Abstract
This article lays ground for the concept of ethnic trauma for understanding the crisis of migration and its aftermath. The analysis is based on autobiographical stories recently published by the online community of the women who immigrated to Israel from the USSR/FSU as children or adolescents (Generation 1.5) in the early 1990s. Despite its self-selected nature, this story-telling project captures many generic features of the Russian-Israeli (and other) immigrant experiences. These stories form a collective narrative featuring trauma, coping and eventual victory – a discursive plot quite typical for contemporary Israeli therapeutic culture. In the age of identity politics, ethnic trauma becomes a political tool deployed in the struggle for recognition by different immigrant and minority groups. The discourse of trauma, resilience and overcoming/catharsis incorporates immigrants in the local discourse, letting them negotiate their identity and claim full belonging. Thus, ethnic trauma emerges as a political resource to support immigrants’ claims of equal rights and demands for symbolic reparations.
Introduction
The social discourse of trauma has emerged in the second half of the 20th century as part of the emerging therapeutic culture, replacing the previous dominant discourses of progress, struggle, and crisis. Trauma was borrowed as a metaphor from the thesaurus of medicine, psychiatry, and clinical psychology, gradually becoming a major signifier of late-modern society (Alexander et al., 2004; Fassin and Rechtman, 2009; Lerner and Rivkin-Fish, 2021). This article explores the discourse of trauma in the context of migration and social (in)exclusion, based on the case of Generation 1.5 of former Soviet immigrants in Israel.
Jewish immigration to Israel, Aliya, is construed by Zionist ideology as the ingathering of diasporas or homecoming, with immediate entitlement for Israeli citizenship (Lomsky-Feder and Rapoport, 2008). The mass Aliya from the USSR/FSU during the 1990s and early 2000s resulted in over one million Russian-speaking immigrants (Olim) moving to Israel, becoming the largest ethno-cultural segment of this ultimate immigrant society (Remennick, 2007). The image of ex-Soviet Aliya as educated and upwardly mobile (particularly in comparison with Olim from the Arab countries and Ethiopia) is common in Israeli social science and public opinion (Halamish, 2018; Smooha, 2008). In recent years, this upbeat view has been challenged by the activists of Russian-Israeli Generation 1.5 (aka Gen 1.5), who brought to public scrutiny the negative ethnic and sexual stereotyping, occupational downgrading, and social exclusion experienced by their parents and themselves during their initial years in Israel (Prashizky, 2021; Remennick and Prashizky, 2019).
This article examines the emerging discourse of ethnicity- and immigration-based trauma, which came to the spotlight on the Facebook forum Russian women without a sense of humor and their friends. It was founded in 2014 by social activist and journalist Lena Russovsky who immigrated to Israel from Moscow at the age of nine. The group became very popular among Gen 1.5 Israelis, mostly women, and today counts 40,000 members. Since mid-2019 – the 30th anniversary of mass Jewish emigration from the former USSR – group members have spontaneously posted their personal immigration stories. These posts became viral, inspiring others to ‘mine’ their memories, and over 500 immigration stories have eventually been published. Thanks to the group leaders, some of these stories were covered by the mainstream Hebrew media. Over the last year, they have been shared across all social platforms and generated popular responses in the form of likes and comments.
This Facebook forum exemplifies the social renaissance of (post)Soviet culture in today’s Israel led by Gen 1.5 activists (Prashizky, 2020). These young adults, today around 25–45 years old, came to Israel with their families as older children or adolescents carrying with them the legacies of their early socialization in Russia, Ukraine, and other ex-Soviet countries, but matured in Israeli schools, military units and colleges (Remennick, 2003). To consolidate their group identity, these immigrants have established several communities, both virtual and live. The first one was Fishka club in Tel-Aviv, followed by Facebook forums Generation 1.5, and Russian Women without Sense of Humor which stands in the center of this article.
The community under study is typified by the feminist outlook shared by most of its members and bloggers. During the 1990s, economically vulnerable and disoriented immigrant women from the FSU encountered Israeli men, who often construed them as available sex objects. By way of historical irony, the mass influx of Jewish Olim during the years of post-communist transition coincided with a wave of commercial sex workers trafficked to Israel from ex-Soviet states. Stories of the burgeoning sex industry and images of blond girls in the Hebrew media stereotyped all ex-Soviet women (Jewish or not) as sluts or gold diggers using local men as their meal ticket. Meantime, these newcomers toiled in the manual workforce for meager wages, facing constant sexual advances from their employers and landlords. Only upon gaining a better command of Hebrew and a firmer economic foothold could they resist harassment and exploitation (Remennick, 2004; Remennick and Prashizky, 2019).
