“Hosts, not guests, in Israel”: younger generations of Russian Israelis on the path to active citizenship

ABSTRACT

Jewish immigrants to Israel (olim) receive citizenship soon upon arrival and are endowed with all political and economic rights in their adopted country. Civic attitudes and behaviour of olim reflect both their pre-migration political socialization and their exposure to Israeli realities. This article highlights the dynamics of citizenship and civic participation in the younger cohorts of ex-Soviet Israelis (generations 1.5 and 2.0) vs. their parents who immigrated in the 1990s as adults (Gen 1.0). Our theoretical framing draws upon the concepts of critical citizenship, sub-politics, and cultural public sphere. Drawing on the combined analysis of national surveys and qualitative studies conducted over the last 20+ years, we examine shifts in voting patterns, volunteering, feelings of belonging, and ethnic mobilization for both national and community-specific causes. We argue that the civic agenda of ex-Soviet Israelis has evolved from mainly economically driven during the 1990s to mainly symbolic and ethno-national since the early 2000s. The findings also highlight gender differences in civil engagements of younger immigrant cohorts.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic (re)socialization
• critical citizenship
• immigrant generations
• younger Russian Israelis

Introduction

The Israeli polity grants immediate citizenship to all Jews entering the country under the Law of Return, with full access to most political, social, and economic rights but also a heavy set of duties, including military service for both genders. The enactment of their citizenship rights requires rapid immersion of recent immigrants (olim) in the turbulent political realities, with concomitant confusion and difficulty choosing sides in multiple schisms cutting across this divided society.¹ Former Soviet Jews – the largest ethno-cultural minority over the last 30 years – grasped soon enough the sectorial nature of the Israeli politics. By the mid-1990s, they realized their electoral power by establishing the first-ever immigrant party (Israel be-Aliya headed by ex-prisoner of Zion Nathan Sharansky) and introduced seven Russian-speaking politicians in the 120-seat Knesset. Sociologist and political scientist Majid Al-Haj, who has long followed the process of ethnic formation and political mobilization among ex-Soviet immigrants,² argued in his recent book that by the early 2000s Russian Israelis have consolidated as a separate Israeli “tribe,” promoting further tribalization of the Israeli society along the lines of Jewish-Arab, religious-secular, and Ashkenazi-Mizrahi schisms.³

While adult immigrants’ political mindset had been shaped by the Soviet past, their children, albeit still influenced by the parental outlook, were socialized under Israeli democratic institutions and education system.⁴ The Israeli macro-political context of the 1990s and early 2000s has shaped the integration journey of Russian Israelis. It coincided with one of the most turbulent periods of the Israeli history: Oslo Peace accords of 1993, Rabin’s assassination in 1995, the subsequent waves of Palestinian terror sweeping over Israeli cities, and the second Intifada of the early 2000s, followed by Gaza disengagement in 2005 and the 2nd Lebanon war of 2006. To reduce living costs, many Russian olim settled in Israel’s North and South, where they experienced frequent rocket attacks from the Lebanon and Gaza. These permanent existential threats intertwined with socio-economic challenges of resettlement enhanced feelings of insecurity among recent immigrants and caused some 12–15% of them to leave Israel. The failure of the peace process and its exorbitant human costs has swept the tide of Israeli public opinion towards the political Right, with ex-Soviet newcomers readily joining this drive. Along with other Israelis, these immigrants faced the clash between ethno-national (republican) and universalist (liberal) conceptions of Israeli citizenship.⁵ At the same time, their political affinities were highly pragmatic, driven by their pressing needs as new citizens.

As it happens with fresh migrants, Gen 1.0 struggled to get a basic economic foothold (affordable housing, stable income) and silently accepted their downward social mobility and negative stereotyping by the host society. However, their children are challenging these inevitable migration costs; they resent their lingering discrimination in the labour market and assert their belonging to the Jewish majority as full-fledged citizens. At the same time, Generations 1.5–2.0 manifest more diverse political outlooks and liberal social attitudes (e.g. towards the LGBT-Q and feminist agendas) compared to their parents.⁶ Their activism has moved from the streets and live communities to online forums, cultural and media campaigns demanding full inclusion of Russian Israelis of all stripes in the Israeli national ethos. This article illuminates the process of political and civic (re)socialization of immigrants across three generations in the tumultuous context of Israel of the late 20 and early 21st centuries. It contributes to the current discussions on the changing expressions of citizenship among younger immigrants and minorities in late-modern era. It also reveals some unexpected gender facets of this dynamic, indicating women’s higher civic involvement and more liberal leanings. On the theory level, this essay adds a rare multi-generational and gendered perspective to the study of political behaviour and civic attitudes among immigrant and minority young adults. Tackling the subject from different perspectives, our integrated analysis merges the wealth of our qualitative data (including interview quotes) with three national surveys among our target population.

Critical citizenship and post-politics

Immigrants’ civic engagement with the receiving society is a salient indicator of the ongoing integration and sense of belonging and entitlement.⁷ Typically, children of immigrants (who become resident minorities) manifest higher political and civic engagements than their parents burdened with everyday survival.⁸ However, in late-modern societies, mass disappointment in formal institutions of electoral democracy and organized politics has led to civic apathy, low voter turnout and party membership.⁹ At the end of the last century, Norris (1999)¹⁰ argued that citizens in many established democracies became disappointed in their political system and practical functioning of its institutions and laws. This resentment and mistrust of state bureaucracies were reflected in the concept of critical citizenship: individuals may challenge the established democratic mechanisms to enhance control of their lives and realize their human potential. Critical citizenship underscores the importance of transparency and popular debate; it encourages citizens to challenge officials at all levels when their actions entail injustice, to transcend their comfort zone and participate in the civic sphere to make a difference.¹¹

Along similar lines, Beck (1997)¹² argued that in late modernity parts of political content disappear from the formal political sphere, emerging in the alternative action fields and social sites that were previously considered un-political, such as courtrooms, NGOs, workplaces and organizations, residential communities, universities, schools, cultural associations, and other settings of everyday life. Frustrated with their government performance, citizens can search for new political channels of influence and choose to act in what Beck defined as sub-politics: a non-institutional field outside and beyond the representative political institutions of nation-state, enacted anywhere citizens seek to fill the political vacuum and take responsibility for matters in their life. It has rechanneled civic engagement (especially among younger citizens) from political parties and electoral campaigns to informal, horizontal forms of activism – advocacy, volunteering, organizing street events, crowdfunding campaigns, consumer boycotts, etc.¹³ We suggest including the contemporary urban forms of identity politics and social protest, such as ethnic festivals and cultural activism, as an expression of sub-politics in the cultural public sphere.

