From the Soviet Union to Israel: How the Post-Soviet Union Aliyah of the 1990s Shaped Israeli Polity (original) (raw)

Today, Russian Jews constitute approximately 15% of Israel’s population. Although a lot of them came to Israel to pursue the Zionist dream and to escape antisemitism, a majority of them came for better economic prospects that were not present in unstable post-Soviet Russia because of discrimination. Considering the timely overlap between the conservatization of Israelis and the arrival of Post-Soviet Jews, it is highly possible that a correlation between the two exists. Hence, this paper argues that the emigration of Russian Jews in the Post-Soviet Aliyah of the 1990s has contributed as a factor to the Israeli population’s movement towards the right-wing in two ways, one being internal and the other being external in relation to the Russian-Jewish immigrants. (1) Internally, conservative values, especially regarding the Palestine situation, held by the Russian Jews strengthened right-wing alliances and increased the population of the right-wing support base. (2) Externally, the overwhelming number of Soviet immigrants has caused Israel to reevaluate its immigration policy and take a more conservative approach while creating a discriminatory atmosphere filled with prejudices towards the Russian-Jews of the Post-Soviet Aliyah.