Thousands of immigrants who arrived from the former USSR during the past decade have drastically changed the Israeli educational system. However, constituting about 12% of the potential labour force of educators, immigrant teachers represent less than 5% of the actual teaching staff; 69% of immigrant students in the 17-year-old age cohort do not possess a matriculation certificate. This article presents the results of research that studied probably the most prominent effort to rescue the education of immigrant children, namely the Mofet system, which was founded by a group of immigrant teachers in 1991. Today's Mofet runs more than 20 supplementary evening schools around the country and five day-schools. The development of the Mofet group for the advancement of education is one of the most significant examples of the consolidation trends among the Russian-speaking intelligentsia in Israel. However, the authors argue that though Mofet's success is directly linked to the general education system's failure to meet immigrants' needs, it does not express Russian immigrants' desire for socio-cultural segregation.
This article deals with the recent wave of migration from the former USSR to Israel analyses immigrant intelligentsias strategies of action in the public sphere. The authors argument is that by adopting a seemingly separatist course of action and founding educational cultural scientific, and political institutions inspired by traditions brought from the country of origin, what the immigrants actually do is try to integrate themselves into the host society as its distinctive but equal members. Thus it is the strategy of cultural segregation that enables the immigrant intelligentsia to occupy its own place in the multicultural mosaic of contemporary Israeli society.
Cet article traite de la derni~re vague de migration venue de l' ancienne URSS ~ destination d'Isra~l. On y analyse les actions stratdgiques de l'dlite intellectuelle immigrante dans le de'bat public. Les auteurs sont d' avis qu'en adoptant un plan d" action M-,paratiste, en apparence, et en crdant des institutions pddagogiques, culturelles, sdentifiques et politiques inspirdes par les traditions apportdes du pays d' origine, Ies immigrants essaient en rrde s'intdgrer dans la socidtd d' accueil ?l titre de membres distincts mais ~gaux. C" est donc la stratdgie de s~grdgation culturelle qui permet ?z l'dlite intellectuelle immigrante de prendre la place qui lui revient dans la mosa~que multiculturelle de la socidtd isradlienne contemporaine.
More than 13,000 scientists from the former Soviet Union
have arrived in Israel since 1988. The purpose of this
study is to analyze certain factors that influence immigrant
scientists' integration into the society and academic
community of Israel, with special attention to multilingual
identity. Previous studies in this field emphasize the
significance of Hebrew and juxtaposed Russian with Hebrew;
however, in Israel, especially in the educated classes,
English is an important status symbol and boundary marker.
The data demonstrate that English is crucial in shaping
the patterns of immigrants\' social integration. Results
of statistical tests demonstrate significant differences
between those who studied English and those who studied
either German or French regarding feelings of personal
self-actualization and job satisfaction. Moreover, command
of English proved to be the determining factor for risk
of losing a job. The implication is that Israeli language
policy, which has traditionally taken the acquisition of
Hebrew by immigrants as its major goal, should be reformulated
to include access to English instruction, since without
it they are unlikely to become equal members of the Israeli
middle class.
Israel Army veterans of kibbutz background who had served in the occupied territories during the Intifada were retrospectively asked how this service affected them. Some common themes were disclosed. Service in the territories deepened understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but increased fear and hate of Arabs. These feelings did not lead to a national extremism, but rather to a rationalistic position demanding a peaceful, political solution. The majority of respondents became firmer in their original "leftist" position, and the justification for their position was utilitarian, considering the needs of the Israeli side; only a few based their position on support for the Palestinians' rights or suffering. To cope with the conflict between their military duty and their moral values, soldiers either sought shelter in military orders or compartmentalized their humanistic values and military duty. Few criticized the army. The major criticism, that soldiers had not been given enough tools to deal with the challenges of the Intifada, was directed at the state. Many regarded military service during the Intifada as a most difficult experience, but with only a temporal imprint.
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