Young Russian Israelis are emerging as critical citizens dissatisfied, inter alia, with religious marital laws and seeking to reform them in a more egalitarian and inclusive direction. The expansion of critical citizenship coincides with surging identity politics among Israel’s ethnic, political, sexual, and other minorities; it reflects popular distrust of the establishment unable to solve many vexing social and economic problems.¹⁴ Generation 1.5 activists do not oppose Israeli Zionist ethos as such, construing themselves as normative citizens and members of the Jewish majority. Rather, they oppose the extant ethno-national and religious hierarchy that often relegates them to second-class citizenship. Contrary to the predominant civic apathy of their parent’s generation, the new Gen 1.5 leaders have developed a generational consciousness and perceive themselves as an active force for change. Acting primarily in the civic and cultural fields, the leaders of this large immigrant cohort (around 170,000) are challenging the public discourse on Russian Israelis through successful social media campaigns, blogs and articles, cultural festivals, and public events.¹⁵

Civic and political engagement among ex-Soviet immigrants

Israel for many years anticipated and allegedly welcomed mass Aliya that started in the wake of the Soviet collapse. Over one million Russian-speaking olim moved to Israel since 1990, forming the largest ethnolinguistic community in this ultimate immigrant society – 18% nationally and over 1/3 of the residents in many localities.¹⁶ During the initial years of their resettlement, most olim were overwhelmed by the daily economic, social, and bureaucratic challenges of survival and mobility in Israel and exhibited low interest in national politics. Transition to democracy for many former Soviets was associated with dysfunctional institutions, destructive economic reforms, and corrupt politicians. With a vague understanding of the Israeli political actors and agendas, these new citizens dutifully casted their ballots in the Knesset elections of 1992, 1996, and 1999, voting for the parties that promised to solve their many problems in housing and employment. Their opinions were formed by the demands of the moment and political commentary in the immigrant press; in surveys they consistently preferred strong leadership and professional government, order and predictability over the unruly play of democratic forces.¹⁷ The first cohort of politicians with the Russian accent was recruited from the ranks of seasoned immigrants of the 1970s and early 1980s, mostly veterans of the Soviet Jewish movement, who spoke decent Hebrew and learned how to play the Israeli political field.¹⁸ The advent of the “Russian” parties was to some extent inspired by the electoral success of SHAS – political movement of Sephardic/Mizrahi Jews consolidated during the 1980s – with the intent to resist its national-religious thrust and hostility towards ex-Soviet Jews.¹⁹

Despite the appearance of several Russian-speaking politicians in the Knesset and government of the 1990s, the olim masses took little interest in politics. Socialized under the authoritarian, single-party system and disappointed by the early post-Soviet democratic experiments, they were skeptical about their own political agency and the efficiency of the Israeli democratic institutions. Philippov and Bystrov (2011)²⁰ described the political stance of Russian Jews as passive citizenship – complying with the basic civil duties while keeping safe distance from the Israeli authorities, the way they used to avoid politics in the USSR/FSU. Yet by the mid-late 1990s, the activist minority among Russian Israelis manifested a drive for self-organization for common causes, lobbying for the economic and social rights of WWII veterans, Chernobyl catastrophe survivors, Soviet-educated professionals, and members of ethnically mixed families. Acquiring initial economic foothold, basic Hebrew and understanding of local civic norms, activists of nascent immigrant NGOs initiated advocacy for the cultural rights of Russian speakers (e.g. supporting Russian authors, libraries, and theatres), higher educational standards in Israeli schools (via Immigrant Teachers’ Association and Mofet programme – the enhanced math and sciences curriculum), Jewish education and conversion classes for Russian-speakers (Makhanaim society). Beyond their role in practical problem-solving within the olim community, these NGOs and advocacy campaigns promoted, for example, official recognition of the Soviet WWII veterans and Victory Day on May 9th as Israeli national holiday, and gradual expansion of the Mofet programme from the Russian-speaking to all Israeli students.²¹

Directly affected by the turbulent events of the preceding decade in the wake of the Oslo accords, by the early 2000s, olim activists joined the mainstream national political agenda around Arab-Israeli conflict, minority rights, state-religion matters, welfare reform, military draft, etc.²² Their understanding of Israeli citizenship gradually consolidated around the republican lines – asserting the balance of rights and duties – and the increasing sense of their own entitlement as members of the titular Jewish nation serving in the military (as opposed to the Arabs), hard-working and paying taxes (as opposed to the Ultra-Orthodox). The majority adopted the ethno-national view of the Israeli polity and supported secular Centre-Right political forces, which they construed as both pragmatic and patriotic. The political (re)socialization of Russian Israelis in the late 1990s and early 2000s coincided with (and also enhanced) seminal changes in the mainstream politics towards security-driven, national(ist) agenda in the Jewish-Arab relations and economic neoliberalism.²³ The increasing securitization of olim’s political mindset reflected their common residence in Israel’s geo-social periphery that suffered disproportionately from Palestinian attacks ever since the 2nd Intifada. The mass killing and maiming of olim youth in the suicide bombing of the Russian disco Delphi in June 2001 left their families deeply traumatized and pushed them further to the Right. Aware of the electoral potential of the “Russian Street,” all mainstream parties on the Centre-Right flank tried to engage olim activists and disseminated campaign materials in Russian. By contrast, the Israeli Left has given up efforts to attract “Russian” voters since the early 2000s.²⁴

