Identity Prosthesis: Roles of Homeland Media in Sustaining Native Identity

Abstract

This article focuses on the ways media texts produced in Israel constitute a vital part in the lives and identities of Jewish Israeli migrants in the United States. In this qualitative study, Israelis residing in the United States were interviewed about their media consumption patterns and their perceptions about the Israeli media's impact on their lives in the United States. Analyses reveal that homeland media constitute indispensable identity prosthesis; that is, homeland media not only help combat homesickness but are used as devices in sustaining and empowering native identity. Israeli media bolster these migrants' sense as if they never left home: They are wholly Israeli notwithstanding the geographic distance. Living in the diaspora is masked by an illusion maintained via consumption of homeland media. Paradoxically, diasporic life can be indefinitely extended because these media afford this illusion. The importation of culture and news from the homeland soothes the migrants' uneasiness of being away from native soil and consequently they prolong their sojourn abroad.

KEYTERMS:

• diaspora
• identity
• Israel
• transnational

Notes

Because there are no official data, these figures were extrapolated by the authors on the basis of informal records kept by various Jewish organizations and the Israeli consulate. Rebhun and Lev Ari (2011) estimated 250,000 Israelis (and their non-Israeli spouses) reside in the United States.

These relatively short interviews may be construed as a methodological limitation since longer, in-depth interviews with a smaller sample could have yielded richer data.

The sampling technique mirrors our phenomenological standpoint according to which an understating of the migrants' lived experiences does not necessitate random sampling.

These numbers may be conceived as high in other parts of the United States, but because of the high standard of living in this area it is conceptualized as a middle bracket here.

A half of the interviewees visit Israel once a year, most of them spend 4–7 weeks there every summer.

Names are pseudonyms. Quotations were translated from colloquial Hebrew and reflect original grammatical and lexical lapses.

Migrant Israelis initiate and perform Hebrew cultural activities not only to persevere their national identity, but primarily because they do not tend to participate in such events outside of their community (Flumann, 2007).

Eighty-two percent of Uriely's (1998) sample were categorized as “permanent sojourners” who have lived in the United States for lengthy periods, maintain general intentions of returning, but have not concrete plans.

Kang and Yang (2011) also noted that first-generation migrants do not pursuit a multi-ethnic identity, which is common among second- and third-generation Taiwanese in the United States.

Particularly news concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the precarious security situation, as Cathy explained, “I need to know that the sky has not fallen.”.

Gold (2002) disagreed with other researchers and states that Israeli migrants are no longer sojourners. On the contrary, they start developing social and political organizations as well as business ventures that attest to their willingness to accept the migration as irreversible.