:00pm (local) --Abu-Iyad called Abu-Ghassan and gave him the Cold River [Nahr al-Bard] code: "Remember Nahr al-Bard. The people's blood in the Nahr al-Bard is screaming for revenge. These are our final orders. We and the world are watching you." The execution took place on 9:06. (Reportedly, about half an hour later than planned because Abu-Tariq let the Americans write last letters and wills.) A few minutes later, when the international media still did not report the killing, Beirut wanted to make sure that the executions took place. Arafat himself did the talking to Abu-Ghassan. He asked him if he received the code word Nahr al-Bard and if he understood what it meant. Abu-Ghassan assured Arafat that he had understood everything and that his -- Arafat's -- orders had already been carried out fully.

It has been very difficult for the Jewish emigrees from Russia to fit into Israel.

In some cases they are over-qualified....there were enough marvelous musicians to creat several world class orchestras and Israel already had a couple of wonderful orchestras. Same with doctors and in some of the sciences.

In the technical fields, while the emigrees were highly educated, they weren't quite up on the latest science as compared with the West. My husband is a scientist and this was his observation.

Israel is a quasi-capitalist socialist country, that makes it difficult for someone to come in and simply open a medical practice or a shop - lots of government regulations. And on the other hand people coming from a structured society such as the USSR aren't used to setting up for themselves.

The emigrees were forced to leave behind most of their worldly goods and money.

They had already spent a couple of generations deprived of the roots of their religion - religion was restricted in the Soviet Union. With a history of pogroms and having to live in the "pale" and other gov't imposed anti-semitic laws, leaving behind religion often meant surviving economically.

Coming to a new country bereft of a recent history of religious community, not used to making decisions for themselves in a severely structured country like the Soviet Union, a new language (Hebrew) and encountering a changing and challenging culture (more Sephardic than Ashkanazic) in Israel - well, even emigrating to a similar country is difficult at best. Even a new city - let alone such a completely new environment.

I know Jews from the Soviet Union who had a great deal of difficulty acculturating to the USA. Just going to the supermarket and having to make choices - presented a daunting problem. I know of some who just stood in the doorway of the supermarket and broke into tears of frustration.

Prisoners are not prisoners by bars alone. It's a mental state that is difficult to overcome.

There are a few more points that can be said.

Much of Jewish ritual/holidays are based on a lunar calendar and when one has no access to such a calendar one will not know when to celebrate any of the holidays. Such use of calendars was prohibited in the Soviet Union. This was also true of prayer books and bibles. This also applied to Christians, too. Russian Orthodoxy was quite severely restricted - how much more so for a beleagured minority such as the Jews were/are.

Toward the end of the Soviet Union only a relatively few religious people remained within the Christian community - mostly elderly women - how much more so for the Jewish community.

Soviet schools taught English - this made it easier for Russian Jews to come to the West than to settle in Israel.

When they did go to Israel they expected Israel to take care of them. The gov't did what it could. But Israel is not a rich country, has few natural resources, a huge security - both domestic and military - budget and limited resources to give to newly arriving emigrees - especially in such large numbers in such a comparatively short space of time.

To this day Israel is still rescuing Jews from African countries, bringing them from the stone age into the - well- whatever this is we are living in.

Living in Israel means living in small spaces, in what is really a fortress with heavy taxation. It also means the draft with males eligible for call up - I think - into their 50's.

I would guess that most of the Soviet Jews had more family in the USA than in Israel because of the comparatively large numbers which came here in the late 1800's into the 1900's. Therefore many came here to be helped by their families. The Jewish community in America is better equipped to help new emigrees. A synagogue close to my house to this day supplies housing to elderly Russian emigrese. There are more opportunities here and the US gov't has more resources, too.

So, many Jews inititally went to Israel and then came here to the USA.

There was a point in Israel's young history - shortly after becoming a state that about 800,000 resident Jews were taking care of over TWO MILLION war torn emigrees. A huge huge undertaking. Those millions had no choice but to acculturate to Israel - only Auswitz was behind them. They needed everything - their health and spirits were broken.

But the Soviet Jewish emigrees didn't come from death camps. While they knew they were Jews, most of them hadn't been able to live as Jews for a couple of generations. They lived in a sea of "others" - and their only path to survival was to become the "others."

When I think back to my family which emigrated here from Russia (early 1900's -grandparents on one side and mother on the other side) I remember their stories of fear and hardship - and this was coming to America - a peaceful land of opportunity.

My mother ( proud American citizen), in some ways, never really left the ghetto and fear of a police state behind her.