Younger olim cohorts experienced Israeli democracy differently, given their faster acculturation and greater exposure to the mainstream Hebrew discourse. A few studies explored the political and civic (re)socialization of Russian-speaking youth who arrived during the 1990s. A survey conducted soon after the 2009 Knesset elections compared the civic attitudes of Russian-speakers and veteran Israelis, showing the formers’ lower overall trust in Israeli institutions, democratic polity, and their own agency as citizens. The authors noted that women and younger respondents (of Gens 1.0 and 1.5) expressed higher trust in democratic institutions and more liberal attitudes to gender roles and sexual minorities. However, their mistrust of Palestinians as an enemy within and outside Israel remained as tangible as their parents’.²⁵ Schmidt-Kleinert (2018)²⁶ explored the civic attitudes and conceptions of good citizenship among young activists of the nationalist Israel Beiteinu party, showing how they assert their own full belonging to the titular Israeli nation by undermining the rights of minority citizens (mainly Arabs). We couldn’t find recent representative data on civic/political behaviour of younger Russian olim. Judging by the media coverage, they showed less involvement in mass street protests, universal or sectorial, than either their native peers (Sabras) or Ethiopian immigrants. At the same time, a veteran Israeli journalist and cogent observer of the ex-Soviet immigrant community Lily Galili (2019) described these young adults’ sense of entitlement, emerging on the “fast track” to leadership and feeling like hosts, not guests, in the Israeli society.²⁷ Below we examine more closely the shifting political attitudes and patterns of civic activism in the two younger generations of Russian Israelis, those who migrated as older children/adolescents (Gen 1.5) and those born in Israel (Gen 2.0) – against the benchmark of the parental Gen 1.0.

Empirical sources

By pulling together most available data, we analyse the dynamics of civic participation in the large immigrant collective whom we call Russian Israelis. The first author has been observing and documenting the immersion saga of the ex-Soviet Jews in Israel for the last 25 years, since her own immigration from Moscow in 1991. The second author has joined more recently for the series of qualitative studies among Gens 1.5 and 2.0. All research cited below targeted Jewish immigrants from the post-Soviet space, most of whom arrived in 1990–2000, and their children. The findings on the adult/parental Gen 1.0 (ages 18+ at migration) come from a large national survey among ex-Soviet olim conducted face to face in 2001.²⁸ Our recent qualitative studies among the leaders and activists of Gen 1.5 informed a national survey among these young adults, now ages 25–45, born in the USSR/FSU but raised mostly in Israel.²⁹

Finally, the collective portrait of the Israeli-born Gen 2.0 (including children migrating as preschoolers) has emerged from our most recent survey filled by over 1300 respondents ages 18–32. It was conducted in 2021 and is first reported here. The latter two surveys were held online and hence self-selective; they were filled mostly by women, who are more active in online communities and more interested in social issues (more on this below). Another sample bias was over-representation of educated and socially mobile immigrants, many of whom moved from geographic/social periphery where they grew up to Greater Tel Aviv (GTA) seeking economic and cultural opportunities. In most other respects, our online samples were representative of young Russian Israeli adults. The latter two surveys included both closed items and responses to attitudinal statements. Our research among Russian Israelis covered vast ground: economic mobility, ethnic identity, religion, political views, and generational ties. Drawing on this broader integration framing, this paper for the first time highlights the patterns of civic/political participation and concomitant attitudinal changes across immigrant generations. The key demographics of the three survey samples are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographics of survey respondents in 2001, 2017 and 2021.

	Gen 1.0 (2001)	Gen 1.5 (2017)	Gen 2.0 (2021)
Number	804	650	1322
Mean age + range	46 (28–60)	35.4 (25–46)	28.5 (18–32)
Mean age at Aliya	33 (18–55)	12 (6–16)	Israel-born or <5
Tenure in Israel	7.2	21.3 (16–28)	since birth
% Women	51	65	75
% Academic degrees	61	77	70 (incl. students)
% Married with children	78	66	38
% From Moscow or SPb	16	12	6
% Living in GTA	14	39	31
% Income above average	13	42	20
% Israeli primary identity	12	78	99
% Secular or atheist	91	72	83
% Jewish by religious def.	89	71	75

Selected findings

Tackling the subject from different perspectives, our integrated analysis merges the qualitative data with national surveys among Russian Israelis. Referring to the older survey data on Gen 1.0 as a benchmark,³⁰ below, we focus on the two younger cohorts. Our online surveys among Gens 1.5 and 2.0 used an almost identical questionnaire, thus allowing direct comparison of the findings. Selected interview quotes from our recent ethnographic research illustrate the quantitative trends.

Participation in organized politics and civic activities

Across age and generation lines, most Russian Israelis express deep ambivalence about electoral democracy and their own political agency as voters and citizens. Their experience with the Soviet collapse and tumultuous post-Soviet democracy only reinforced their distrust of the multi-party “political circus” and unstable government coalitions that typify Israeli polity of the new millennium. In the recurrent surveys held by Israel Democracy Institute, most ex-Soviet respondents stated their preference for a strong, stable leadership and a government of technocrats and professionals.³¹ Despite their skepticism, voter turnout on the “Russian Street” has been traditionally higher than among veteran/native Israelis (on average around 85% vs. 68%, respectively). While during their first decade in Israel olim mostly voted for the co-ethnic parties and politicians, these have largely proved a disappointment, showing few tangible achievements for their base, neither economically (housing, wages, and pensions) nor in ethno-national matters like civil marriage and non-Orthodox conversions. Since the early 2000s, “Russian” votes were increasingly cast for the mainstream secular Centre-Right parties like Likud, Shinui, Kadima, Yesh Atid, Kahol-Lavan, etc. (their names and lists in eternal flux from one election to the next). The only immigrant-led party that kept playing the political field for over 20 years has been Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beiteinu now supported by some 35–40% of Russian voters, mostly older and less integrated in Israel. Around 10% of Gen 1.0 were directly engaged with political parties as members and volunteers in election campaigns³²; even lower direct engagement is typical for their Israeli-raised children (see below). Thus formal, organized political life remains unappealing for a vast majority of Gens 1.5 and 2.0.

