Economic Assimilation in the United States of Arab and Jewish Immigrants from Israel and the Territories

In recent years, numerous studies on various aspects of Israeli immigration to the U.S. have been published by Israeli and American social scientists. This is not surprising, given the fact that the U.S. is the country of destination for most Israeli emigrants, and that large-scale emigration is inconsistent with Zionism, the dominant ideology in Israel. Thus emigration in general, and to the U.S. in particular, is viewed in Israel as a major social problem.

Perhaps this is why Arab emigration from Israel to the U.S., as well as to other destinations, has rarely been studied. In fact, the vast annotated bibliography on emigration from Israel, published by the Szold Institute, ¹ does not contain a single item discussing emigration of Israeli-Arabs. This paper analyzes Israeli-born immigrants to the U.S., both Jews and Arabs. Specifically, it focuses on Jewish and Arab emigration from Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip to the U.S. until 1980, relying on a subset of the 1980 U.S. census. This data set enables us to distinguish between Israeli-born Jews and Arabs. It is thus possible to describe and test hypotheses regarding the types of Jews and Palestinian-Arabs ² who emigrated from Israel and the Occupied Territories to the U.S.

The first section of the paper advances the argument that out-migration from Israel and the Occupied Territories to the U.S., unlike in-migration, is governed primarily by economic factors, and that all Jewish and most Arab immigrants to the U.S. can thus be considered economic migrants. The second section briefly discusses theories of immigrant self-selection and economic assimilation and extends them to cases in which one group of the population—in the Israeli case, Palestinian Arabs—faces discrimination in the labor market and elsewhere. This discussion leads to the development of the hypotheses regarding self-selection and economic assimilation of Jewish and Arab immigrants in America. The third section describes the data sets—the 1980 U.S. census and 1983 Israeli census—and procedures used in testing the hypotheses. The fourth section presents the results, and the final section presents the conclusions and their limitations

The Economic Nature of Emigration from Israel to the U.S.

Israel is a country of immigrants. As late as 1980, nearly one out of every two Jewish residents of the country was born outside Israel. Most of the 1.8 million Jews who immigrated to Israel between 1948 and 1980 were not economic migrants; the vast majority of them from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America were refugees, Zionists, and religious persons who immigrated to the Jewish State with the active help of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Few immigrants were motivated by economic considerations.

Jewish emigration from Israel, however, is a different story. When asked to specify reasons for emigration, many Israeli residents in the U.S. claim that they did not actually emigrate since they "plan to return some time in the future." Pressed for an explanation for their lengthy stay abroad, only a minority provide the standard answers of economic immigrants. A more typical response for Jewish emigrants, according to a recent ethnographic study of Israelis in New York City, is to engage in a defensive discussion of the "circumstances" that brought them to "be stuck" in New York. ³ Such responses are understandable, given the negative attitudes toward Jewish emigrants in Israeli society. Nevertheless, analyses of emigrants' revealed preferences suggest that they are motivated by typical considerations guiding economic immigrants—improving their occupational and economic well-being. Emigration rates of Jews from Israel are thus governed almost solely by the economic conditions in Israel and potential receiving countries. During periods of low economic growth, no increase in real wages, and high unemployment in Israel, the wave of emigrants has increased, and the...