Post by Melnorme on Nov 23, 2003 5:54:29 GMT -5
www.7th-day.co.il/medina/zionist.htm
Dr. Ze'ev Hanin, a lecturer and researcher in the political science department at Bar-Ilan University, feels like someone who is carrying around dangerous explosives. They should not fall into the wrong hands.
The explosive materials are the ramifications of the findings of his research over the few years; they have political, social, religious and ideological significance, and Israeli society prefers to ignore them.
Hanin's research focuses on the hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who have arrived in Israel since 1989 under the Law of Return, from the countries of the former Soviet Union. Hanin estimates that this population stands at about 250,000 and includes various, vastly different groups.
Hanin's main contention is that three main groups stand out in this population. While one group is developing a positive relationship with the Jewish society in Israel and has a strong desire to become integrated, the other two have an equally strong desire to preserve their original non-Jewish and non-Israeli identity. Moreover, they also have a very critical attitude toward Zionism and its definition of Israel as a Jewish state.
Ze'ev Hanin, a researcher at Bar-Ilan University,
identifies one group who are considered Jewish
under halakha, but who never felt any affinity to
Judaism and prefer to define themselves, even in
Israel, as Russians or as Ukrainians.
(Photo:Yossi Sudri)
![]()
www.7th-day.co.il/medina/zionist.files/image001.jpg
[/img]
Hanin cautions that on the fringes of these groups there are also some - "not many but certainly a cause for worry" - whose criticism of Zionism approaches hostility toward Israel and even expressions of anti-Semitism.
Most of the first group, Hanin found, supports the right-wing parties (Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Yisrael b'Aliyah and National Union) while the other two groups have a tendency to support Meretz, Labor, Shinui and Roman Bronfman's new party.
Hanin will present the initial findings of his research, which is not yet complete and whose final conclusions have yet to be drawn, to the opening session of a two-day conference at Bar-Ilan University, which begins tomorrow. The conference is to deal with what its organizers define as "the assimilation of non-Jews in Israeli society and their effect on the collective identity".
Hanin, who was born in the Ukraine, completed his doctoral studies in Moscow, did post-doctoral work at Oxford University and came to Israel about 10 years ago. He fears that his findings will be used to fuel a demand for changes to the Law of Return and for a halt to "the Russian invasion" of Israel, or to lash out at political opponents.
Thus Hanin stresses that his findings are only "initial",to remind his audience that "these are very sensitive matters that relate to the personal identity of human beings",and to ask his audience not to draw "sweeping conclusions" or "make generalizations".
Hanin's research makes it difficult to make generalizations. The immigrant population of non-Jews is portrayed as very heterogeneous and including many subgroups and identities and different ideologies that sometimes contradict one another. Each group and subgroup is from a different ethnic, cultural and identity background.
"Anyone who speaks in general about `hundreds of thousands of Christians arriving from Russia,'" says Hanin, "is simply using classifications that are not relevant to reality".
Christianity in Russia is only a religious classification (and not an ethnic or national one). Hanin explains that most of the non-Jews who arrive in Israel are not Christians but rather "complete religionless atheists." From an ethnic point of view (which is the one that counts) there are Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Uzbekis as well as "people who, until they arrived in Israel, were convinced they were Jewish".
Immigrants who are defined here as non-Jews have different levels of affinity toward Judaism. Some of them have a Jewish father, some had a Jewish grandfather, and others never had any connection with Judaism. Hanin feels that it is improper to relate to all of them as one entity.
"At our Interior Ministry," he complains, "they cannot differentiate between a Rabinowitz whose father was Jewish and who himself always thought he was Jewish, and between Petrov, who has had no connection with Judaism for four generations".
Even those who have no affinity to Judaism are not all the same, and Hanin says that generalizations must not be made about them, either. "In the circles close to [MKs Avigdor] Lieberman and [Natan] Sharansky, I have often heard statements like, `We don't want to see the faces of those gentiles around here, reminding us of the Russian anti-Semites".
Hanin says: "I can understand what bothers them, but I think that these are insensitive expressions that harm people who came to Israel, at least some of them, with an open heart and good intentions. The fact that they are Russians or Ukrainians from an ethnic point of view, and that fact that the are not willing to adapt themselves to a Jewish identity does not turn them into anti-Semites".