As expected, younger Russian Israelis show a broader dispersal across the political spectrum: around half share Centre-Right political sympathies of their parents, while the other half have moved to the flanks, both on the Liberal Left and the Nationalist Right. In both younger cohorts, women shifted to the Left much more often than men. In the Knesset elections of March 2021, 23% of the Gen 2.0 women and 9% of the men in our sample voted for the Left parties (Avoda and Meretz), as opposed to 1–3% of the parental generation.³³ Table 2 presents selected survey findings on political/civic participation in the two younger cohorts (no comparable items were included in the 2001 survey).

Table 2. Indicators of political/civic participation by generation and gender (%).

	Gen 1.5 (2017)		Gen 2.0 (2021)
	Men	Women	Men	Women
My politics are:
Same as my parents	52	49	50	47
Somewhat more to the Left	13	17	24	28
Much more to the Left	11	14	10	19
Somewhat more to the Right	15	9	12	5
Much more to the Right	8	3	4	3
Any party members/activists
Today	6	3	5	2
Ever in the past	9	5	10	4
Street protests & demos	19	12	15	13
Volunteering
Now	10	13	12	9
In the past	21	25	28	32
Active in online forums	20	27	30	37

Table 2 indicates that few respondents were actively involved in organized politics: just 2–3% said they had recently worked for a political party (typically during elections) and 5–9% had done so in the past (men more often than women). More active participation was observed in the informal action for social causes. Volunteering is a solid indicator of civic engagement, its prevalence highly variable and context-bound. Soviet civic culture discouraged genuine volunteering due to its forced collectivism, ideological control stifling all grassroot initiative, and top-down management of social life. Activists in the youth movements, trade unions and residential communities were often perceived as agents of the state and/or driven by self-interest. Most adult ex-Soviet olim were introduced to volunteering as altruistic work for the common good only upon migration. Gen 1.0 was too immersed in daily economic survival to volunteer their time and energy for unpaid work. Some retired immigrants, prompted by the local examples, volunteered their time for co-ethnic community needs (e.g. helping other elders or tutoring schoolchildren in math and sciences), while working-age adults sometimes had to volunteer to land a job.³⁴

Younger cohorts of Russian olim socialized by Israeli schools, youth movements, and IDF service drifted closer to the local norms of volunteering, often socially expected, or required for school matriculation. But after completing their education and starting families, they usually reduced their voluntary activities, also in line with the mainstream pattern whereby youth and senior citizens volunteer more often than working adults. In our 2017 and 2021 surveys of young Russian Israelis, 21–32% said they had volunteered in the past while 9–13% continued today. Women were involved in voluntary activities somewhat more than men. Thus, the overall volunteering record among Russian Gens 1.5 and 2.0 is approaching that of their native peers (by different estimates, 30–40%), and definitely exceeds this form of civic behaviour among their parents (estimated at 5–8%). More common types of volunteering included emergency medical services (MADA), animal shelters, tutoring recent olim children, and helping lone olim elders. Some 12–19% in both surveys reported participating in street rallies/protests during the last five years, mostly against high living costs, cruelty to animals, environmental threats, or in support of their Ethiopian friends opposing discrimination. Thus, their activism for the common good has expanded, embracing both co-ethnic and broader societal goals.

Cultural citizenship and online activism

The cultural public sphere of late modernity operates through various channels and circuits of mass-popular culture and entails mediated aesthetic and emotional reflections on late-modern living. The cultural public sphere refers to the articulation of politics, both public and personal, through aesthetic and emotional modes of communication.³⁵ These new forms of self-expression make a unique contribution to the cultural public sphere, a place where private citizens come together to debate the issues of public and national significance. In our earlier qualitative research, we explored public events, media appearances, blogs and online groups organized by the online community Generation 1.5 as a form of cultural activism.³⁶

Two generational shifts are apparent in immigrant activism: one is moving from the material/economic to cultural/symbolic issues and goals, and the other is moving from live to online networks. Current activism of younger cohorts has moved from the streets, headquarters and live debates to online forums, cultural and media campaigns in support of full inclusion of Russian Israelis of all stripes in the Israeli national ethos. Data in Table 2 shows that around one-third of younger Russian Israelis (women more than men) are involved in online forums, mostly those initiated and administered by co-ethnic activists. These online communities (Hebrew-only or bilingual) include Facebook groups with multi-thousand membership, like Russian Women without Sense of Humor, Russians for Russians, The Sign that You’re Russian, Parents to Sabras, private blogs, and more. Few bilingual journalists and publicists from the ranks of Gen 1.5 who work for the mainstream Hebrew media and thinktanks (e.g. Ksenia Svetlova, Lisa Rozovsky, Lena Russovsky, Vadim Blumin) serve as cultural mediators between veteran Israelis and Russian-speaking immigrants, covering community affairs and news from the homelands. However, the representation of the Russian Gen 1.5ers in the Hebrew media-scape, especially on TV, is very sparce. This is especially visible in the days of the raging conflict in Ukraine, when none of the Israeli analysts and reporters covering the events from the warzone can speak Russian or Ukrainian. The diversity policies of the Israeli media corporations have recently embraced the Arab and Ethiopian TV anchors (covering mainly their respective community affairs) but somehow left out Hebrew-Russian bilinguals, who represent a much larger and better-educated community. A few journalists with Russian immigrant background, mostly women, typically work behind the scenes and seldom achieve visibility; they often feel sexualized and pigeonholed to cover a narrow range of co-ethnic events.³⁷

