Abstract
South African Jews in Israel: Assimilation in Multigenerational Perspective contains detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses of the migration patterns and processes of assimilation into Israel of South African Jews who migrated there primarily between 1968 and 2013. Where most similar studies have focused on the immigrants themselves, their motives for migrating to Israel and, perhaps, their absorption experiences, Rebeca Raijman contributes a valuable multigenerational perspective by studying three groups: immigrants who arrived in Israel as adults, those who arrived as children, and Israeli-born children of immigrants.
In contrast to theories of migration that focus on economic motives, Raijman finds that South African Jewish migration to Israel has been motivated by both push—unstable socioeconomic and political—and pull—Jewish and Zionist identity—factors. Indeed, realization of the desire to migrate was enabled by intense social networks and institutional frameworks between the organized South African Jewish community and Israel. These networks and frameworks became even more significant with development of the Internet, through which the most current and most extensive information is available.
Raijman does not mention it, but one additional significant aspect of the role of the Internet and of telecommunications in Israeli immigration patterns from some countries is that they enable new arrivals to retain employment in their native countries. For example, there are immigrants in fields such as accounting, radiology, and technology, among others, who are able to continue working in their previous positions because their work does not require them to be physically present at their offices and all of the information they need for their work is readily transmitted on the Internet. They can also have a telephone number that is based in their previous country but which is relayed to where they are in Israel.
In many ways, though Raijman does not explore this extensively, the immigration patterns of South African Jews are similar to those of American Jews who immigrated to Israel. One major difference is the relative absence in the United States of the types of socioeconomic and political instability that were push factors for South African Jews, and it is probably for that precise reason that the rate of Jews migrating to Israel from the United States is so much lower than that of South Africa.
Analyzing linguistic assimilation, Raijman found Hebrew proficiency to be higher for migrants with more extensive contacts with Israelis and with higher education. Although the first generation arrives with a good knowledge of Hebrew, its members typically prefer to communicate in English, and they live in ethnic neighborhoods that allow them to do so comfortably. Their Israeli-born children as well as those who arrived in Israel as children are typically bilingual. Though this generation prefers to use Hebrew with friends and family, they have good command of English and use it as well. By the next generation, Hebrew was found to have replaced English as the primary language. However, the international prominence of English renders knowledge of it a valuable asset, and in this generation as well it is desirable to retain English-language skills.
The education rates for South African men and women in Israel are very similar to those of their counterparts from North America. Further, they are the highest among all groups in Israel, with both men and women having more than 16 years of education and 70 percent or more having academic degrees.
Not surprisingly, given their educational status and their facility with both Hebrew and English, South African immigrants have very high labor-force participation rates. What is not clear is why their rates are even higher than those of immigrants from North and South America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Perhaps, with the exception of North American immigrants, they come with stronger skills in English. And they may come with stronger skills in Hebrew than Americans do. This is an area that merits further analysis.
Likewise, the finding that, compared to the general Jewish population in Israel as well as to other immigrant groups, South African men are more highly represented in the advanced producer services such as finance, insurance, real estate, banking, accountancy, and marketing merits more intensive research. Perhaps their greater representation in the advanced producer services in Israel is reflective of their positions in South Africa prior to their immigration; but then the question is, why are they so different than Jews in other western societies? Alternately, the question might be why Jews in advanced producer services in South Africa are more likely to immigrate to Israel than are American Jews in such positions.
Despite its national mythology of gender equality, sexism is at least as pervasive in Israel as it is in most western countries, and it manifests itself in the socioeconomic patterns of South African immigrants in Israel. Like males, females also enjoy relatively high socioeconomic status. They, however, do not equal their male counterparts’ status because they are affected by structural sexism in Israel that directs them to “women’s jobs” that are less lucrative and less prestigious than those of men.
In light of the intergenerational patterns of linguistic and socioeconomic assimilation, the identificational assimilation patterns of South African immigrants in Israel are predictable and, indeed, substantiated by Raijman’s research. Briefly, she found first-generation immigrants primarily retain the South African cultural identity and only partially adopt Israeli identity. The primary cultural identity of their Israeli-born children and of those who were very young when they immigrated is Israeli, though they retain some aspects of South African culture. Raijman views this as a form of what Herbert Gans terms “symbolic ethnicity” that is thin and worn rather lightly.
It would be interesting to compare the identity of South Africans and Americans of the second generation to see if there may be other variables influencing their cultural identities. For example, since the socioeconomic and political conditions for Jews inthe United States are positive and air travel is advanced, second- and even third-generation American Jews in Israel may travel more frequently to the United States and thus retain significant parts of their American cultural identity. The conditions in South Africa for Jews, on the other hand, may be less conducive to attracting children and grandchildren of immigrants from there to return, thus weakening their South African identity.
Raijman indicates that, once they immigrate to Israel, many no longer feel as much need to observe certain religious rituals as they had in their native country. Perhaps that is because the Jewish community in South Africa is very religiously traditional and religious behavior is how one expresses Jewishness. Once they immigrate to Israel, however, they feel they are Jewish simply by being there and no longer need to express their Jewishness religiously.
There are no firm data indicating a similar pattern among American Israelis. Research does indicate that American immigrants to Israel place primary emphasis on the Jewish aspect of their identity in America but once in Israel become much more conscious of themselves as Americans. Further research on American and South African immigrants might explore whether their Jewish identity actually weakens or if it becomes taken for granted because they are in a society with a Jewish majority where others identify them by what distinguishes them from others, namely, their being American or South African.
This book broadens our understanding of migration as well as religious and ethnic patterns across generations.