What does it mean to return from Israel: The language of Jewish migration and the feelings behind it (original) (raw)
2019, AAA Conference Vancouver
In the case of Jewish migration, the process of Jews moving to Israel is often referred to as "repatriation" and those moving are thus called "repatriates." In the Hebrew language the word for repatriation is aliyah, which means "ascent" or "pilgrimage" and stands in sharp contrast to the word yerida (emigration from Israel), which literally means "descent." This paper looks at the language of Jewish migration from Israel, and how it echoes the experiences of actual returns, but also delves deeper and looks at the feelings these terms evoke among Jewish migrants. Based on ethnographic material gathered in Odessa, Ukraine, this paper analyses the way ex-Soviet Jews in Ukraine who immigrated to Israel and have since returned navigate the moral demands and pressures that arise upon their return as they negotiate their sense of belonging as locals and returnees.1 In what follows, I look at the language that frames Jewish migration to and from Israel in the institutional and public spheres and the way returning Jews reflect on their decision to move as well as their experiences upon arrival. I analyze the moral dimensions of returnees' trajectories, specifically the ways in which Israel and Ukraine are judged as homes in different contexts of everyday life. Moreover, I look at the ways in which the narrative of Israel as a meaningful place for Jews is taken apart but not necessarily abandoned in the process of return as many Ukrainian Jews remain citizens of Israel and stay socially and economically connected to both places. I argue that a return (however indefinite) is always tangled in a web of complex moral codes that returnees contemplate as they rebuild their lives in an attempt to secure a brighter future. In the case of Jewish returnees in Odessa, leaving Israel does not mean abandoning it and returning to their native city does not mean committing to stay there. The morality of their everyday life does not reflect the institutional moral codes evident in the language of Jewish migration. Returnees, in other words, do not move up or down on the moral ladder but rather across a terrain of moral codes linked to their multiple places of belonging.
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