"I read somewhere that one of the sore points between russian jews and many others in Israel was adherence to dietary standards.. As I understand it, this was one of the reasons for some russian jews returning to russia.."

That alone it is merely one of the points, but not one of the main factors. If that was the only thing, it could easily be overcome - from what I understand Israel is diverse enough and you can very well lead a secular life if you do not choose to specifically reside in an Orthodox community, a settlement, etc. Around Tel Aviv you could order a cheesuburger on shabbot, if you want to and no one will stop you. Actually I agree with Post #27 pretty much 100%. Very well put. For many Soviet Jewish "repatriants" its actually the combination of basic insecurity - neverending intifada (the recent shelling from Lebanon was, I hear, the last straw for quite a few) and overall not as promising economic future for the younger generation, who realize the career prospects in the "quasi-capitalist" as Basheva put it, Israel, are fewer and worse then in EU, nevermind US or Canada - or for a few years now, even back in Russia (Moscow area specifically), due to the oil economy boom that Putin's regime is reaping. Also, most people who left in droves the in the very late 80s - early 90s, right before or right after USSR collapsed had a very different kind of motivation versus the fewer people, who managed to leave in the 70s, early 80s - after Brezhnev allowed Soviet Jews to emigrate from the USSR for the first time. The 70s emigration wave consisted mostly of people who actually wanted to embrace their Jewish identity, being unable to freely do so in the Soviet Union and live in a Jewish state. In order to be allowed to emigrate they had to step up to and face intimidation from the Soviet system, becoming "refuseniks" (being fired and/or blacklisted for employment) and being subjected to every possible kind of bureaucratic and social humiliation and intimidation (for example in the 70's kids of the would-be emigrants to Israel would often have to quit school as soon as their parents made their decision known, because otherwise they would be teased and openly intimidated in the classroom by the teacher, or by their classmates - who were secretly encouraged by the teacher and by their own parents. Traditional grass-roots antisemitism in Ukraine and Russia, which is at times like a smouldering grassfier, complimented government propaganda. In the classroom the other kids would be calling them names, "traitors" etc. Making their schooldays unbearable.) The majority of the Soviet Jews who were leaving at the end of perestroika and following the Soviet collapse left mainly for the economic reasons and fears that a total collapse would soon follow with either a bloody warlord anarchy (a.k.a Somalia), or that a fascist state much worse than USSR would emerge from the ruins (at that time newly found freedom of the press allowed multiple ultra-nationalist and hate literature to be openly published and circulated). I remember in the early 90s in Kiev, where we lived, there were periodically circulated wild rumors about impeding pogroms, etc. - which thankfully did not materialize (but caused my family a few slepless nights, dad keeping watch at the door with a shovel as a makeshift weapon.) I know it sounds outrageous and funny, but back then it wasn't. At that time my parents were more afraid for their and my own future, than under authoritarian, but predictable and stable Brezhnev time. That was a simple truth in the hearts of many - better a familiar evil, which might even seem like a blessing by comparison to some evil unknown. I take it, that many who left in the late 80s - early 90s, might not have even moved a hair, had things not changed from 1979, or had USSR gone the route of China and preserved the Communist party hierarchy and structure of the society, while allowing the economy to liberalize. Also, people who left in the 70s were literally leaving it all behind. Sometimes they would not even call back to the family that remained (all the international phone calls were of course monitored) - or the remaining members of the family would break contact for fear of being punished by the authorities, losing work, being reprimanded in front of a party committee, etc. Same with international mail - it was slow, monitored and unreliable. There were restrictions on how much luggage/valuables one could take with them - some literally left with nothing but clothes on their backs. Now, people who left in the late 80s/early 90s brought all kinds of mental and "emotional" luggage with them, not just a few suitcases of personal effects. They brought with them the Russian culture that most of them were reared in, sentimental attachment to food/books/music/movies they grew up with, etc. etc. During the times of the Iron Curtain if you left USSR, there would be no information channels to connect back to what you left even if you wanted to. With no "feed lines" going back any immigrant had no choice but to slowly integrate into the new society, maybe passing through a "ghetto/enclave" stage versus living in a primarily Russian-speaking ghetto/enclave. In the 90s there appeared Russian television in Israel - channels made by the immigrants, for the immigrants, as well as Russian channels from Russia. Imported books, movies on tape and later DVD - it all became available for those who did not wish to break ties with the old culture completely. The people who were leaving at the end of perestroika and after were not "coming to Israel", they were leaving a failed state - I don't know if you can grasp the philosophical difference, but here it is. This does not encompass all of the differences between the two generations of immigrants, but you see some of the key ones.

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