confused on “Russians”, here in America, peole say “Germans”, “Russians” meaning Jews from those countries. Maybe it is different in Israel. But then when you say “1 million”, you mean all of them, so maybe you now realized that you over-reached. That’s good. Would you judge Jews coming from concentration camps for eating Treif there? Then, maybe you can be more understnading for people who spent 70 years in socialist gan eden…. Looking up research on “Russians”, Several interesting observations, some how Jews are being seen by these immigrants:
Israel, numbers by Rabbinate count:
– up to 1990 – 10-20% non-Jewish
– 40% 1990s
– 55-60% in 2000s
– out of 1 mln total, 350k are non-Jewish. This seems like a slight over-estimate, as there are some who claim to be Jewish but are missing documentation.
politically. leftist researchers complain that Russians lead to Israel becoming a right-wing majority, by the way. Russian-speaking voters have 15 seats in knesset.
80% of newcomers are center-right, their children are 8% (!) more “progressive” than their parents and 25% are left-wing. 1% total voted for Meretz (is it not on par with general population?!) Yesh tikva indeed.. sounds like there are more Meretz voters in Mea Shearim than in Ashdod. 15% for BLue& White in 2019. 40% for Liberman, Likud 27%, Kulanu 6% Labor 2% New Right 3%, Shas 1.5%
US data:
– US has 700K, half in NY area, 40% from Ukraine, 30% from Russia
– 60-70% in US self-identify as “definitely Jewish”, 20% somewhat, 15 non-Jewish. I think these US numbers are significant as contrary to Israel, there is no pressure to identify as Jewish. “somewhat” might be a mixture of one Jewish parents and people not very attached in general. I think these numbers are on par with generic “American Jews”
– 25% of marriages are intermarriage (only 12, same as with Americans
– for 36% religion importnat/very important part of their life
– 13% are synagogue members (all denominations), more attend without membership. 32% say religion is personal, 13% do not attend because do not understand what is going on. 8% do not feel welcomed, 11% not interested