The Formation Of A New Generation Of Russian-jewish Immigrants In Israel Before And After The End Of The Cold War And Its Impact Studies

As an immigration country, Israel has various Jewish communities coming from a series of countries. Due to the differences among their original countries and cultural backgrounds, there exist both commonality and diversity among these communities. The interests and concerns of each community are closely linked with Israeli domestic situation and diplomacy. Hence, the study on the communities of Jews and the analysis of its influence on Israeli domestic and foreign policies constitute the focal point to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Russian Jews are one of the major sources of immigrants to Israel. The past one and a half centuries has witnessed a huge wave of migration from Russia to Israel, and these Russian Jews have experienced tremendous hardships proceeding with the ups and downs of the Russian history. Ever since the 1970s, about one millions Russian Jews have raised several large-scale waves of immigration, which has drawn worldwide attention. At present, the Russian Jewish immigrants in Israel totals 860,000, accounting for more than one tenth of the Israeli population, and composing a community with special cultural background---a new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants. Inheriting the ambition of their predecessors to revive the Jewish state, the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants, after 30 years of adaptation and development, has become the contributors of a modern Jewish country. They have played an active role at various levels of the society and poured new energy into the development of Israel as well.The new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants, who have enjoyed profound Russian Culture and enduring Jewish History, features a unified and also divergent national attributes, and has established a unique identity with their own cultural characteristics--- a member of Israeli Jewish nationality with conspicuous Russian cultural characteristics.Due to their unique history and realistic surroundings, in their living and development, the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants has experienced four stages, namely, the establishment of the national identity of Jews, the accession to the Israeli state, the heritage of Russian culture, and their merging into Israeli society. Consequently, they have respectively established their national identity, state identity, ethnic identity, and social identity.The new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants actively established the national identity by struggling against the oppression and assimilation in cultural dimensions under the Soviet rule. The strong ethnic consciousness not only strengthened the firm resolution of the Russian Jews to return to their original place belonging to this people, but also formed the reclusive and exclusive nationalism, which, to some extent, gave rise to the extreme nationalism, and which set a great restraint on the Middle East Policy of the Israeli government.The new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants established the state identity through the recognition of their history and culture. However, this type of state identity would sometimes lead them to an extreme and they strongly advocate controlling the natural resources so as to guarantee Israeli preponderance in the Middle East and to restrain the development of Arab countries. The allocation of the land and the fresh water resources remains one of the major obstacles to the Middle East Peace Talk.Owing to its"Dejudaization"feature, the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants suffered from the exclusion of other communities that had already settled down, these immigrants enhanced the cultural heritage of its original country, namely, Russia, due to its"Russification"feature. The"Russian Street"and the community of the Russian Jewish immigrants, which mushroomed later on, have played an important role in the process of identification and protection of the interests of the ethnic community from Russia. Stimulated by this ethnic identity, the awareness of self-protection is opposed to any actions against the interests of the Russian Jewish immigrants, opposed to the Unilateral Separation Plan as well as the Jewish Settlement Demolition carried out by the Israeli government.The survival and development of the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants cannot be made possible without the support from the Israeli society, and therefore they should pursue their cultural integration with the locals in the process of adaptation and development in order to stick together with thickness and thinness with the rest of the Israelis. The construction of the social identity stimulated the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants to take self-motivated action to promote the economic and scientific development of Israel. Apart from that, new parties have been set up to participate in politics, whose major concerns were the Palestinian-Israeli relations and the interests of the Russian Jewish immigrants in the formulation and implementation of the Israeli domestic and foreign policies.The new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants has built its party into a force that cannot be neglected. With their voice being heard in politics, they are playing an ever important role in the changing political landscape in Israel at the turn of the millennium. The values and political claims of the new generation have become an important foundation for the Israeli government to formulate any domestic policies.The process of the establishment of the national identity, state identity, ethnic identity and social identity by the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants went with its inherent logic of evolution, i.e. from the pursuit of the national affection to the return to the original place; from the quest for the historically permanent home to the settlement on the native Palestinian land; from the quantitative expansion of the immigrants to the structural alteration of the population distribution; from the ever-expanding community to relatively stable community; from the protection of the group interests to the participation in politics; from joining various parties in order to exerting their presence to setting up its own party with its voice; from paying attention to the formulation of policies to taking part in the policy-making procedure; from influencing the domestic policies to affecting foreign policies.Since the 1990's, the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants has exerted great influence on domestic and foreign policies of Israel. In particular, they have got an increasingly greater say in the Middle East policies of the Israeli government. So it has turned out to be a vital element in the Middle East issues. The study on the new generation of the Russian Jewish immigrants and its influence has become an important subject in this regard.