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Abstract
Recently, scholars have identified the existence of a distinct Israeli diaspora, as a group separate from the wider Jewish diaspora. The article presents quantitative data collected in Australia that supports this perception. The distinctiveness of Ausraelis ‒ the Israeli diaspora in Australia ‒ is manifested in detachment from Australian Jewry; the preservation of Israeli national identity; and an affiliative model of ties with the ‘real’ homeland, Israel, as opposed to an affiliative interaction of the Jewish diaspora with Israel, the ‘virtual’ homeland.
Notes
1. Cohen, “The Demographic Success of Zionism.” There are many reasons for the different estimations on the number of Israelis abroad, including common challenges of counting migrant, ethnic, or religious groups, as well as challenges specific to Jews and Israelis.
2. Hugo, “The Growing Significance of Diasporas,” 9–10.
3. Rubin and Rubin, “Is There a Distinct Israeli Diaspora?,” 742.
4. Ibid.
5. Sheffer, “The Israeli Diaspora,” xxxi. Yordim (descendants) is the negative term used in the past to describe Israeli emigrants. According to Sheffer’s typology, ‘historical diasporas’ were formed until the Middle Ages; ‘new diasporas’ emerged since the industrial revolution; and ‘incipient ethno-national diasporas’ constitute the most recent group, See Sheffer, “A Nation and its Diaspora,” 334.
6. R. Cohen, “From Ethnonational Enclave to Diasporic Community.”.
7. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 2.
8. Lev Ari and Rebhun, American Israelis, 140.
9. Rubin and Rubin, “Is There a Distinct Israeli Diaspora?,” 742.
10. Porat, “Ausraelis,” 252.
11. Gen08 covered: religious practices and beliefs; Jewish education and Hebrew; social interaction and cohesion within the Jewish community; affiliation with Israel; and social needs and expectations.
12. ‘Israel-born’ is not an essentialist synonym for Israelis. Former immigrants to Israel and children of Israeli emigrants may describe themselves as Israelis, while others who emigrated from Israel at an early age may not define themselves as Israelis.
13. Porat, “Ausraelis,” 61–3.
14. For all Gen08 respondents a weight function was applied to more accurately represent the influence of each group within the sample when compared to the survey’s target population. The weight applied (‘weight 3 ‒ inflating to national sample total’) reflects gender, age and educational attainment (See Markus et al., “2008–09 Jewish Population Survey,” 40). Accordingly, the analysis in this article was conducted on a weighted sample, which meant that 356 Israel-born respondents represent 390 respondents within the survey’s sample.
15. Rubin and Rubin examined data collected from American participants of the Taglit-Birthright programme, all were younger than 25 years old at the time. Programme applicants were all under the age of 12 when they left Israel. Hence, these ‘former Israelis’ are in fact one sub-group within the Israeli diaspora in the United States. They are ‘the 1.5 generation’ ‒ children under 14 years of age emigrating with their Israeli parents. See Cohen and Haberfeld, “Economic Assimilation.”
16. Porat, “Ausraelis,” 194.
17. Lev Ari and Rebhun, American Israelis, 120; Rebhun and Popko, Faraway Relatives, 29.
18. Cohen, “From Ethnonational Enclave,” 126.
19. Lev Ari, Israeli Immigrants Abroad, 108.
20. Porat, “Ausraelis,” 231.
21. Ibid., 239–41; Rutland and Gariano, Survey of Jews in the Diaspora, 60. Chabad is one of the world’s largest Jewish Hasidic movements. It sends emissaries to open and manage synagogues across the globe which function as religious, cultural and social centres, and have great success in reaching out to Israelis abroad. See Lazar, Chabad Lubavitch. Successful Chabad ‘Israeli synagogue’ centres in Australia include Hamerkaz Shelanu (Our Centre) in Melbourne, The Melbourne Chabad House (for Israeli youngsters), the Bondi Beach Chabad House in Sydney and the Surfers Paradise Chabad house on the Gold Coast.