The topics discussed on the immigrant-run social media include individual stories of migration and integration in Israel (including their traumatic aspects), career mobility, childrearing by immigrant parents, supporting older generations, personal relations with Sabras, life satisfaction, and the dilemmas of staying in Israel vs. leaving.³⁸ A cross-cutting theme in these discussions is the tenuous status of Russian olim who are not recognized as Jews by religious criteria and face complex hurdles around sensitive personal matters like marriage, divorce, family unification, and burial. Among younger immigrants, between a third and a half are of mixed Jewish-Slavic ethnicity, often feeling like second-rate citizens in the Jewish state. Another painful matter now spanning two immigrant generations is the lingering sexualization of “Russian” women, merged with allegations of their suspect Jewishness.³⁹

Sectarian control of citizens’ personal status and the lack of secular alternatives under current Religion-State merger cause much frustration and fuel media campaigns and street actions in favour of equal marital rights for all Israelis. Alternative civil weddings in Tel Aviv’s urban spaces, organized and sponsored by an immigrant NGO, represented a novel form of political protest against religious control of marriage. In our ethnographic study of alternative street weddings,⁴⁰ one of the activists (all of them professional women in their mid-30s belonging to Gen 1.5) explained their motives:

This is terrible when such a large group of young people committed to Israel is treated like second-class citizens. In important personal matters – be it a wedding or a burial – we are given no choice but comply with ridiculous religious rules. Of course, people find private solutions to this collective problem, but they feel humiliated … Israel is losing these talented young people who are willing to contribute so much to its wellbeing – as professionals, as soldiers, as law-abiding citizens. If they feel unwanted here, they will go abroad rather than organize for political struggle to change Israeli realities … When mass media discuss emigration of young Israelis with Russian roots, they typically mention economic problems and security issues, but in fact their lack of belonging is as important, and this is a great potential loss for the country.

Another activist seconded:

Town Square Weddings … were a kind of a manifesto, but a quiet one, without shouting loud mottos and holding placards. We preferred to put together a happening, a street celebration in which every passer-by could partake and enjoy … We wanted to show everyone that there is an alternative, and beautiful, way to marry … Let me stress it again – it wasn’t a protest rally, although you can’t deny there was a protest motive present – but of a different kind, a constructive and positive protest that points to an alternative … It is more common here to block roads, stop traffic and yell via loudspeakers, but we chose another way to show our resentment. I am sure it made many people think about the issues with Orthodox marriage in Israel and consider the need for a change.

Given ethno-national character of the Israeli citizenship, many non-Jewish olim, mainly women, seriously pondered conversion to Judaism. However, facing the demands of the tedious Orthodox conversion (giyur), most women decided against it.⁴¹ Here is a typical quote from the latter study (Irina, 55, a programmer).

Soon upon arrival, I have learned that my children would be considered Russian in Israel. My husband’s relatives are religious Jews, and when we first met them, his cousin told me: You should think about giyur, because you children will suffer here. I said – no way! I was not going to convert to Judaism for administrative reasons, just to satisfy local officials … It will be up to my children, I said, to decide if they wish to convert … Maybe my attitude has influenced them too, and so none of us has converted till this day.

Unwilling to convert religiously, many non-Jewish women made a socio-cultural conversion to Israeliness by learning Hebrew and adopting local domestic and culinary customs, preparing Passover and Rosh ha-Shana family celebrations on par with local women. They also respect civil Israeli holidays like Memorial and Independence Days and are very proud of their children’s IDF service and their daughters’ marriage to Sabra men. During trips back home, they always advocate Israeli realities before their friends and relatives in the FSU. Slavic wives in this study manifested a greater drive for Israeli acculturation and patriotic citizenship than did Slavic husbands of Jewish immigrant women. Apparently, women have a higher stake at belonging to the host society due to their family commitments and matrilineal transmission of Jewishness to children. Men’s hegemony in the family and in the gendered hierarchy of citizenship attenuates their drive for cultural adaptation and enables a rather critical stance towards Israeli society.⁴²

In the recent surveys of Gen 1.5 and 2.0, 84% and 77%, respectively, agreed with the statement “Religion in Israel should be separate from the state” and 84%–91% supported civil marriage for all citizens regardless of religion (similar levels of support for these markers of secularism had been expressed by Gen 1.0 in the 2001 survey). Several attitudinal items presented in Table 3 reveal that 25+ years after their migration, many 1.5-ers carry old scars of social exclusion and/or still feel stereotyped as “Russians.” At the same time, most respondents strongly identify with the civil Israeli nation and its key republican values of civil rights and duties. Most Russian olim perceive IDF service as the essential civic duty and do not seek exemptions. Yet their belonging is marked by permanent ambivalence. Well over half of respondents in both surveys considered leaving Israel for better educational or career opportunities, while 11–13% admitted that they seldom or never felt at home in Israel. This is another cross-cutting feature of different olim generations: in the 2009 IDI survey, only 48% of “Russians” said they were sure to stay in Israel for good, vs. 80% of native/veteran Israelis.⁴³

Table 3. Feelings of discrimination and second-rate citizenship: response to survey statements (% of those who fully/partly agree).

