Everyone is disappointed with the new immigrants

(C) reprinted with the permission of Haaretz Daily (English)

By Avi Beker

The High Court of Justice's ruling on the sale of pork, like the resignation of minister Avigdor Lieberman from Sharon's government, demonstrated the complex influence of the new immigrants from the former Soviet Union on Israeli society. The new immigrants tipped the balance in favor of secular and left-wing viewpoints vis-a-vis the struggle against religious legislation. At the same time, however, they created an unusual confluence of completely secular immigrants, the national-religious right wing and the settlers.

Fifteen years after the beginning of the immigration wave, the million immigrants from the former Soviet Union have left their indisputable mark on Israeli society. It is still hard to evaluate the long-term effects of the immigration since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, but it is clear that the process of absorption and integration in Israel did not fulfill the expectations of more veteran groups in Israeli society.

In a recent conference on "Russian-speaking Jews in the World" at Bar-Ilan University, sociologist Dr. Alek Epstein of the Open University presented the balance of unfulfilled expectations, in his lecture on "the new Ashkenazim and the torn Israeli society." He said each of the veteran population groups erred in its expectations from the Russian immigration.

The secular Ashkenazim expected that the immigrants - who had struggled in the Soviet Union for human rights - would strengthen them against Shas, the ultra-Orthodox and their allies in the political right wing. However, the Russian immigration helped to build up Netanyahu against Shimon Peres and led to Ariel Sharon's election as prime minister.

The left was disappointed to discover among the immigrants strong support for the right wing, and historic-nationalist sentiments alongside the secularity, which led to a complex position on religious issues for some of the immigrants.

The religious-national sector expected more immigrants to arrive at the settlements and was disappointed when they opted for left-wing governments and voted for Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak for prime minister.

Dr. Epstein notes that Jews of Middle Eastern descent expected the Jews from the former Soviet Union to fill the lower-paid jobs and enable them to move up the social ladder. They gazed with wonder at the rapid transition made by some of the immigrants from physical labor to self-employed professionals. Even those immigrants who had arrived from the Soviet Union in the '70s feared that the newer immigrants would rob them of the integration they had achieved, and that those "assimilated goyim" would arouse a stigma that would increase the social barriers.

Israeli society is indeed torn, but it seems that the waning of the sectoral and tribal expectations reflect the strength of the Israeli melting pot. Anyone who expected the state's Jewish identity issue, or the peace process, to be determined by a one-time demographic vote, erred in understanding the processes in a democratic society under pressure, such as Israel. On issues of the Sabbath, kashrut - especially pork - and civil marriage, the million immigrants only strengthened already consolidated trends, leaving at society's door identity dilemmas that will continue to trouble it.

The challenge of converting and registering the immigrants who are not Jewish according to halakha, or Jewish law, will not let the rabbinical establishment and the Israeli courts alone. In the political realm also, as the political developments and surveys testify, Israeli society is in the throes of change that is hard to define in traditional ideological terms, and therefore the expectations of both left and right were dashed.

In addition to being a separate sub-group in Israeli society, with prominent socioeconomic characteristics, the new immigrants surprisingly shattered yet another myth when they decided in the last elections not to vote on the basis of tribal parties.

Altogether, the entrance of a million new "players" into the Israeli pressure cooker served to shake up ideological slogans that needed a facelift. Their contribution to demographics, economics, culture and even the army is a blessing and it is hard to describe the last decade's take-off in growth without citing the influence of the immigration.

Israeli society is indeed divided, but it is in the process of redefining and updating the traditional ideological controversies. The myths about the immigration were formed, on either side, as a result of the Israeli obsession with reaching a clear-cut, swift decision on national issues. The myths dissipated because they were based on false expectations. The addition of a new social mass with different interests and points of view allows the nation of Israel to hold a more realistic debate without unduly exaggerated expectations.

Dr. Avi Beker was the executive director of the World Jewish Congress.