22. Forgasz and Munz, “Australia.”
23. Similar attitudes were recorded among Israelis in Canada. See Cohen, “From Ethnonational Enclave,” 127.
24. Agassi, “Book Review,” 471.
25. The Israel Democracy Institute, A Portrait of Israeli Jews, 45–46.
26. Cohen, “From Ethnonational Enclave,” 126.
27. Agassi, “Book Review,” 474.
28. Ben-Rafael, “The Faces of Religiosity in Israel,” 91.
29. Sharot, “Sociological Analyis of Religion,” 24; Diamond, “And Never the Twain Shall Meet?,” 332–3; Don-Yehiya, “Hanukkah and the Myth of the Maccabees.”
30. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 183.
31. Cohen, ‘From Ethnonational Enclave,” 127.
32. Porat, “Ausraelis,” 210–12.
33. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 183.
34. Aharonov, “The Encounter of Shlichim,” 63.
35. Lev Ari, Israeli Immigrants Abroad, 76.
36. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 210–13.
37. Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 226.
38. Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor, “Towards a Theory of Language.”
39. Yagmur, “Does Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory,” 112.
40. Rebhun and Popko, Faraway Relatives, 34.
41. McNamara, “Language and Social Identity,” 225–6. In his 1987 study McNamara stated that Hebrew had ‘a lower status than English as a vernacular language in the [Australian] Jewish community’, and that teaching it in Jewish schools was seen as ‘a low-status project’. Thus, ‘passing on a separate Hebrew-speaking Israeli identity [to children] is problematic’. See ibid., 225–6.
42. Rutland and Gariano, Survey of Jews in the Diaspora, 23–4, 39.
43. Fitzgerald, “Towards a Theoretical Ethnography of Migration,” 8.
44. Ang, “Together-in-Difference,” 145.
45. Malka and Kama, “Forever Israelis”; Lev Ari and Rebhun, American Israelis, 127–31; Lev Ari, Israeli Immigrants Abroad, 65–6.
46. Malka and Kama, “Forever Israelis,” 3.
47. The Israel Democracy Institute, A Portrait of Israeli Jews, 69.
48. Caution with regard to this data is necessary, because it may be a case of self-reporting bias. Specifically, some Israelis think they are expected to wish for their return.
49. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 183.
50. Said, The World, the Text, 20.
51. Di Leo, Affiliations, 92.
52. Burla, Political Imagination in the Diaspora.
53. Safran, “The Diaspora and the Homeland.”
54. Cohen, “Solid, Ductile and Liquid,” 5, 7.
55. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 155.
56. McNamara, “Language and Social Identity,” 221.
57. Tajfel and Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.”
58. DiDonato, Ullrich, and Krueger, “Social Perception as Induction and Inference,” 66–7.
59. Lev Ari, Israeli Immigrants Abroad, 53; Cohen and Veinstein, Israeli Jews, 58; Rebhun and Popko, Faraway Relatives, 39.
60. English as a language spoken with friends may have been over-represented in the data. The wording of the question is open to interpretation: it may reflect the social norm of speaking English in public spaces or around others who do not understand Hebrew out of politeness.
61. Yair, The Code of Israeliness, 175.
62. DiDonato, Ullrich, and Krueger, “Social Perception as Induction and Inference,” 80.
63. Gold, The Israeli Diaspora, 155.
64. Markus, Jewish Continuity, 35–38.
65. Rutland and Gariano, Survey of Jews in the Diaspora, 20.
66. Yair, The Code of Israeliness, 71–5.
67. Bar Or, The Others Within Us, 8.
68. Rubin and Rubin, “Is There a Distinct Israeli Diaspora?,” 753.
69. Cohen, “Solid, Ductile and Liquid,” 7.
70. Rubin and Rubin, “Is There a Distinct Israeli Diaspora?,” 754.
71. Attias and Benbassa, Israel, The Impossible Land, 187–8.
72. Segev, 1967, 5.
73. Almog, The Sabra, 258.
74. Segev, 1967, 57.
75. Rosenberg, “Is Israel Good for the Diaspora?,” 33.
76. The Israel Democracy Institute, A Portrait of Israeli Jews, 72.
77. Yair, The Code of Israeliness, 10.