http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1369000/1369709.stm 

BBC NEWS 

Uprising Spotlights Israel's Russian Immigrants 

Immigrants feel the uprising hit them especially hard. 
The suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Friday that killed 20 
Israelis has traumatised Israel's one-million strong Russian 
immigrant community. The bomb exploded outside a 
nightclub popular with Israeli Russians. Its playlist of Russian 
pop songs draws teenagers from Israel's Russian community, 
which now accounts for a sixth of the country's population. 

Internal Tensions 

But the attack also highlighted tensions that have existed over 
more than a decade between Israelis born in Israel - and those 
who immigrated from Russia. 

There was an angry reaction among Russian immigrants when 
Israeli religious leaders questioned whether three of the victims 
should be buried in Jewish cemeteries, as their mothers were 
not Jewish. 

Guy Chuck, an Israeli who emigrated to Israel from Russia at the 
age of 14 and now runs a communications company in Tel Aviv, 
told the BBC that there was no "melting pot" in Israel, but that it 
was a multi-cultural society. 

"Certainly there is some misunderstanding between the people from 
Russia and people who were born here, " Mr Chuck said. 

Russians bring their own cultural baggage with them, he said, and 
strive to preserve it in the new country. 

Israelis were not always tolerant of that attitude, and therefore there 
were misunderstandings, he said. 

"A lot of people in this country, I think, find it difficult to accept that 
the idea of the melting pot has failed, " Mr Chuck said. 

Secular and Hawkish 

The Russian community in Israel tends to be secularist, disapproving 
of the money given to ultra-orthodox Jewish institutions, while at the 
same time being hawkish on security issues. 

=============
=============
=============

Guardian Unlimited and Guardian Newspapers Limited 
2001 London 

Immigrants Lose Hope As They Bury Children 

Special report: 
Israel and the Middle East 
Russians feel robbed of a future in Israel after bombing Suzanne 

Goldenberg in Tel Aviv 

Monday June 4, 2001 

The Guardian 

Yelena and Yulia Nelimov were teenage girls consumed by teenage ambitions: to dress nicely, to have a good 
Time, and to spend as many weekends as possible at a seafront disco that was a magnet for young immigrants from 
The former Soviet Union. Yesterday, on the day nine graves were dug for nine consecutive funerals at a cemetery 
North of Tel Aviv, dazed friends and relatives eulogised the extraordinary closeness of the sisters - Yelena, 18, and 
Yulia, 16, - who were among the 19 young Israelis killed by the suicide bomb attack on Friday night. " They spent 
All their time together, " said Marina Shniper, 15, their cousin, who sometimes used to tag along. " They loved life so 
Much. I never saw them cry; they were always laughing. " But when the twin coffins draped in the Israeli flag were 
Lowered into the ground there were screams of anguish as the Nelimovs' one remaining child, Alexei, was coaxed 
Into reciting the unfamiliar prayer for the dead. The girls were regulars at the Water World disco on the Tel Aviv 
Seafront. The disco, which played Russian pop songs in the heart of Tel Aviv, symbolised the existence of these 
Young Russian immigrants straddling the boundaries of adulthood and mainstream Israeli life. Almost all those 
Killed in the attack were from the former Soviet Union, members of an immigrant community vastly increased in the 
Past 10 years to account for 1m of Israel's 6.3m citizens. Even before the bombing, the Palestinian uprising had 
Claimed a disproportionate share of immigrants from this community, but this latest tragedy was too much too 
Bear. " I was in the Russian army, in the special forces, and I saw my comrades wounded. I know what that 
Means, " the Nelimovs' uncle, Vladimir Shniper, said. " But that was the army. When it happens to children, there 
Are no words to describe the horror. " Many at Yarkon cemetery yesterday said they were no longer sure their 
Future lay in their adopted homeland. " Now that I have seen what is happening here I have decided to leave for 
Canada, " said Yuri Poltialov, 21. " I don't see that we have a future here; this country has been here for more than 
50 years, and all it has seen is war. " Arriving here as children with the promise of a better life and greater security, 
The young Russian immigrants watched their parents rebuild their lives from scratch, toiling at menial jobs, while the 
Younger generation struggled to fit in. Like many of the dead, the Nelimovs were raised by a single parent: their 
Father, who is not Jewish, stayed behind in Russia when the girls emigrated with their younger brother, mother, and 
Grandmother six years ago. They went the same secondary school in Tel Aviv. " Today I am at my fourth funeral, " 
The principal, Avraham Benvinisti, said, " and there are more to come. " Only minutes earlier he had stood over the 
Grave of another pupil, Irina Nepomniashy, who arrived from Tashkent four years ago and was in the business 
Stream at the Shevah-Mofet school. Friends say she was determined to make something of her life, to rise above 
The conditions that trapped her father in a factory job paying less than ё500 a month. But her death brought an 
Added cruelty. She was buried away from the other teenagers, shunned by the religious authorities because they 
Did not consider her ritually Jewish. Her grave, heaped with bouquets and small memorial candles, stands in a 
Cluster of oleander bushes, isolated even from the section of the graveyard reserved for the unknown dead, 
Because the religious authorities only recognise Jews born of Jewish mothers, and Irina's mother, Raisa, is a 
Muslim. In the throes of their grief the Nepomniashy family did not have the reserves of strength to protest at the 
Insult. They merely gave in to quiet grumbling after Raisa was carried from her only daughter's grave in the arms of 
Two friends. A cousin, Alexander Nepomniashy, said the justice minister, Meir Shitreet, had promised the family 
That Irina would be buried with her classmates, but when they arrived at the cemetery other arrangements had 
Been made. " She lived here with everybody together, so she should have been buried with everyone together, " Mr 
Nepomniashy said. " As I see it now, Israel never really accepted her because it would not let her be buried like 
Everybody else. " 
 

