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Russian language in Israel
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Russian language in Israel
The Russian language is spoken natively by a considerable proportion of the population of Israel, mostly by immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union from 1989 onwards. It is a major foreign language in the country, and is used in many aspects of life. Russian is the third most common native language in Israel after Modern Hebrew and Arabic. Government institutions and businesses often also provide information and services in Russian, and Russian has effectively become semi-official areas with a high concentration of Russian-speaking immigrants. The Russian-speaking population of Israel is the world's third-largest population of Russian native speakers living outside the former Soviet Union territories after Germany and the United States, and the highest as a proportion of the population.
About 100,000 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel from 1971 to 1974. Most of them were from Georgia; the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and areas annexed by the Red Army in 1939–1940 from Poland and Romania. Soviet authorities allowed this emigration by calling it "family reunification," to avoid the appearance that anyone was unhappy living in the Soviet state. These emigrants held strongly Zionist views and took the opportunity to settle in their historic homeland. Less than half of those who emigrated in the 1970s wave came from Slavic countries, i. e., Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland even though about 80% of Soviet Jews lived there at the time.
It was not until Perestroika that Jewish activists were given freedom to operate. The emigration that took place from 1989 to 1993 is described as a "panic migration", due to the socio-economic crisis in the Soviet states, rather than a migration of "born-again" Jews. Many of them did not have any relation to Judaism or Zionism in their former place of residence. Most immigrants of this period came from Russia and Ukraine, and to a lesser extent from Belarus and Central Asia.
The "old immigrants" of the 1970s, who mainly came to Israel for Zionist feelings, viewed people who came during the wave of the 1980s and 1990s as people escaping a harsh economic situation who did not have much appreciation for their new homeland. The last Soviet census of 1989 indicated 1,449,000 Jews living in the country, of which about 877,000 had moved to Israel by October 2000. The wave of immigration in this short period of time was the greatest influx of people to Israel since the date of its creation. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union composed 50%–70% of the newcomers. The number of people who came to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s outnumbered the number of people who came during the 1970s by four times, which made it harder for them to be integrated into the mainstream society of such a small country.
In 2013, about 26 percent of Russian immigrants did not speak fluent Hebrew. Russians often settle close to each other, forming Russian-speaking neighborhoods with store window advertisements in Russian and banks with at least a few Russian-speaking workers. Ashdod, the sixth-largest city in Israel, absorbed a particularly large number of immigrants, accepting over 100,000 Soviet Jews from 1990 to 2001. The Yud-Yud Gimmel neighborhoods in southern Ashdod, where immigrants account for 75 percent of the population of 26,000, were dubbed "Israel's Russian ghetto".
As of 2013, 1,231,003 residents of the Post-Soviet states have immigrated to Israel since the fall of the Soviet Union. As of 2017, there are up to 1.5 million Russian-speaking Israelis out of total population of 8,700,000 (17.25%). As of 2022, approximately 15% of the Israeli population is Russian-speaking, and the Russian-speaking community accounts for 15 percent of Israel's eligible voters. Ze'ev Khanin surmised that Russian Jews in Israel tend to be politically conservative, estimating that 50 to 60 percent supported the Likud Beiteinu coalition in 2013.
Israeli journalist Lily Galili attributed this to being in part due to an unwillingness to make land concessions for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. She explained, "They come from this huge empire to this tiny Israel and they say: 'Is that all, is that the country? And what, you want to give back the territories? Who gives up territory in the first place! And in this small country. You must be kidding!'" Russian-speaking Israeli analyst Igor Khlopitsky stated that this also resulted from the Russian-speaking Israelis generally wanting quick results during times of turmoil, saying, "Those who came after Perestroika had the Soviet mentality beaten out of them by the very difficult problems of the time. And where some other Israelis see the possibilities for discussion and dialogue, they just want to solve the problems swiftly."
Hebrew is the only official language of the State of Israel, while Arabic has special status.
