Reply #24: Israel was not a bowl of cherries

[iverglas]

for many Russian Jewish immigrants.

Actually, I find the analogy of an abused woman returning to her abuser offensive, and I'm quite sure that the Russian Jews in question would too. It is hardly appropriate to portray them as suffering from a pathology.

This article:
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5602-3.cfm
gives some idea of the Russian immigrants' experience in Israel, although the portrait it paints is rather a mild one. Some of the immigrants experienced serious problems: real hardship as a result of unemployment, lack of housing, and social isolation that in some cases took the form of violence.

In many cases, they were "culturally" Jews, but were not religious, and many were married to non-Jewish spouses, a source of considerable social problems in Israel. It seems that some have decided that they are in fact more culturally Russian than Israeli.