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Russian Diaspora Dave Francis When you look over the history at how many Russians have left, it is amazing. For many years, Russia has been a rich pool of talent for many countries around the world. Since the days when Boris Godunov sent a handful of young scholars to Great Britain to study, the history of some of the best and brightest looking for greener pastures outside the enormous boundaries of their motherland continues to amaze. You may remember, none of Godunov’s students came back. Instead of returning and helping to enlarge the educated population in Russia, which was Godunov’s reason for sending them, they decided to cash in and find their lives in other places. Russians have contributed to the wealth and power of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, oft times neglecting their motherlands needs. It is hard to imagine Israel existing without the large influx of Russian Jews who have been a moving force in Zionist circles since before the foundation of the modern day state of Israel. Israel has had 4 distinct waves of Russian migration to its borders. As Sidney Heitman first described, the first such wave embraces the refugees who fled from revolution, civil war and famine, 1917-1922. The second wave relates to the demographic movements during World War II, during which around 2 million people fled, were deported, and/or repatriated in new areas. The third wave was more of a trickle, consisting of emigration from the end of World War II up to the late 1980s. The fourth wave is the influx of Russians to Israel since Perestroika. The increase has been dramatic. Since 1989 over 650,000 Russian immigrants that have arrived, and more are on the way. In Israel, the newly arriving Russian population has met resistance, but it moves inexorably forward. Economically, they are doing remarkably well. Of those who have been in Israel five years or more, 70% have bought homes. Unemployment for them runs at about 10.1%. Culturally, things haven’t gone as smoothly. The established population of Israel is suspicious of ‘The Russians’ as they are known. Statements such as "all immigrants are prostitutes, pensioners and up to no good" was said by a member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, can frequently be found in Israeli newspapers. Many times the émigré community has been hurt due to being miscast by a sensationalist press. There was a grisly story of a murder in Tel Aviv where a Russian prostitute was arrested on suspicion of killing her roommate, also a call girl, by slashing her throat with a knife. Both women were illegal aliens, but the daily Ma'ariv referred to them mistakenly as Russian immigrants in its headlines. There are a lot of Russian prostitutes in Israel, due in large part to the lax visa regulations and the opportunity to earn more money, but they are seldom immigrants. They are usually visitors who overstay their visas but they leave a bad impression with the Israeli population that the immigrant Russian has to deal with. The general populace has also classified Russian immigrants as hard drinkers. While in individual cases, that may be deserved, there is no evidence to suggest that alcoholism is any higher among Russian immigrants than other Israelis as a whole. It is the difference in the culture of drinking is what causes the widest misconception. While for the Russian immigrants, having a drink during the day is normal, most Israelis do their drinking after work, at night, at home. Culturally, a lot of the new arrivals in Israel still identify themselves as Russians. A 54-year old female musician says: "My family is connected very strongly to Russia, and it is something which comes from within. I don't know why. Maybe it is connected to the fact that in my idea of a homeland, the culture is something secondary. What comes first is the destiny I share with people around me. Not my family or my friends, but all the people who share a destiny. Including the war, the Stalin terror, including the victory in connection with the democratization. My son took part in the events of 1991. Sharing this is a natural thing for my family. I want to stay with this country, and this country shall become better with me." A professor of fine arts, aged 50, expressed his heritage as: " I know that there is a Jewish culture, and I regard myself as a Jew. But as far as Jewish culture is concerned I feel somewhat handicapped. I can't emphasize Jewish culture with the same warm feelings as the Russian culture. But I can't stop being a Jew - even though I am a Jew, as well by blood as by other difficult to explain reasons, I nevertheless feel so much at home here, so natural, that I would feel myself a stranger anywhere else." Another intellectual, a 65-year-old female teacher of music, elaborates on her feelings of being a Russian: "For me one of the most important things in life is the privilege of conversation. The Russian language is a unique language, so rich and colorful. The language, and the nature, is the main reason that I would never feel at home anywhere else than in Russia. I could never - no matter how brilliantly I might adapt to another language - be able to express myself as I can in Russian." Typical comments one would receive when asking would be: "My soul is connected to the Russian land." "I have grown up with Russian culture." "Russia is my destiny." "I cannot live without Russian literature." "Russian culture is unique." "I am deeply devoted to Russian nature." "My roots are here in Russia." "I belong to the Russian intelligentsia.” With attitudes like this on the part of the new arrivals, assimilation is at times slow and painful. Even among the 220,000 Russian Jews who came to Israel in the 1970s,called “third wave immigrants,” the recent arrivals encounter problems. A 40-year old female musician, now employed at a mental hospital, explained how "old" immigrants from Russia avoided her by answering her in Hebrew whenever she addressed them in Russian. The barrier of these new, or ‘fourth wave’ immigrants to even their former countrymen is pervasive. The early arrivals are afraid of being identified with her cohort of immigrants. There is also a large amount of old fashioned racism at work. A large portion of the Russians who come to Israel are not Jewish. Due to intermarriage, they are allowed to emigrate, but they are not readily accepted as equals among a large section of the Israeli population. A study released by the Minister of Absorption Yair Tzaban says that 81.2% of the Russian immigrants who have arrived from late 1989 are Jews in the religious sense, i.e., born of a Jewish mother. Of the remainder, 7.3% are non-Jews married to Jews, 9.4% are children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers; 2.1% are grandchildren of Jews who have immigrated to Israel and 0.4% are grandchildren of Jews who have not immigrated; finally 0.2% are non-Jewish parents of non-Jewish spouses. The influx of non-Jewish Russians, Ukrainians and other FSU citizens poses a challenge to Israel's religious authorities who make decisions in the vital spheres of birth, marriage, funerals etc. The non-Jewish immigrants lack all rights in these realms. There is now a political movement begun by some of the Russian immigrants to help protect their interests in the Knesset. Yisrael Be'aliya (The Movement for Israel and Immigration) was founded in June 1995 by the prominent former Soviet "refusenik", Natan Shcharansky, who came to Israel in 1986. It has found great success among the recent arrivals, maybe too much. Although Yisrael Be'aliya was founded with the idea of helping the immigrants in the process of "absorption", it has become a social force that is pulling the new immigrants in the opposite direction. By establishing a political platform for the new immigrants' interests, Shcharansky's movement is leading the immigrants from Russia to consolidate their own cultural niche in Israel. |