Russian Jews in Israel

{{Main|1970s Soviet Union aliyah|1990s post-Soviet aliyah}}

[[File:Immigration to Israel.webp|thumb|right|{{center|Immigration to Israel{{Cite web | title=Total Immigration to Israel from the Former Soviet Union | url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-immigration-to-israel-from-former-soviet-union | access-date=2025-02-07 | website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}}}

{{legend|#3981C6|Total Immigrants|outline=#D5D5D5}}

{{legend|#D9544D|Immigrants from the USSR and Post-Soviet states|outline=#FFD900}}

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The largest number of Russian Jews now live in Israel. Israel is home to a core Russian-Jewish population of 900,000, and an enlarged population of 1,544,000 (including halakhically non-Jewish members of Jewish households, but excluding those who reside in Israel illegally).{{failed verification|date=December 2013}} The Aliyah in the 1990s accounts for 85–90% of this population.

The population growth rate for Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrants were among the lowest for any Israeli groups, with a fertility rate of 1.70 and natural increase of just +0.5% per year.{{cite web|url=http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol10/4/10-4.pdf |title=Fertility behaviour of recent immigrants to Israel: A comparative analysis of immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union |access-date=2011-03-22}} The increase in Jewish birth rate in Israel during the 2000–2007 period was partly due to the increasing birth rate among the FSU immigrants, who now form 20% of the Jewish population of Israel.[http://wsupress.wayne.edu/judaica/folklore/fialkovaesi/fialkovaINT.pdf Wayne State University Press – Jewish Studies: – Page 1] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080912031534/http://wsupress.wayne.edu/judaica/folklore/fialkovaesi/fialkovaINT.pdf |date=2008-09-12 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/Tolts_Article1.pdf |title=Jewish Zionist Education |publisher=Jafi.org.il |date=2005-05-15 |access-date=2011-03-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327164435/http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/demography/Tolts_Article1.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-27 }}

96.5% of the enlarged Russian Jewish population in Israel is either Jewish or non-religious, while 3.5% (35,000) belongs to other religions (mostly Christians) and about 10,000 so-called "messianic Jews".{{cite web|url=http://www.cbs.gov.il/yarhon/c1_e.htm |title=Monthly Bulletin of Statistics |publisher=Cbs.gov.il |access-date=2011-03-22}}

The Total Fertility Rate for FSU immigrants in Israel is given in the table below. The TFR increased with time, peaking in 1997, then slightly decreased after that, and then again increased after 2000.

In 1999, about 1,037,000 FSU immigrants lived in Israel, of whom about 738,900 immigrated after 1989.{{Cite web| title=Population | author=Nurit Yaffe | url=http://www.middle-east-info.org/league/israel/israelpopulation.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060221051313/http://www.middle-east-info.org:80/league/israel/israelpopulation.pdf | archive-date=2006-02-21}}{{cite web |url=http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/population/ussrp/tab01.pdf |title=IMMIGRANT POPULATION FROM USSR (FORMER)|access-date=2007-10-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080912031535/http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/population/ussrp/tab01.pdf |archive-date=2008-09-12 }} The second largest ethnic group (Moroccans) numbered just 1,000,000. From 2000–2006, 142,638 FSU immigrants moved to Israel. While 70,000 of them emigrated from Israel to countries like the U.S. and Canada, bringing the total population to 1,150,000 by 2007 January (excluding illegals). The natural increase was around 0.3% in late 1990s. For example 2,456 in 1996 (7,463 births to 5,007 deaths), 2,819 in 1997 (8,214 to 5,395), 2,959 in 1998 (8,926 to 5,967) and 2,970 in 1999 (9,282 to 6,312). In 1999, the natural growth was +0.385%. (Figures only for FSU immigrants moved in after 1989).{{cite web |url=http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/population/ussrp_e.htm |title=Mmigrant Population From The Former Ussr |publisher=.cbs.gov.il |access-date=2013-04-16 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014193736/http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/population/ussrp_e.htm |archive-date=2013-10-14 }}

An estimated 45,000 illegal immigrants from the Former Soviet Union lived in Israel during the end of 2010, but it is not clear how many of them are actually Jews.{{cite web|last=Friedman |first=Ron |url=http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=204075 |title=Oz unit far from hitting deportation target for illegals |publisher=Jpost.com |date=2011-01-18 |access-date=2013-04-14}}

Currently, Russia has the highest rate of aliyah to Israel among any other country. In 2013, 7,520 people, nearly 40% of all olim, immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union.{{cite web | url=http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/12/30/aliyah-on-the-rise-19200-new-immigrants-arrive-in-israel-in-2013/ | title=Aliyah on the Rise: 19,200 New Immigrants Arrive in Israel in 2013 | publisher=Algemeiner | date=December 30, 2013 | access-date=11 March 2014}}{{cite web | url=http://forward.com/articles/190040/immigration-to-israel-rises-by--led-by-french/ | title=Immigration to Israel Rises by 7% — Led by French | publisher=Forward | date=December 29, 2013 | access-date=11 March 2014}}

