The Role of Religious Identification in North American Migration to Israel

Imagining London: The role of the geographical imagination in migrant subjectivity and decision‐making

“…However, what this cannot account for is why those whose material comfort in their home countries is already at a comparable level with the Global North can still feel a sense of alienation or distance from their origin society and desire to emigrate. Dashefsky and Lazerwitz () refer to this as “societal alienation.” Here migrants do not necessarily imagine their destination in terms of material benefits but societal or cultural ones. This echoes Carling and Jolivet's statement that, in contrast to other nationalities they interviewed, the Brazilians “tend[ed] to be more satisfied with the quality‐of‐life impacts of migration than with the financial benefit” (2016, p. 39).…”

“…However, what this cannot account for is why those whose material comfort in their home countries is already at a comparable level with the Global North can still feel a sense of alienation or distance from their origin society and desire to emigrate. Dashefsky and Lazerwitz (1983) refer to this as "societal alienation." Here migrants do not necessarily imagine their destination in terms of material benefits but societal or cultural ones.…”

“…This paper aims to expand on what the quantitative findings hint at, to explore the motivations and values of many Brazilian migrants in the capital. It argues that for many middle‐class Brazilians, the motivation to migrate is couched in terms of “societal alienation” (Dashefsky & Lazerwitz, ): a feeling of distance from the place of origin resulting from a lack of identification and trust in its institutions and even the very culture of the place itself. This is in contrast to the concept of migrating due to “material alienation” whose origins stem from “commodity fetishism” (Marx, ), migrating to access a higher level of material consumption or to acquire financial capital to use “back home.” For those who migrate due to “societal alienation” what is “fetishised” is a less material interpretation of the “quality of life” at the migration destination which becomes a kind of commodity in its own right.…”

Religiously Motivated Migration

“…This attracts Jewish people in America who are dissatisfied with the liberalizing tendencies of other Jewish people, whose entry into Gentile culture has made Jewish group membership ambiguous. These two poles of Judaism consequently vie for members, where in Israel, boundaries are more firmly maintained ( competition ) (Dashefsky and Lazerwitz ; Alba ; Palmer ).…”

“…Religion has motivated migration, both in the past (Dann ; Reinhard ; Beiler ) and present; internationally (Dietz ; Cavalcanti ) and internally (Toney ; Toney, Stinner, and Kan ; Stump ); and among Christians (Connor ; Anderson ), Jews (Dashefsky and Lazerwitz ; Palmer ), Muslims (Eickelman and Piscatori ; Masud ), Buddhists (Carter ), and others. Despite religion's diffuse role in triggering migration—apparent in these cases but seemingly incidental in inclusion—religiously motivated migration has been undertheorized, an oversight this article rectifies with a theoretical framework that demonstrates how religion can influence migration decisions.…”