In the 1950s and 1960s the Israeli government did not let market forces absorb the immigrants, disperse them spatially and find them jobs. 'Planning from above' dominated immigrant absorption. The absorption of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union in the past five years is marked by a completely new policy conception, known in Israel as 'direct absorption'. The Israeli government decided to replace its strategy of intervention from above with a strategy of absorption by market forces. The objective of the present study is to examine the spatial results of this policy, by looking at the geographical distribution of immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel, while distinguishing between the geographical distribution of supply of housing for immigrants (the public sector versus the private sector) and the geographical distribution of demand, which is manifested in the immigrants' initial place of settlement and their redistribution by means of internal migration.
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