Several times I’ve read about the large number of Russian/FSU nationals who have immigrated to Israel, and then usually they drop the little ‘factoid’ that many of the them are not really Jews.
Ok, why? I would think Israel has enough problems that abandoning the FSU wouldn’t be that great of an improvement – and Russian ain’t Hebrew.
So why?
I think many of them have just enough Jewish ancestry to become Israeli citizens, but don’t consider themselves Jewish, and, if anything, look down on the Jews whose country they are opportunistically exploiting.
The UN Human Development Index puts Israel at number 17 and Russian Federation at 66.
I think Israel might be a better deal for those that qualify.
There are enough Russian speakers in Israel that it’s not difficult to get by with Russian and broken Hebrew.
As far as Israel not being a great improvement on the FSU, I don’t know where to find all the quality of life indicators. However, a quick Wikipedia search shows that Israel’s life expectancy is 4th highest in the world at 82.0, while Russia’s is 65.5.
Not a GQ answer, but I’m gonna bet darn few countries have open no-quota immigration for Russians.
But IF a Russian can plausibly claim to be Jewish enough (or can buy fake papers to that effect), that’s probably sufficient to get them into Israel.
The emigrant’s goal is apparently much more go to anywhere-not-Russia rather than go to Israel per se.
true IME. In grad school (M.A. In Russian & East European Studies), I saw a lecture By the Israeli minister for FSU Jewish relations. He only half-jokingly explained that at the time the USSR broke up, there was a Jewish population around 1.8 million. (This was more than 15 years ago now, so I don’t remember the exact figures.) Then half a millionJews emigrated, but here we were, several years later, and there were still 1.8 million Jews in the FSU. If people could do enough genealogical research to find an ancestor Jewish enough to qualify them to emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, they frequently did.
Exactly - people seek out the alternatives they can handle. And once you’re an Israeli citizen then your options for moving on become better.
Specially with a criterion such as “Jewishness”, that is a delicate matter insofar as what is the standard and who sets it, and still subject to debates every so often, Israeli authorities seem to err on the side of inclusiveness. ( After all, there’s history to the effect that when “they” decide to come after you, it won’t matter that your grandfather converted to Christianity a hundred years ago and you’re an atheist who’s entirely assimilated. )