Statement	Gen 1.5 (2017)		Gen 2.0 (2021)
	Men	Women	Men	Women
If I was born Sabra, I’d have achieved more in life	46	43	50	47
Negative stereotypes and discrimination of “Russians” is still common	40	39	58	66
Being “Russian” I was often isolated or bullied at school	56	53	52	51
In the military, in college or at work, I often felt inferior or excluded	25	22	25	20
“Russians” should organize better to assert our rights in Israel	44	41	47	44
I often hide my Russian origin in social interactions	6	5	10	5

These answers point to the deep ethnic ambivalence of young olim adults, their mixed feelings of “pride and prejudice” in their origin: while publicly asserting their Russianness, they realize that it may be a liability in social relations with native Israelis. Long after their school and army immersion years as olim hadashim, our informants told painful stories of humiliation and exclusion on the part of their teachers, IDF commanders, and Sabra peers. Even the Israeli-born generation, whose Russian roots are no longer apparent, still carried the ethnic penalty in many contexts. In the best tradition of Soviet Jewry, most reacted to discrimination by self-mobilizing and working even harder, eventually succeeding on most fronts as full-fledged Israelis.⁴⁴ Two interview quotes from the latter study illustrate this narrative. Julia (came from Tashkent in 1990 at age 11) closed her story as folows:

It took me many years to feel proud of my origin, my family, and resist those who humiliate us. I found balance between being Israeli and respecting traditions I grew up with. After 29 years in Israel, we are in a completely different place. I have a degree in architecture from Tel Aviv University and work in this profession. My parents work in respectable jobs and earn a decent living. Everyone appreciates having come here, despite the difficulties we went through. I always remember that the time of shame is over for “Russians”; we have nothing to apologize for. We tell the stories of our Aliya – smiling through tears.

Diana (came from Moldova in 1989 at age 14) seconded:

Today I feel that I am Israeli in every possible way: I served in the army, studied, acquired a solid profession, and raise a family in Israel. And no-one can tell me anymore “stinky Russian, go back”! Because I am as Israeli as Sabras, and no one has the right to tell me that.

These quotes exemplify the informants’ republican understanding of the normative track towards Israeli citizenship and full inclusion – via IDF service, academic studies, economic independence, and pride in their origins. It is common Israeli wisdom that all Aliya waves had to overcome prejudice, negative stereotyping, and social mobility barriers, which is perceived as “part of the deal” and stimulates stronger fighter spirit.

Attitudes towards divisive social and political issues

The Israeli citizenship entails multiple dilemmas around ethnic, political, and economic schisms tearing at this complex and conflicted society.⁴⁵ For relative newcomers, it is even more difficult to form opinions and take sides, especially in the era of competing media sources and online social networks. From one immigrant generation to the next, the Russian Israelis’ outlook on the central social and political issues gets increasingly diffuse and diversified (as opposed to a rather monolith mindset of the older immigrants). Civic resocialization of the younger cohorts under turbulent Israeli democracy sometimes entails paradoxical results, whereby they manifest both progressive/liberal and nationalist/conservative attitudes, thus evading clear categorization. Table 4 presents responses to selected statements reflecting the ongoing Israeli political debates, as they emerged in the two recent surveys.

Table 4. Attitudes towards divisive socio-political issues among Russian Israeli Gens 1.5 and 2.0 (% of full/partial agreement).

Statement	Gen 1.5 (2017)		Gen 2.0 (2021)
	Men	Women	Men	Women
Religion in Israel should be separate from the state	82	86	85	88
Peace with Palestinians should be promoted at all costs	22	28	26	31
West Bank occupation must end	12	17	8	14
Some discrimination of Muslims in the Jewish State is legitimate	16	13	13	12
I oppose marriage to non-Jews on national and religious grounds	13	11	18	11
IDF service was important in shaping my Israeli identity	49	41	58	52
Ties forged in the army help me to this day	NA		35	24
I support the Mizrahi cause: they were discriminated just like “Russians”	22	18	33	28
Ethiopian immigrants in Israel experience discrimination and racism	68	73	70	76
Arab Israelis are second-rate citizens	67	71	77	84
I support full equality and inclusion for sexual/gender minorities	78	83	87	97
I share feminist ideology and support women’s movement	71	87	84	95

We see that our young respondents are rather liberal on social issues (e.g. LGBT-Q rights and feminism), oppose religious control of marriage, and generally support secularism. Most of them acknowledge and resent discrimination of ethnic minorities (Arabs, Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews), and their liberal leanings have grown stronger from Gen 1.5 to 2.0. Just like their parents, they support secular marriage and seldom oppose marriage to non-Jews. Yet both younger cohorts manifest deep reservations about the costs of the peace process, and the majority does not support Israel’s full withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967. Thus, their gradual distancing from the solid Right-wing outlook and social conservatism of their parents embraces most but not all key issues on the agenda of the Israeli Left. Mistrust of Arabs and skepticism about peace process that typified Gen 1.0⁴⁶ is common also among their children. Probably the respondents’ military service – that they recognize as important in shaping their Israeli identity – enhanced their doubts about feasibility of the Arab-Israeli peace. To quote Alex, a 28-year-old grad student from Russian Israeli Gen 1.5:

I prefer a society that ensures women’s equality and minority rights, be it people of different skin color, sex preference or disability – but they must be loyal citizens. I doubt the loyalty of Palestinians, both within and beyond the Green Line. They simply can’t pledge allegiance to the Jewish state that they perceive as illegitimate. All of them, including successful Arab professionals, construe 1948 as Nakba, not Independence … I served in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, and I can appreciate the depth of their hatred and mistrust of us. We have no choice but hold these areas under our control.

Yet another dimension of the civic attitudes and sentiments among ex-Soviet Israelis has surfaced in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The protracted conflict between their two homelands (that started after Crimea annexation in 2014 and eventually led to the full-scale war) has fostered much antagonism between Putin’s supporters and critics among the immigrants. The war (ongoing as of this writing) has rekindled interest in home affairs among younger immigrants, making them follow multiple news sources and engage in heated online debates. Judging by the tone and content of discussions on popular FB forums, absolute majority of Gens 1.5 and 2.0 denounce Russia’s aggression and side with Ukrainians, not just in writing but also organizing anti-war demonstrations, crowdfunding campaigns, and assisting refugees. A minority view justifying Russia’s “military campaign” by its defense interests and historic grievances is typically drowned in angry rebuttals.