=========
=========
=========
 

www.russiajournal.com/weekly/article.shtml?Ad=1386 

RUSSIAN JOURNAL on-line 
and ASSOCIATED PRESS 

February 18, 2002 Moscow 

Immigrants Give Israel a Russian Flavor 

Ten years on, Soviet Jews reshape Israeli society 

JERUSALEM - The saleswoman at a downtown 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 rush 
of its emigre patrons. Posters at a nearby video store advertise a visiting 
Moscow pop star. 

You can get by in Israel these days speaking only Russian. 

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 choose from a dozen Russian-language periodicals. 

In the 10 years since the Kremlin opened the gates to a Jewish exodus, 
800,000 former Soviets have arrived in Israel. Adding to the 150,000 who
 came in the 1970s, the immigrants now comprise Israel's largest ethnic 
group. 

(......). 

The newcomers, among them a large number of academics, doctors and 
engineers, have left their mark on Israel. 

(.......). 

With the influx of new citizens, Israel's overall education level jumped. 
Immigrant professors and scientists have injected new blood into 
academic life and Israel's technology industry. The number of 
professional orchestras has swelled from 4 to 11. 

Yet (......) 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 longtime 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 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 says, comparing the unruly classroom 
to a " monkey cage. " 

His parents also had to scale down their expectations. His father, a former 
military academy lecturer, found work as a janitor in a neighborhood of 
immigrants and his mother teaches biology in high school. 

(..........) 

The transition into Israeli society has been a bumpy ride. An 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, 
envied the privileges granted to the newcomers. 

(.......) 

Some Israelis felt the immigrants were opportunists seizing a way to get 
out Russia, but caring little for Zionist ideology. 

In 1997, 63 percent of longtime Israelis polled for Israel Radio opposed 
encouraging more immigration from the former Soviet Union and 80 
percent viewed immigrants as competitors in the workplace. About 25 
percent said they associated "nothing positive" with immigrants. 

Dovish Israelis were angry with the newcomers for espousing hawkish 
views and accused them of being ignorant of Israel's 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 still don't work in their 
professions. 

Two-thirds earn less than the average Israeli monthly pay of 6,146 
shekels, or about $ 1,540. 

Some of those suspected of lying about being Jewish had to take 
humiliating DNA tests. The Interior Ministry sometimes refused 
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, 
says 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 says. " Integration seems to have been easier in those days. " 

Squeezed into the same tiny country, the immigrants and longtime 
residents - themselves one-time immigrants or children of immigrants - 
largely appeared to coexist without trying to understand each other. 

(........) 

By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY / The Associated Press 

=======
=======
=======
 
 

NEXT CHAPTER                    BACK TO CONTENT