Eli Ben-Rafael

Tel Aviv University, Sociology and Anthropology, Emeritus

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Research Interests:
Sociology and Anthropology, Anthropology, Sociology, Critical Theory, Human Rights, and Jewish Identity edit
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The crumbling of the USSR has set Russian-speaking Jews free to emigrate. From the threat of antisemitism to economic disaster, their “good reasons” to do so were numerous and within one and a half-decade, most of them moved out and scattered throughout the world. This book is about the million that settled in Israel, the half-million now in the US and the 200,000 who settled in Germany.

This book presents the comparative work of an international team of researchers which delves into the building of communities, the formulation of collective identities and the articulation of public discourse by people who, after eighty years of Marxism-Leninism and compulsory removal from Jewish culture, are now reconstructing their ethnicity. In every place, they face contrasting challenges and as a whole, constitute an ideal case for the study of the making of contemporary transnational diasporas.

Research Interests:
Immigration, International Migration, Acculturation Stress, Migration Studies, Diaspora Studies, and 3 moreAcculturation, Acculturation strategies, and Acculturation and cultural identity

Papers

Preface PART A: BUILDING A TRANSNATIONAL DIASPORA Chapter 1: Collective construction Chapter 2: The shake-up of Russian Jewry Chapter 3: Research Methodology PART B: BUILDING COMMUNITIES Chapter 4: When ethnicity becomes national and vice-versa: Israel Chapter 5: A new American Jewry Chapter 6: Russian Jews in Germany Chapter 7: Communities compared PART C: COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES Chapter 8: RSJs' images and self-images in Israel Chapter 9: RSJs images and self-images in America Chapter 10: RSJs' images and self-images in Germany Chapter 11: Divergent and Convergent Identities Chapter 12: RSJs' distancing from "others" PART D: MEDIA DISCOURSE Chapter 13: RSJs' press and in the Press - Israel Chapter 14: RSJs' Press and in the Press - USA Chapter 15: RSJs' Press and in the Press - Germany Chapter 16: RSJs' Press and in the Press - In Comparative Perspective PART E: PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES Chapter 17: The phases of collective construction Chapter 18: "Jewishness" versus "Russianness"? Chapter 19: RSJs in perspective Addenda Addendum 1: The Experience of Non-Jewish "Russian" Immigrants in Israel Addendum 2: Policy-making perspectives Appendices Appendix 1: SAM survey and Measures Appendix 2: The media analysis: classification System Bibliography The authors