As of 2018, USSR Jews are estimated to be 12.4% of the Israeli population.{{Cite journal |last=Lewin-Epstein |first=Noah |title=Ethnic origin and identity in the Jewish population of Israel |url=https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic-origin-and-identity-in-Israel-JEMS-2018.pdf |access-date=July 1, 2023 |journal=Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies}}

File:Soviet flag in Haifa.jpg, a Haifa district known for its large Russian Jewish population]]

Russian Jews have been very dominant in Israeli politics, due to large number of Russian Jews occupied in the official positions of Israeli Government. Former Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was born in former Soviet Union's Moldova.{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Avigdor-Lieberman |title=Avigdor Lieberman |publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=2022-07-27}} Many Russian Jews maintain their ties with Russia, and play an important role in the relationship between Russia and Israel.

Russian-speaking Jews in Israel include an enlarged population of 1,544,000, if including halakhically non-Jewish members of Jewish households. 96.5% of the enlarged Russian Jewish population in Israel is either Jewish or non-religious, while 3.5% (35,000) belong to other religions (mostly Christianity) and about 10,000 identifying as Messianic Jews separate from Jewish Christians.{{cite web |url=http://www.cbs.gov.il/yarhon/c1_e.htm |title=Monthly Bulletin of Statistics |website=Cbs.gov.il |access-date=2011-03-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021051424/http://www.cbs.gov.il/yarhon/c1_e.htm |archive-date=October 21, 2007 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}

Soviet and Russian-origin Jews form a core population of around 900,000 in Israel, as of 2007.{{cite web|url=http://www.cbs.gov.il/archive/200701/yarhon/e4_e.htm |title=Monthly Bulletin of Statistics |publisher=Cbs.gov.il |access-date=2011-03-22}}

{{main|Russians in Israel}}

As of 2003, approximately 300,000 halakhically non-Jewish members of Jewish households lived in Israel.{{cite web |first=Mark J. |last= Altschul |url=https://illinoislawreview.org/wp-content/ilr-content/articles/2002/5/Altschul.pdf|title=Israel's Law of Return and the debate of altering, repealing, or maintaining its present language |publisher=University of Illinois Law Review |date=April 21, 2003 |access-date=}}

{{div col|colwidth=18em}}

• Natan Sharansky
• Yuri Foreman
• Yuri Stern
• Yuli Edelstein
• Yoel Razvozov
• Vladimir Beliak
• Evgeny Sova
• Alex Kushnir
• Elina Bardach-Yalov
• Tania Mazarsky
• Yulia Malinovsky
• Nachman Dushanski
• Boris Gelfand
• Alexander Goldstein
• Natasha Mozgovaya
• Avigdor Lieberman
• Anastassia Michaeli
• Haim Megrelashvili
• Victor Mikhalevski
• Evgeny Postny
• Maxim Rodshtein
• Tatiana Zatulovskaya
• Maria Gorokhovskaya
• Katia Pisetsky
• Aleksandr Averbukh
• Anna Smashnova
• Jan Talesnikov
• Vadim Alexeev
• Michael Kolganov
• Alexander Danilov
• Evgenia Linetskaya
• Marina Kravchenko
• David Kazhdan
• Leonid Nevzlin
• Vadim Akolzin
• Roman Bronfman
• Michael Cherney
• Victoria Veinberg Filanovsky
• Sergei Sakhnovski
• Roman Zaretski
• Alexandra Zaretski
• Larisa Trembovler
• Boris Tsirelson
• Daniel Samohin
• Margarita Levieva
• Anna Zak
• Diana Golbi
• Arkadi Duchin
• Arcadi Gaydamak
• Neta Rivkin
• Artem Dolgopyat
• Eliezer Sherbatov
• Dina Rubina

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• Aliyah
• Refusenik
• 1970s Soviet Union aliyah
• 1990s Post-Soviet aliyah
• Russian language in Israel
• History of the Jews in Russia
• Jewish ethnic divisions
• Israel–Russia relations
• Russians in Israel

{{Reflist}}

• Marina Fedorova, [https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/2575/chapter/1364996/Jews-in-Russia-and-Russians-in-Israel Jews in Russia and Russians in Israel ], {{doi|10.1215/9781478003342-013}}, chapter from From Russia with Code: Programming Migrations in Post-Soviet Times, 2019

:In this chapter, Marina Fedorova discusses the issues of adaptation of Soviet (indiscriminately called "Russian") Jewish hi-tech engineers immigrated to Israel.

{{Refusenik movement and 1990s post-Soviet aliyah}}

{{Israeli Jews by ethnic or national origin in Israel}}

Category:Israeli Jews by national origin

Category:Israeli people of Russian-Jewish descent