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Russian language in Israel
The Russian language is spoken natively by a considerable proportion of the population of Israel, mostly by immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union from 1989 onwards. It is a major foreign language in the country, and is used in many aspects of life. Russian is the third most common native language in Israel after Modern Hebrew and Arabic. Government institutions and businesses often also provide information and services in Russian, and Russian has effectively become semi-official areas with a high concentration of Russian-speaking immigrants. The Russian-speaking population of Israel is the world's third-largest population of Russian native speakers living outside the former Soviet Union territories after Germany and the United States, and the highest as a proportion of the population.
About 100,000 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel from 1971 to 1974. Most of them were from Georgia; the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; and areas annexed by the Red Army in 1939–1940 from Poland and Romania. Soviet authorities allowed this emigration by calling it "family reunification," to avoid the appearance that anyone was unhappy living in the Soviet state. These emigrants held strongly Zionist views and took the opportunity to settle in their historic homeland. Less than half of those who emigrated in the 1970s wave came from Slavic countries, i. e., Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland even though about 80% of Soviet Jews lived there at the time.
It was not until Perestroika that Jewish activists were given freedom to operate. The emigration that took place from 1989 to 1993 is described as a "panic migration", due to the socio-economic crisis in the Soviet states, rather than a migration of "born-again" Jews. Many of them did not have any relation to Judaism or Zionism in their former place of residence. Most immigrants of this period came from Russia and Ukraine, and to a lesser extent from Belarus and Central Asia.
The "old immigrants" of the 1970s, who mainly came to Israel for Zionist feelings, viewed people who came during the wave of the 1980s and 1990s as people escaping a harsh economic situation who did not have much appreciation for their new homeland. The last Soviet census of 1989 indicated 1,449,000 Jews living in the country, of which about 877,000 had moved to Israel by October 2000. The wave of immigration in this short period of time was the greatest influx of people to Israel since the date of its creation. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union composed 50%–70% of the newcomers. The number of people who came to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s outnumbered the number of people who came during the 1970s by four times, which made it harder for them to be integrated into the mainstream society of such a small country.
In 2013, about 26 percent of Russian immigrants did not speak fluent Hebrew. Russians often settle close to each other, forming Russian-speaking neighborhoods with store window advertisements in Russian and banks with at least a few Russian-speaking workers. Ashdod, the sixth-largest city in Israel, absorbed a particularly large number of immigrants, accepting over 100,000 Soviet Jews from 1990 to 2001. The Yud-Yud Gimmel neighborhoods in southern Ashdod, where immigrants account for 75 percent of the population of 26,000, were dubbed "Israel's Russian ghetto".
As of 2013, 1,231,003 residents of the Post-Soviet states have immigrated to Israel since the fall of the Soviet Union. As of 2017, there are up to 1.5 million Russian-speaking Israelis out of total population of 8,700,000 (17.25%). As of 2022, approximately 15% of the Israeli population is Russian-speaking, and the Russian-speaking community accounts for 15 percent of Israel's eligible voters. Ze'ev Khanin surmised that Russian Jews in Israel tend to be politically conservative, estimating that 50 to 60 percent supported the Likud Beiteinu coalition in 2013.
Israeli journalist Lily Galili attributed this to being in part due to an unwillingness to make land concessions for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. She explained, "They come from this huge empire to this tiny Israel and they say: 'Is that all, is that the country? And what, you want to give back the territories? Who gives up territory in the first place! And in this small country. You must be kidding!'" Russian-speaking Israeli analyst Igor Khlopitsky stated that this also resulted from the Russian-speaking Israelis generally wanting quick results during times of turmoil, saying, "Those who came after Perestroika had the Soviet mentality beaten out of them by the very difficult problems of the time. And where some other Israelis see the possibilities for discussion and dialogue, they just want to solve the problems swiftly."
Hebrew is the only official language of the State of Israel, while Arabic has special status.
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