-Caveat Lector-
Will Mossad marry the Russian Mafia?
Soviet Immigration Changes Israel
By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY
.c The Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) - The saleswoman at a downtown Jerusalem pharmacy switches
from accented Hebrew to her native Russian, explaining to an elderly customer
how to take a prescription drug.
Around the corner, the Arbat restaurant prepares for the evening influx of
its emigre patrons. Posters at a nearby video store advertise a visiting
Moscow pop star; a sweat-bathed customer picks up a handful of Russian-dubbed
cassettes that seem to melt on this Mediterranean summer day.
One can get by speaking only Russian in Israel these days.
Businesses run by immigrants - from travel agencies to non-kosher butchers to
Russian-language bookstores - dot the country. Newly formed theater groups
put on plays in Russian. Immigrants frequent Russian cafes and can chose from
a dozen Russian-language periodicals.
In the 10 years since the Kremlin opened its gates to a mass Jewish exodus,
800,000 former Soviets have arrived in Israel. Adding the 150,000 who came in
the 1970s, the immigrants now comprise Israel's largest ethnic group.
Economic woes, political uncertainty and anti-Semitism in Russia and other
former Soviet republics could motivate another 60,000 to move to Israel by
the end of the year, immigration officials say.
The newcomers, among them a large number of academics, doctors and engineers,
have left their mark.
Eleven of Israel's 120 legislators are immigrants. The immigrant vote has
been credited with determining the outcome of the past three elections. In
the May vote, Prime Minister Ehud Barak won, in part, because many Russian
voters withdrew their support of his hard-line predecessor, Benjamin
Netanyahu.
Over the past several years, Soviet emigres have risen to senior municipal
posts across Israel. They represent the country in international sports
events and beauty contests. With their arrival, the overall education level
jumped up, and the number of immigrant officers in the army is on the rise.
Immigrant professors and scientists injected new blood into the academic life
and Israel's hi-tech industry. The number of professional orchestras has
swelled from four to 11.
Despite their successes, many immigrants feel they don't quite belong.
Yevgeny Soshkin, 25, who edits a magazine sponsored by the Ministry of
Immigrant Absorption, avoids socializing with veteran Israelis, saying they
are too intrusive and unrefined.
Soshkin's transition from the Ukrainian town of Kharkiv to the Israeli desert
backwater of Arad in December of 1990 was fraught with pain and rejection. In
his hometown, he had started attending medical college. In Arad, the thin,
dark-haired youth had to go back to high school. ``I suddenly found myself in
hell,'' he said, comparing the unruly classroom to a ``monkey cage.''
His parents also had to scale down their expectations. His father, a former
tank academy lecturer, found work as a janitor in a neighborhood of
immigrants and his mother teaches biology in high school.
Still, Soshkin feels life his getting better.
He speaks perfect Hebrew and has moved to Jerusalem where he studies Slavic
Studies at the Hebrew University. He knows his way around the city and, like
veteran Israelis, likes to eat spicy Middle Eastern food in the outdoor
Mahane Yehuda market.
The initial euphoria in Israel over the wave of Soviet immigrants quickly
gave way to mistrust and disdain.
Strictly observant Jews felt the immigration tide carried too many non-Jews
to the country, endangering its Jewish character. Many Israelis with roots in
North African and Middle Eastern countries who for years encountered
discrimination by the European-born Ashkenazi elites were envious of the
privileges granted to the newcomers.
Indeed, the Soviets received more generous rent subsidies and living
allowances than the Sephardi Jews who came from Morocco, Iraq and other
Middle Eastern countries in the 1950s, at a time when Israel was still
struggling for survival. Today, the government is spending billions of
dollars a year on absorbing immigrants.
Some veteran Israelis feel the immigrants are opportunists seizing a way to
get out Russia, but caring little for Zionist ideology.
Stand-up comedians ridicule the ``Russim.'' Police reinforce negative
stereotypes with reports that thousands of Russian prostitutes were brought
to Israel and that the Russian Mafia is laundering billions of dollars in the
country.
In 1997, 63 percent of veteran Israelis polled for Israel Radio were opposed
to encouraging more immigration from the former Soviet Union and 80 percent
said the immigrants were competitors in the workplace. Some 24.5 percent said
they associated ``nothing positive'' with the immigrants.
Veteran Israelis in the peace camp were angry with the newcomers for
espousing hawkish views and accused them of being ignorant of the conflict
with the Palestinians.
The immigrants, in turn, complained about a hostile bureaucracy and a sense
of isolation. Many could not afford a decent apartment on their government
stipend. About half the immigrants don't work in their profession. Two-thirds
get less than the average Israeli monthly pay of 6,146 shekels (dlrs 1,536).
Some of those suspected of not being Jewish had to take humiliating DNA
tests. The dreaded Interior Ministry would sometimes refuse immigration visas
to non-Jewish relatives of young Russian men serving in the Israeli army.
Mikhail Weiskopf, a prominent author who settled in Israel in 1972, said it
was easier during the first, smaller wave of immigration.
``We were also met with some hostility, yet there was much less of it,'' he
said. ``Integration seems to have been easier in those days.''
A 1993 survey by the Jewish agency, a quasi-government immigration body,
found that 77 percent of newcomers had little or no social contact with
native Israelis, and only 8 percent felt a sense of belonging to the Israeli
society.
Squeezed into the same tiny country, the immigrants and native Israelis -
themselves one-time immigrants or children of immigrants - largely appeared
to coexist without trying to understand each other.
``We came to a society where everyone is from the Diaspora,'' former Soviet
dissident Natan Sharansky once said. ``Here we are again, suddenly suspects
and foreigners to a majority of the public who think we endanger the society
and security of the country.''
As years passed, the immigrants learned Hebrew, found new jobs, bought
apartments and generally climbed up the social ladder.
Yelena Polsky, a 24-year-old accountant, has been transformed by her new
homeland. She and her family members have begun observing Jewish traditions
and she feels at ease with Israeli friends. ``Russian newspapers? Why read
all this nonsense and spend money buying them,'' Polsky said.
One leap forward toward integration came in 1996, when hard-line opposition
leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who played to immigrant discontent, defeated the
previous Labor government.
An immigrants' party led by Sharansky, Netanyahu's friend, captured seven
parliament seats and two Cabinet posts. Israel suddenly had a new political
force to deal with.
Immigration watchers said the sudden success of the immigrants' party helped
remove many stigmas and provided for an exchange of opinions at the highest
level.
Other changes triggered by the Russians, who are Ashkenazi and predominantly
secular, are only now emerging. Their arrival has aggravated religious and
ethnic tensions. In one sign of a backlash, the Shas party which represents
observant Sephardi Jews nearly doubled its parliament representation in the
May election.
Israeli veterans say every immigration wave eventually blends into Israeli
society. Israel's melting pot will produce a uniform stew that will have a
different taste. ``Israel will eat up everything,'' said Weiskopf. ``I don't
know how it will change, but it will.''
sms-kl
AP-NY-09-03-99 1739EDT
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