Coming Home: Media and Returning Diaspora in Israel and Germany

CHAPTER THREE: MEDIA AND RETURNING DIASPORA IN ISRAEL

CHAPTER THREE MEDIA AND RETURNING DIASPORA IN ISRAEL This book regards the immigrants’ media uses as an inseparable part of their social and cultural integration and as a major tool in shaping their new identity and preserving their original one. Chapter 3 opens with a review of patterns evident in participants’ integration in Israel and key issues concerning their social and cultural identity, seeking to improve comprehension of the roles fulfilled by the media in these immigrants’ adaptation to a new society. It then proceeds to describe and analyze the FSU immigrants’ media consumption patterns in the Russian and Hebrew languages, concluding with an assessment of a possible link between media use and immigrants integration into the host society. “ISRAEL IS A JEWISH COUNTRY, THEREFORE IT IS OUR COUNTRY”—PATTERNS OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ADAPTATION AMONG FSU IMMIGRANTS IN ISRAEL The finding most relevant to the participants’ self-definition was a powerful identification with the Jewish component of their identity that accompanied them throughout their life in the Soviet Union. They differed from one another, however, in intensity of affiliation with their Jewish roots and their attitude toward being Jewish. A few participants, primarily young immigrants aged twenty-five to thirty-five, considered their Jewishness as a source of embarrassment and frustration because of the everyday anti-Semitism they experienced in the Soviet Union. Before emigration, these participants tended to conceal their Jewish identity in an attempt to assimilate into the nonJewish majority. 43 44 COMING HOME Vitaly, twenty-seven, newcomer: In my family, our policy was not to tell anyone that we were Jewish. We didn’t celebrate any Jewish holidays. I’m sorry it was like that. Although I always remembered I was Jewish and wanted to know more about the history of the Jewish People, I cannot say that I tried to express myself as a Jew. I just behaved like all the others . . . I didn’t express any kind of national pride. Katerina, thirty-two, old-timer: I always had a negative attitude toward my Jewishness. Had I been able to choose to be born Russian, I would have done so gladly. I was very disturbed by anti-Semitism; wherever I could conceal my Jewishness, I did. I had no sense of pride, only suffering. My parents tried to convince me that Jews are more educated, but it didn’t really ease my mind. . . . We had no affinity for Jewish tradition either; painted Easter eggs were much more common in our family than matzot for Passover. Vitaly’s remarks show that he was aware of his Jewish identity but preferred not to emphasize it and not to express himself as a Jew. On the outside, Vitaly adopted various concealment strategies to avoid exposing his “embarrassing” identity. Inwardly, however, he sought to become familiar with Jewish culture and history—a desire that could not be realized in the conditions under which he grew up. Katerina, on the other hand, expressed an even more negative attitude, exposing not only embarrassment but also a strong desire to assimilate into her Russian surroundings, thus erasing any trace of difference between her and others, engendered by the widespread anti-Semitism she faced in her surroundings. Other participants also felt different from the surrounding population but translated their feelings into a sense of belonging to a nation of “talented and wise people,” as they put it, whose achievements were much more prominent than those of the non-Jewish majority. In other words, in contrast to the opinions mentioned above, other participants, principally those aged forty and over, considered their Jewish identity a source of pride, perceiving themselves as part of an intellectual elite in comparison to the people of other nationalities around them. Evgenija, fifty-five, newcomer: For me, Jewish identity was, first and foremost, recognition of being different from others, realizing that I was the only Jew in class and at work and that anti-Semitism was routinely present. It always bothered me, but I never wanted to assimilate. I always felt a sense of belonging to the Jewish people. I realized this when I was a young girl and began taking more of an interest since then. I wanted to 45 MEDIA AND RETURNING DIASPORA IN ISRAEL know more about Jewish culture. The older I got, the more I felt a sense of belonging and pride in our people, in our intelligent minds. Even though I grew up...