Repatriates from Ukraine at Ben-Gurion Airport
– Nathan, Israel accepted about 30,000 repatriates in 2015, with two-thirds of this flow consisting of Jews from France, Ukraine, and Russia. What is the social portrait of immigrants from different communities, where do they prefer to settle, how quickly do they find work?
– Repatriation has been growing for the fourth consecutive year, and this year, as in 2014, France is the leader, with 8,000 people arriving. This is a fairly traditional community – 60% of French Jewish youth attend or have already graduated from Jewish schools, and among families who moved to Israel, this percentage is even higher. Almost all have visited Israel before as part of youth programs, and many want to continue their Jewish education here. Today, youth make up about a quarter of repatriates from France, about 50% are young families with one or two children, and 25% are retirees. The “French” generally prefer to settle near the sea; their “capital” in Israel is considered Netanya, but recently many are choosing Ashdod, Ashkelon, Haifa, and of course, Jerusalem.
– Are the employment fields of French Jews also traditional – liberal professions, small entrepreneurs, etc.?
– Almost half of the repatriates from France have an education related to medicine, and very many in alternative medicine – Chinese, for example, or acupuncture. Sometimes these specialties do not exist in Israeli universities, so the process of diploma recognition takes several years. Paradoxically, while in the past we fought for recognition of Soviet diplomas, now it’s French ones. Personally, I adhere to a simple approach: if a person had his own alternative medicine practice in Paris and wants to open the same in Tel Aviv – we should give him that opportunity. If his services are not in demand, he will go bankrupt, but why artificially put obstacles in his way?
– As far as I know, many French repatriates prefer to keep their center of life in the country of origin...
– That was relevant a year ago – then many came as tourists and received citizenship here while keeping their French citizenship. The reason was tax legislation. Recently the situation has changed – French laws have become stricter, and people have to choose. Aliyah is also held back by socialist remnants – long paid vacations in France, generous child benefits, and of course, social housing, where a significant part of Jews who are basically ready to repatriate to Israel live.
– Do you mean the disadvantaged Parisian suburbs with a large Muslim population?
– Yes, but it’s not just about the neighborhood. It’s simply that people cannot sell their social housing in France, so it’s difficult for them to buy housing in Israel, and this slows down aliyah – this year 8,000 people came, but 14,000 could have come – that’s how many people have already initiated their repatriation process. According to our estimates, almost half of French Jews have made a principled decision that their children will not live in France. This is a long process, and we – the Jewish Agency and the government of Israel – can speed it up only by finding a solution to the housing issue, the problem of diploma recognition, etc.
– The reasons for the exodus from France are clear – rising anti-Semitism and a dire security situation (Charlie Hebdo tragedy, recent Paris attacks, etc.). Repatriation from Ukraine (which we will discuss below) is due to the war in Donbas, and that is also obvious. But how to explain the significant growth of aliyah from Russia?
– This is a phenomenon of the past year: if in 2014, 1,000 people left Moscow for Israel, then this year it’s 2,500, and from all of Russia – 6,500 people. This hasn’t happened for a very long time; in the 1990s, repatriation came mainly from the Russian provinces. I talk to the newcomers and see before me the Jewish intelligentsia, which, generally speaking, until recently did not plan to leave the country – these are people of culture, art, journalists, businessmen. Today they fear that Russia’s process of self-isolation from the Western world will go too far, and that does not suit them. Not everyone has yet decided where exactly their center of life will be, but for now, they are leaving for Israel, learning Hebrew, finding themselves in a new place. By the way, interest in our ulpans in Moscow and other Russian cities has recently grown significantly, and after we made them partially paid, the demographic also changed – previously retirees dominated, now youth dominates.
– Still, Russia was surpassed by Ukraine, which took second place in the world in terms of the number of repatriates. It’s no secret that many of the 7,000 of our compatriots who arrived this year in the Jewish state are residents of Donbas, evacuated from the combat zone. What percentage of these people are in the overall flow of repatriates?
– Those who leave directly from the ATO areas make up 50% of repatriates from Ukraine; in reality, the number of refugees from these regions is much higher, since some temporarily displaced persons arrive in Israel from Kharkiv, Dnipro, or Kyiv, where they have been living in recent months. So the share of people from Donbas among repatriates could reach 70%.
The rest are residents of peaceful regions of Ukraine who simply decided to build their lives in Israel. Among them, there are also quite a few doctors, for whom there are special programs, and for whom we have paved the way, solving problems similar to those of their French colleagues. There is incredibly high interest in the programs of the MASA project, which offers study at Israeli universities for one or several semesters. Young people want to try themselves in a new reality and decide where to build their careers – today, Ukraine is perhaps first in the world in terms of demand for these programs.
– How does the absorption of 2015 differ from the 1990s, what mistakes were taken into account and conclusions drawn?
– Strange as it may seem, the aliyah of those years was more like refugees than the current one, although there was no war in Donbass at that time (in just December 1991, almost 30,000 people came from the USSR to Israel – as many as in all of 2015 from all countries of the world, – ed. note M.G.). 25 years ago, we were dealing with people who flooded into the country through suddenly opened doors.
Modern repatriates are much better prepared – they more or less know what awaits them, almost no one today comes to an empty place, there is nearly a million-strong "Russian" community with a branched system of internal connections, so integration is easier. Many cities have long become centers of Russian-speaking aliyah – Ashdod, Haifa, Beersheba, Nazareth Illit, Karmiel and others.
In the 1990s, Israelis did not trust Soviet diplomas – first, they were not recognized; second, special requirements were imposed when verifying educational documents; and third, employers were reluctant to hire their holders. Today it is obvious to everyone how much the country gained with the arrival of specialists from the former USSR, and nothing needs to be proven – Israeli hospitals are looking for doctors with diplomas from medical universities in Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov and other cities.
Much more attention is now paid to learning Hebrew – in the 1990s, many repatriates tried to find a job quickly without properly learning the language, which later affected their careers. Today, even at the stage of preparation for repatriation, a wide range of programs for studying Hebrew, including professional ones, are offered.
– Do you have data on the number of repatriates who left Israel a few years after arrival?
– One way or another, out of the million people who came from the former USSR over the past quarter century, 85-90% continue to live in Israel. In addition, in major CIS cities, mainly in Moscow, tens of thousands of Russian-speaking Israelis live, doing business in the country of origin but not cutting ties with Israel. The percentage of those who left the country permanently is negligible.
Among French Jews, by the way, the situation is similar. Many of them are from North Africa – just half a century ago, one part of their family went to France, and the other to Israel. Today these families are reuniting, and in Israel, not France. And, by the way, it's not all due to the factor of anti-Semitism; much is determined by the economy, whose condition in Israel today is better than in a number of old European countries. All international agencies rate Israel's credit rating at A1 with a stable outlook. Out of 140 countries in the global competitiveness ranking, Israel took 27th place. Finally, we rank 11th in the annual ranking of the happiest countries in the world, ahead of the US, UK and Germany.
Of course, people from different communities behave differently – Americans, coming to Israel from a wealthier country, find it harder to adapt. Moreover, as a rule, most of such a repatriate's family stays in the US, so about 40% of those from the US return after a few years in Israel.
As for natives of the former USSR, despite all the difficulties accompanying the aliyah of the 1990s (just imagine, more engineers and doctors came to the small country than there were in all of Israel), today – 20-25 years later – we see that for the majority of newcomers, integration was successful. Therefore, with a high degree of probability, it can be predicted that those who come today will over time achieve a standard of living not lower, but possibly higher than the average in Israel.
Interviewed by Mikhail GOLD.
Newspaper "Hadashot"