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Abstract
The paper is based on a recently-completed study among Israeli school students born of 'Russian' immigrant parents of the 1990s wave, who comprise the emerging 2nd generation of Russian Israelis. Over 300 middle- and high-school students from six schools located across Israel completed structured questionnaires, participated in focus groups and in-depth interviews. The findings shed light on the identity dilemmas of 2nd generation 'Russians' and underscore the crucial role of their early school and peer experiences in the overall adjustment and integration in Israeli society. We conclude that local-born children of immigrants may still experience significant adversity, both at school and in social contacts, particularly if their families are single-parent and/or have limited personal resources for protecting their offspring from the 'pains of absorption'.
The emerging second generation of Russian Israelis
The 'Great Russian Aliya' of the 1990s was a seminal event in Israel's history that has redrawn its social, political, and cultural landscape in multiple ways (Remennick 2007, 2011; Fialkova and Yelenevskaya, 2007). After 20 years of coexistence between Israeli Hebrew mainstream and the virtual 'Russian Street,' it is hard to deny that a new ethno-cultural community has firmly established itself in Israel's complex social mosaic (Kimmerling, 2004). Carriers of a Russian accent are found in all occupations and walks of life, from Knesset members and senior scientists to street cleaners and supermarket cashiers. The Russian-based material and cultural infrastructure is scattered across Israeli urban spaces: groceries, bookstores, clubs, kindergartens, after-school classes for the children, etc. - especially evident in the cities with dense Russian presence such as Beer-Sheba, Ashdod, and Haifa (Fialkova and Yelenevskaya, 2011).
Nowadays, the older children and adolescents, who immigrated with their parents or alone as part of Youth Aliya programs during the1990s (the 1.5 generation), became young adults, and the 2nd generation of native-born Russian Israelis is coming of age. Those who were born in the early-mid 1990s are now in the middle or high school, while some of them are already in the military or entering college or navigating Israeli labor market. Some of these girls and boys are indistinguishable from their Sabra peers, while others still look and sound different, have distinct cultural tastes and prefer co-ethnic company, despite speaking Hebrew to each other...