User:Acidburn24m/Sand Box 13
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The big immigration wave of Soviet Union Jews to Israel during the 1990s started actually at the late 1980s with the opening of the USSR borders in the era of Mikhail Gorbachev liberal government. The immigration wave rate wasn't uniform at the start and most of the immigrants actually arrived at the start of the 1990s.
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[edit] The immigration laws during the Soviet Union
Every departure of each individual citizen of the USSR was conditional with the approval of the KGB. Many whom seeked to get those approvals were denied. Those whom tried to escape the USSR and did not succeed were considered as traitors, were fired from their jobs and became targets of hatred by the public. The Civilians of the USSR whom did receive an approval to emigrate were compelled to cede their soviet nationality, and were even compelled to pay money in order to cede this right. Real estate assets such as apartments in which they lived in during the time of the Communistic regime were in most cases belonged to the state, and therefore they also were compelled to cede those assets in the majority of the cases. After the establishment of democracy in Russia and in other soviet republics, those laws were canceled and the the immigrants whom left after the fall of the communism were able to keep their nationality and their assets.
[edit] The factors to this immigration wave
In contrast with the prime immigration waves and similarly to the fifth immigration wave, Zionist motives were not the main reasons which brought most of the immigrants to Israel, and the main reasons for the immigration wave were mainly economic and because they feared for their own personal security, as a result of the fall of the communism and the chaos which prevailed in Russia in the first years after that.
The reason that many Jews chose to emigrate actually to Israel, in spite of the fact that they were not Zionists, is in the fact that the United States closed its gates to the Soviet Union Jews at the start of 1990, while Israel was willing to receive them unconditionally. United States initiated this due to pressure which came from the Israeli government. Until the closing of the gates, during the 1980s about 200,000 Jews immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union.
After their immigration to Israel a lot of immigrants changed their political views and adopted the Zionist position.
[edit] The reaction of the Israeli society
At first the reaction of the Israeli society to the Jewish Soviet Union immigration wave was very positive, and the common phrase "with every immigrant, our strength rises" was used amongst the locals. This positive attitude changed with the time as a result of fears in parts of the Israeli society to the effects the massive immigration wave would have on the Israeli society. The two central reasons for the fear was which were related to this immigration wave was the fear of the high percent of non-Jews amongst the immigrants, and the apprehension that the new immigrants would take away the workplaces from the veteran population.
Another additional reason to negative attitude is connected to the general characteristic of a migratory society, is the inhospitable attitude of the a veteran group towards the population of the immigrants. In this respect, negative Stereotypical rumors started to spread about the new immigrants. This inhospitable attitude intensified also due to the fact that in contrast with the previous immigration waves to Israel, big parts of the immigrants whom came during this immigration wave decided on keeping exclusive culture and language, without trying to the blend their customs with their new lives in Israel. Much of the criticism which was forwarded towards this immigration wave was related to their cultural distinction, which included many negative Stereotypes regarding the Israeli society.
Still, many immigrants succeeded in blending into the Israeli society in the different fields, and contribute greatly to Israel.
When all is said and done in spite of the many difficulties of many of the immigrants amongst this immigration wave and the inhospitable attitude which they received from from extensive parts of the veteran population which partly still continuous till today, the immigrants contributed a lot to the state of Israel in the many fields such as: Culture, Sport, Medicine, Engineering, Education, Science, Technology and more.
