Cultural discrepancy within Russian-speaking community in Israel

Abstract

The objective of the present research is to discover and explain a variety of cultural pref­erences within the Russian-speaking community in Israel. We juxtapose veteran immigrants of the ‘1990 wave’ (including children and teenagers who came with their parents, so called 1.5ers) and representatives of the ‘Putin Exodus’ who arrived in the country in 2014—2018. The divergence in preferences and attitudes was revealed thanks to the discourse, semantic and comparative analysis. The research was conducted on the material of the free association test and blogs of the Russian Israelis. The association test revealed cultural stereotypes of the Russian Israelis who did not write blogs. The ‘1990s wave’ immigrants revealed their deep connection to the Soviet Jewishness and Israeli citizenship regardless of their religious confes­sion. For the 1.5ers, the Russian language lost its special function as the key to the cultural heritage. The ‘1990 wave’ immigrants and 1.5ers experience the Russian language attrition. The representatives of the 1.5 generation prefer to participate in the cultural events in He­brew; they are involved in the Hebrew cultural context. The representatives of the ‘Putin Ex­odus’ consider the State of Israel to be a Western democratic state. They ignore the peculiari­ties of the Middle East country, do not support ‘mestechkovy’ culture of the Russian street and disagree to prioritize the Jewish traditions. The cultural discrepancy does not match the divergence between elite and mass culture.

Keywords

• immigration waves
• language attrition
• immigration trauma
• russian israelis
• blog
• free associations