Conclusion: from passive to active citizenship

This essay sheds light on the inter-generational dynamics of civic and political engagement in the large immigrant collective whom we call Russian Israelis. Its empirical sources embrace our own and others’ qualitative and survey research conducted over the last 20+ years. It contributes to discussions on immigrant civic socialization in the unique Israeli context of co-ethnic migration that entails immediate citizenship and allows political participation from day one. While the citizenship of the parental generation was rather passive and expressed mainly via high voting rates, they established some NGOs lobbying for their economic and cultural rights and sent elected representatives to the Knesset. Some “Russian” politicians of the 1990s are still influential in the only remaining co-ethnic party Israel Beiteinu (Avigdor Liberman) and in the mainstream parties (e.g. Zeev Elkin and Juli Edelstein in Likud).

So far, few politicians of Russian Gen 1.5 gained national prominence (e.g. Ksenia Svetlova in Avoda, Yoel Razvozov in Esh Atid and Julia Malinovsky in Israel Beiteinu), reflecting their low involvement in institutional politics. These young adults express their citizenship in multiple other forms, including volunteering, street events, cultural festivals, crowdfunding for social causes, and other kinds of sub-politics. The gears of their ethnic mobilization and self-expression have largely moved online, while their agenda is focused on the symbolic and ethno-national rather than material matters. Their political preferences show greater dispersal around the Centre, having moved from co-ethnic parties with the National-Right agenda to a wider range of views, including Liberal-Zionist Left. The emotional gradient of citizenship and belonging to the Israeli polity across three immigrant generations have been increasingly critical, willing to expose and resist the unjust and corrupt facets of the ruling elites and street-level bureaucracy in their adopted country.⁴⁷

While Gen 1.0 struggled to make a living and deemed its post-migration economic and social downgrading inevitable, their Israeli-socialized children feel entitled for equal treatment on all fronts, just like their Sabra peers. Raised mostly by educated parents, most Russian Gen 1.5ers experienced many hurdles in their education and career quest in Israel. Although most of them assert that their own living standards exceed those of their parents, many still hit the “glass ceiling” in their occupational mobility.⁴⁸ They resent the slim representation of professionals with Russian immigrant background in public administration, corporate management, the military, academic and intellectual elites. Their absence in the mainstream Israeli media is highly visible these days, as none of the reporters and TV anchors covering the war in Ukraine can speak Russian or Ukrainian. Facing these barriers, the new wave of immigrant civic activists claims greater visibility and inclusion in the public space.

Even among the Israeli-born Gen 2.0, many still feel treated as “suspect Jews,” which under current State-Religion merger limits their basic civil rights to marriage, divorce, and family unification. The gap between the religious and civic definitions of Jewishness (and hence Israeli citizenship) is especially painful for the women of Gens 1.5–2.0, many of whom have Slavic mothers and transfer their non-Jewish ancestry to the children. Few of them are willing to complete the long and demanding process of Orthodox giyur, as they do not intend to become fully observant, while also unwilling to manifest false pretense before rabbinical authority.⁴⁹ Women of the younger generations often resent the imposed definitions of their ethno-national identity. They are more involved in civic activism of all kinds and manifest more liberal and inclusive social/political attitudes than fellow men. On the scale between the republican and liberal dimensions of the Israeli citizenship, men are closer to the former and women to the latter. While most politicians and civic activists of Gen 1.0 were men, the opposite gender ratio is typical for Gens 1.5 and 2.0. This “gender shift” manifested in all our qualitative/ethnographic studies with olim organizations and leaders,⁵⁰ and it also explains female predominance among respondents to our recent social surveys. Lower presence of Russian immigrant men on the Israeli civic arena, including online communities, awaits further investigation.

Opinion leaders among young Russian Israelis seek to expand Israel’s “ethnic democracy” for fuller inclusion of citizens of all stripes, not just their own ilk. They increasingly participate in the cultural public sphere, mainly via online social media rather than the mainstream Hebrew press and TV. As our survey findings indicate, Gens 1.5–2.0 are more supportive of the civil rights of other ethnic minorities – Israeli Arabs, Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews – and assert equal citizenship for women and sexual/gender minorities. Despite their generally more liberal dispositions vs. their Soviet-socialized (grand)parents, they do not necessarily embrace the stance of the Israeli Left on the core issues of the Occupation and peace process with Palestinians. Their civic socialization in the turbulent period of the post-Oslo terror in the Israeli cities, the 2nd Intifada, recurring wars in Lebanon and Gaza – in the context of their own active and reserve military service – reinforced their skepticism about feasible solutions to this protracted conflict any time soon. On that front, their attitudes are rather like those of their parents – and most other Israelis who kept voting for the Centre-Right governments over the last 20 years.⁵¹ As of this writing, the solid Right coalition headed by Likud has won the last Knesset elections. Like other secular Israelis, olim voters worry about the victory of the religious parties of different stripes and their potential antiliberal policies. It can be argued that Gens 1.5 and 2.0 of Russian Israelis are breaking their own, third path between the established political camps and forge their own brand of civic identity and critical citizenship.

