Known as “Generation 1.5,” those who immigrated to Israel from the Former Soviet Union as adolescents in the 1990s had a unique experience, with its own set of cultural and social challenges. The following excerpt is the conclusion of a 20 page long academic article entitled “Generation 1.5 Russians in Israel: From Vodka to Latte.Maturation and Integration Processes as Reflected in the Recreational Patterns” by Liza Rozovsky and Oz Almog. As summarized in the article abstract, this article “describes the culture of informal youth groups (tusovkas) of the 1990s that transplanted multiple elements of Russian subversive youth culture of the last Soviet and post-Soviet years onto Israeli soil…Although young Russian Israelis have adopted many elements of the mainstream lifestyle… their social preferences and identity remain distinct in lieu of the lingering Russian cultural legacies.”
Conclusion & Discussion
Most of the Generation 1.5 social groups have long abandoned the confines of the tusovkas and realigned into small nuclear families – just like their counterparts from the Israeli middle class. They live in the Center of the country, work in respectable white-collar professions, pursue the same leisure activities as their Sabra peers, and stay up-to-date on the news, fashions, and Israeli popular culture.
Nevertheless, in many ways the former tusovka members continue to live in their own isolated social and cultural space. They maintain close ties with the friends from their teens and student years, the great majority of whom are also Russians. Most of them do not try to develop informal relationships with their Sabra colleagues at work. It is also notable that young Russian Israelis in this study have hardly ever mentioned any friendships from the army service, allegedly the ultimate melting pot of Israeli society.
Apparently, personal relationships formed in the tusovkas during the first ten years after immigration to Israel continue today, twenty years later, to provide the primary social and cultural framework for the Generation 1.5 elite. In this sense, our findings reinforce those of the earlier study of the 1.5 Generation by Remennick (2003). How did this come about? Is this a form of seclusion by choice or was this isolation forced upon the young immigrants by the dominant society? The assumption is that a number of factors come into play here.
While living in the FSU and even after coming to Israel, the immigrant parents originating in the ranks of intelligentsia managed to instill in their children a potent cultural foundation, which has continued to impact upon them as adults despite the geographic and mental distance from their country of origin. Perhaps this “shot” of Russian cultural tradition they were given as children “immunized” the Generation 1.5 children of the Russian intelligentsia in Israel against “foreign” cultural and social patterns. For example, although a majority of them served a full term in the IDF, they did not adopt the common pattern that contributes to the formation of the social self in their new land – the institution of friends from the army. Instead, they maintained the pattern of their country of origin, where friendships formed in school or during the student years are maintained throughout life, an established Russian tradition dating back to the time of Pushkin.
The Generation 1.5’ers went through the crisis of immigration at the same time they were going through the crisis of adolescence. Immersed in the strange and sometimes threatening environment of the Israeli schools, they searched frantically for their peer group, often finding it in the tusovka. The allegiance of these adolescents to their coethnic social circle can be explained by the trauma of being rejected by their Israeli peers, as well as the profound emotional ties they developed with the friends they had worked so hard to find.
Another reason for the social and cultural seclusion of the Gen 1.5 elite is the transnational nature of the Russian community in Israel in general and of the young people in particular. These thirty-something people, who immigrated as adolescents and are equally fluent in Russian and in Hebrew, start their day by browsing Russian and Israeli news sites on the Internet. They watch leading satirical programs in both languages, are involved in the Russian and Israeli music scenes, understand contemporary Russian humor no less than Israeli humor, and some of them are as familiar with St. Petersburg as they are with Tel Aviv. Most of them visit Russia or Ukraine regularly (every few years), usually for social and cultural reasons – to meet relatives, old friends and to enjoy the vivid cultural scene, familiar sights and nostalgic views. In between these visits, they stay in touch with their significant others in the FSU by telephone, Skype and e-mail. This biculturalism may be both a blessing and a burden. Only Israeli Russians can understand Israeli Russians and share their world of associations, memories and allusions.
Finally, the main problem of the Russian immigrant intelligentsia as a whole, including Generation 1.5, is the sense of alienation from the hegemonic Israeli elite. The westernized, America-oriented Sabra intellectual establishment did not accept former Soviet intellectuals as equals. Israeli intellectual circles tended to totally ignore the existence and cultural expressions of the “Russian Street” or to “remember” them in very narrow contexts, e.g. for a discussion of the Russian vote prior to elections or right-wing politicians of Russian origin. The young immigrants often experience a similar type of estrangement or negative labeling in their encounters with their Sabra peers. The educated and successful Russian, no matter how involved in Israeli culture, would often be delegated to the status of “token Russian” in any native-Israeli social group. Their natural response is to withdraw into a group that does not force them into confines of a defined national or ethnic role.
On the surface of things, the residential and entertainment patterns of Generation 1.5’ers point to their social and financial success and adoption of the cultural codes of the country they came to as children. However, the elite members of this generation prefer to bear the burden of belonging to a minority social group rather than merging with the majority. They continue to live in a linguistic, cultural and social world of their own that cannot be penetrated from the outside. In this sense, the parental generation of immigrants who arrived in Israel in the early 1990s with the slogan “for the sake of our children” has in effect produced a second generation rather alienated from the country’s Hebrew mainstream. It can be assumed that this will be the last “desert generation” among Russian immigrants, whose dependence on “the Russian Jewish component anchored in their country of origin” is stronger than their dependence on “the Israeli component” in their identity and lifestyle.
The dividing line between the generation of immigrants who came to Israel as preteens or young adolescents and those who were born in Israel or came as young children is quite sharp, as evidenced by both social research and social networking data collected by commercial companies. More than 67% of young people aged 18-24 use Hebrew-language social networks, compared to less than 38% who use Russian language networks. Among those aged 25-34, the picture is just the opposite. Over 64% use Russian for communicating on the social networks, while less than 22% use Hebrew.
As Ant Weiss noted, the Israeli-born children of the Russian immigrants speak Hebrew better than they speak Russian and are free from their parents’ legacy of Russian memories, culture and traditions. It remains to be seen whether they will stand out a distinct group or will eventually assimilate into the Israeli middle class without leaving any traces. But it is reasonable to assume that the special hybrid species of Generation 1.5 immigrants from the FSU, as an intermediate or transitory socio-cultural phenomenon, is already close to extinction.