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Is Violence Keeping Away Immigrants to Israel?
Art Chimes, Voice of America JERUSALEM -- Israel is a nation of immigrants, from Europe, North and South America, Ethiopia and, for the past decade or so, from the former Soviet Union. More than 900,000 immigrants have come to Israel from Russia, Ukraine, and other ex-Soviet republics since the collapse of the USSR. There are Russian groceries and restaurants, a couple of political parties focused on their needs, even Russian-language TV shows like the news program, Kaleidoscope. In Israel, immigration is not seen as a social problem, the way it is in some other countries. Immigration, in a very real sense, represents the very reason for the country's existence: the gathering together of the Jewish people. In the first years after Israel was established in 1948, hundreds of thousands came, mostly fleeing postwar Europe. Immigration has ebbed and flowed since then, but in 53 years 2.8 million Jews have moved to Israel. To help persuade them, the Law of Return guarantees Jews automatic Israeli citizenship, and there is a package of benefits ranging from tax concessions to social program. Tourism is way down this year, and one might expect that the past nine months of violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would also dissuade immigrants. But the Jewish Agency, which promotes immigration to Israel, says only about five percent of prospective immigrants are choosing to delay their migration because of the security situation. According to Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Yankelowitz, would-be immigrants are aware of the issue. "What we have heard from our emissaries all over the world is that this is one of the questions that are being asked, how safe will it be for me to come to Israel at this time?" he asks. "The people who have decided to immigrate will immigrate; they're just a bit worried, is this the right time to make the move?" According to official statistics, thousands are deciding this is a good time to come. Immigration from the former Soviet Union for 2001, representing the bulk of new arrivals, is expected to be between 40,000 and 45,000, comparable to 1998 numbers. Stanislav Slavine arrived from St. Petersburg just one day before he spoke with a visitor at the Bezeq absorption center in Jerusalem. This facility, named for the telephone company that once used it as a training school, has dormitory accommodation for newly-arrived single men and women. In Russia, Mr. Slavine worked at a computer firm and taught English at a film and television institute. Mr. Slavine said he was concerned about anti-Jewish feeling in Russian, which helped convince him to immigrate, but he says the Arab-Israeli violence does not worry him. "If you mean these bombers, explosions, and shootings? In St. Petersburg it's not a rare situation, so I'm not afraid of it at all, frankly speaking," he said. "I think that people think over the situation in Israel and they say to themselves, probably we should wait just a little bit [and] the situation will calm down, then we will go." Another newly-arrived immigrant, Tomas Koltai, earned a doctorate in chemistry and then came to work at an Israeli university before returning to his native Hungary to prepare to emigrate. Along the way, he also lived in France, and he says anti-Semitism is increasing in Hungary, while Jews in France were attacked by immigrants from North Africa. "Because in France and Hungary, the problems are covert," he explained. "In Israel, I know what I'm living in, and this is the difference between the Diaspora and Israel." None of this surprises Sergio DellaPergola, who studies immigration as head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. According to professor DellaPergola says poor conditions at home get people thinking about immigration. "They have to balance the advantages and disadvantages of what they have at home," he said. "I would say that one has to consider what the alternatives are. There may be some pressure to try to find some alternative places to migrate to." The United States, as you know, has somewhat stringent quota policies, so the number of migrants to the United States has declined very significantly in the late 1990s, so Israel after all remains the easier target and also a place that offers some basic socioeconomic assistance and of course civil rights and citizenship. If the driving force behind immigration to Israel remains anti-Semitism, economic decline, and political instability in countries where prospective immigrants live, then even the kind of violence seen here since late last year may have only a relatively minor impact on those seeking a new home in the Jewish state. |
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And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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