Theoretical contributions of this article hinge on a rare multi-generational and gendered perspective in the study of political behaviour and civic attitudes among immigrant and minority young adults. We show that younger immigrant cohorts overcome political apathy of their parents and manifest both attitudinal shifts and a greater sense of entitlement, as well as active resistance when facing injustice. Anchoring our analysis in the concepts of post/sub-politics, critical citizenship, and cultural public sphere, we examine the evolving activist agendas from one immigrant generation to the next, and the expanding range of means and tools for the civic and political expression among younger immigrants. Similar trends typify, for example, young Latino migrants in the US⁵² and younger members of the Turkish minority in Europe.⁵³ While older migrants are either politically apathetic or exhibit transnational political interests (being more involved in the home-country than in American, German, or Belgian politics), younger, naturalized, and better-educated members of these cultural diasporas are increasingly engaged in the host-country civil society and its political agendas. Young minority men in the West are usually more politically active than women, reflecting their traditional gender cultures. By contrast, young ex-Soviet women in Israel manifest a stronger drive for civil participation and higher mobilization for community causes than do fellow men. Thus, our analysis points to the salience of the gender and generational dimensions in the future comparative studies of civic participation among immigrant youth and young adults.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Larissa Remennick

Larissa Remennick is Professor of Sociology and former Chair of Sociology & Anthropology Department at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]

Anna Prashizky

Dr Anna Prashizky is Senior Lecturer in Social/Cultural anthropology at the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Western Galilee College, Acre, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]

Notes

1 Ben-Porat and Turner, The Contradictions of Israeli Citizenship, Chapters 1, 6, 13.

2 Al-Haj, “Ethnic Mobilization,” “Ethnicity and Political Mobilization.”

3 Al-Haj, The Russians in Israel, Introduction.

4 Philippov and Knafelman, “Old Values in the New Homeland.”

5 Ben-Porat and Turner, The Contradictions of Israeli Citizenship, Chapter 1.

6 Remennick and Prashizky, “Generation 1.5 of Russian Israelis”; and Prashizky, “On Generation Citizenship.”

7 Joppke and Morawska, Integrating Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, 1–36.

8 McAndrew and Voas, “Immigrant Generation”; Ataman et al., “Political Participation Beyond Borders.”

9 Dudley and Gitelson, “Political Literacy, Civic Education”; Bloemraad, “Theorizing and Analyzing Citizenship.”

10 Norris, The Critical Citizens.

11 Konczal, Critical Citizenship: A Theory.

12 Beck, “Sub-Politics.”

13 Dixon, Bessaha, and Post, “Beyond the Ballot.”

14 Ben-Porat, Between State and Synagogue, Introduction.

15 Prashizky, “On Generation Citizenship.”

16 Galili, The Other Tribe.

17 Philippov and Knafelman, “Old Values in the New Homeland.”

18 Khanin, “Russian-Jewish Political Experience.”

19 Al Haj, “Ethnic Mobilization.”

20 Philippov and Bystrov, “All by Myself?”

21 Galili, The Other Tribe.

22 Al Haj, “Ethnicity and Political Mobilization.”

23 Ben-Porat, Between State and Synagogue, Chapter 2.

24 Khanin, “Russian-Jewish Political Experience”; Al-Haj, “Ethnicity and Political Mobilization”; and Galili, The Other Tribe.

25 Philippov and Knafelman, “Old Values in the New Homeland.”

26 Schmidt-Kleinert, “Inclusion Through Exclusion.”

27 Galili, The Other Tribe.

28 Remennick, “What Does Integration Mean?”

29 Prashizky and Remennick, “Gender and Cultural Citizenship,” “Weddings in the Town Square,” “Celebrating Memory and Belonging”; and Remennick and Prashizky, “Generation 1.5 of Russian Israelis.”

30 Al-Haj, “Ethnic Mobilization”; and Remennick, “What Does Integration Mean?”

31 Philippov and Knafelman, “Old Values in the New Homeland.”

32 Al-Haj, “Ethnic Mobilization”; Remennick, “What Does Integration Mean?”; and Khanin, “Russian-Jewish Political Experience.”

33 Al-Haj, “Ethnic Mobilization.”

34 Khvorostianov and Remennick, “‘By Helping Others, We Helped Ourselves.’”

35 Firat and Kuryel, Cultural Activism; and Delanty, Giorgi, and Sassatelli, Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere.

36 Prashizky and Remennick, “Weddings in the Town Square,” “Celebrating Memory and Belonging”; Remennick and Prashizky, “Subversive Identity and Cultural Production”; and Prashizky, “On Generation Citizenship.”

37 Lachover, “Visibility, Inclusion, and Exclusion.”

38 Prashizky and Remennick, “Ethnic Trauma in Migration.”

39 Remennick, “Silent Mothers, Articulate Daughters.”

40 Prashizky and Remennick, “Weddings in the Town Square.”

41 Prashizky and Remennick, “Gender and Cultural Citizenship.”

42 Ibid.

43 Philippov and Knafelman, “Old Values in the New Homeland.”

44 Prashizky and Remennick, “Ethnic Trauma in Migration.”

45 Ben Porat and Turner, Contradictions of Israeli Citizenship; and Al-Haj, “Ethnicity and Political Mobilization,” The Russians in Israel.

46 Al-Haj, “Ethnic Mobilization”; and Philippov and Knafelman, “Old Values in the New Homeland.”

47 Prashizky and Remennick, “Weddings in the Town Square,” “Celebrating Memory and Belonging”; and Prashizky, “On Generation Citizenship.”

48 Remennick, “Silent Mothers”; and Prashizky, “On Generation Citizenship.”

49 Prashizky and Remennick, “Gender and Cultural Citizenship.”

50 Prashizky and Remennick, “Gender and Cultural Citizenship,” “Weddings in the Town Square,” “Celebrating Memory and Belonging,” “Ethnic Trauma in Migration”; Remennick and Prashizky, “Subversive Identity and Cultural Production”; and Prashizky, “On Generation Citizenship.”

51 Kenig, Voting Patterns in Knesset Elections.

52 McCann et al., “Transnational Political Engagement.”

53 Ataman et al., “Political Participation Beyond Borders”; and Reichert and Tidwell, “Conditions and Constraints of Political Participation.”