Dr. Ze'ev Hanin, a lecturer and researcher in the political science department at Bar-Ilan University, feels like someone who is carrying around dangerous explosives. They should not fall into the wrong hands.
The explosive materials are the ramifications of the findings of his research over the few years; they have political, social, religious and ideological significance, and Israeli society prefers to ignore them.
Hanin's research focuses on the hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who have arrived in Israel since 1989 under the Law of Return, from the countries of the former Soviet Union. Hanin estimates that this population stands at about 250,000 and includes various, vastly different groups.
Hanin's main contention is that three main groups stand out in this population. While one group is developing a positive relationship with the Jewish society in Israel and has a strong desire to become integrated, the other two have an equally strong desire to preserve their original non-Jewish and non-Israeli identity. Moreover, they also have a very critical attitude toward Zionism and its definition of Israel as a Jewish state.
Ze'ev Hanin, a researcher at Bar-Ilan University,
identifies one group who are considered Jewish
under halakha, but who never felt any affinity to
Judaism and prefer to define themselves, even in
Israel, as Russians or as Ukrainians.
(Photo:Yossi Sudri)
www.7th-day.co.il/medina/zionist.files/image001.jpg
[/img]
Hanin cautions that on the fringes of these groups there are also some - "not many but certainly a cause for worry" - whose criticism of Zionism approaches hostility toward Israel and even expressions of anti-Semitism.
Most of the first group, Hanin found, supports the right-wing parties (Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Yisrael b'Aliyah and National Union) while the other two groups have a tendency to support Meretz, Labor, Shinui and Roman Bronfman's new party.
Hanin will present the initial findings of his research, which is not yet complete and whose final conclusions have yet to be drawn, to the opening session of a two-day conference at Bar-Ilan University, which begins tomorrow. The conference is to deal with what its organizers define as "the assimilation of non-Jews in Israeli society and their effect on the collective identity".
Hanin, who was born in the Ukraine, completed his doctoral studies in Moscow, did post-doctoral work at Oxford University and came to Israel about 10 years ago. He fears that his findings will be used to fuel a demand for changes to the Law of Return and for a halt to "the Russian invasion" of Israel, or to lash out at political opponents.
Thus Hanin stresses that his findings are only "initial",to remind his audience that "these are very sensitive matters that relate to the personal identity of human beings",and to ask his audience not to draw "sweeping conclusions" or "make generalizations".
Hanin's research makes it difficult to make generalizations. The immigrant population of non-Jews is portrayed as very heterogeneous and including many subgroups and identities and different ideologies that sometimes contradict one another. Each group and subgroup is from a different ethnic, cultural and identity background.
"Anyone who speaks in general about `hundreds of thousands of Christians arriving from Russia,'" says Hanin, "is simply using classifications that are not relevant to reality".
Christianity in Russia is only a religious classification (and not an ethnic or national one). Hanin explains that most of the non-Jews who arrive in Israel are not Christians but rather "complete religionless atheists." From an ethnic point of view (which is the one that counts) there are Russians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Uzbekis as well as "people who, until they arrived in Israel, were convinced they were Jewish".
Immigrants who are defined here as non-Jews have different levels of affinity toward Judaism. Some of them have a Jewish father, some had a Jewish grandfather, and others never had any connection with Judaism. Hanin feels that it is improper to relate to all of them as one entity.
"At our Interior Ministry," he complains, "they cannot differentiate between a Rabinowitz whose father was Jewish and who himself always thought he was Jewish, and between Petrov, who has had no connection with Judaism for four generations".
Even those who have no affinity to Judaism are not all the same, and Hanin says that generalizations must not be made about them, either. "In the circles close to [MKs Avigdor] Lieberman and [Natan] Sharansky, I have often heard statements like, `We don't want to see the faces of those gentiles around here, reminding us of the Russian anti-Semites".
Hanin says: "I can understand what bothers them, but I think that these are insensitive expressions that harm people who came to Israel, at least some of them, with an open heart and good intentions. The fact that they are Russians or Ukrainians from an ethnic point of view, and that fact that the are not willing to adapt themselves to a Jewish identity does not turn them into anti-Semites".