Given such legacies, it is hardly incidental that most leaders of Gen 1.5 are young women, reflecting the resentment they have harbored toward Israeli sexism that targeted their mothers and themselves. The title of the Facebook group Russian Women without Sense of Humor refers to a common claim by sexual predators (when facing resistance) that they were only joking. Sexism and ethnic prejudice often intertwine in the verbal and physical assaults on immigrant women (and more rarely men), who are considered inferior members of the Israeli collective. Making their voices and stories heard online has both a therapeutic and political impact, spilling over into the mainstream media and gradually changing public opinion. Drawing upon this background, the main questions tackled in the article are: Why do immigrants and ethnic ‘others’ choose trauma for framing their autobiographical migration stories? What is the structure and meaning of immigrants’ discourse on trauma, coping and victory? What is the political and instrumental dimension of the trauma discourse in migration?
Participants and their narratives
We present qualitative content analysis of 30 autobiographical migration stories published at the above-said Facebook forum by the women belonging to Generation 1.5 of (post)Soviet immigrants. During the years 2019–2020, over 500 such stories were posted by the group members, all written in fluent Hebrew and under real names. The stories were uploaded by forum administrators under the hashtag #SipurHaAliyaSheli (MyAliyaStory). Although these texts were accessible to tens of thousands of surfers, for ethical reasons we quote them under aliases.
For the sake of qualitative analysis, hundreds of the published narratives had to be shrunk to a workable sample that best represented the key themes and narrative structures. Our selection process unfolded in several stages. Based on the initial reading of hundreds of stories, first as they appeared online and later as a single downloaded file, we tried to sketch out the writers’ demographic profiles juxtaposing them to the entire population of Russian-Israeli women of this age bracket (25–45). As expected, the educated professionals were overrepresented among the writers, as were women from larger metropolitan areas, so statistically this hashtag did not represent all immigrant 1.5ers but rather their avant-garde. The narrators were self-selected on several levels: their participation in this feminist online community, Hebrew writing skills, and willingness to share their journey deemed by them as successful. The ‘Russian’ women whose Israeli immersion stories did not end so well were less likely to expose them online. Yet, despite these self-selection biases (inevitable in any online research), hundreds of stories from which we had sampled our narrators shared many generic features with the well-researched saga of the Russian-Jewish Aliya of the 1990s – in terms of downward social mobility, generational relations, and conflicts with veteran Israelis (Remennick, 2012). The second stage focused on selecting the most typical and articulate stories addressing these common themes and reflecting recurrent narrative structures. In the screening process, we realized that the inner structure of the stories and the experiences described in them followed a similar pattern (more on this later). Working in tandem and comparing our thematic notes, we finally agreed on a sample of 30 stories that reflected diversity in the writers’ backgrounds and integration journeys, while also capturing most fully typical narrative structures.
All the authors in the sample are women who immigrated to Israel as children or adolescents (mean age at Aliya 9, range 5–18); after high school, they served in the army, received higher education, found full-time employment, and started families of their own. About 40% were born in Russia, 30% in Ukraine, and 30% in other (post)Soviet countries; the majority made Aliya during the early post-Soviet period (1990–1995) and lived in Israel for over 25 years. Their mean age at the time of writing was 39 (range 32–46), about 60% were married or partnered and had 2–3 children. For all of them, Hebrew was their primary language, and many mentioned, with sorrow, gradual attrition of their native Russian. All but a few had academic degrees (following in the steps of their parents) and worked in the range of white-collar and professional occupations. For economic reasons, their families of origin had often settled in Israel’s social and geographic periphery (outlying towns, poorer urban quarters), but as adults our protagonists have moved to the metropolitan areas around Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. Thus, the writers (in our sample as in the general story pool) represent the educated and socially mobile segment of the female Russian-Israeli Generation 1.5.
The article explores narrative structures of autobiographical stories of immigration and integration. The narrative approach views human lives as having a storied nature; each life story selects from a wide array of narrative resources – the events and experiences that the narrator deems significant, arranging them in coherent and structured order (Lieblich et al., 1998). A popular typology of narratives includes four principal genres or plots: Romance, comedy, tragedy, and satire. In the romantic plot, a hero/ine overcomes a series of challenges en route to his/her goal and achieves eventual victory, while struggle itself is the essence of the journey. Most migration autobiographies examined in this study belong to the romantic journey type, starting from losses and suffering, deploying courage and resistance, and ending in personal achievements and victory (Lieblich et al., 1998). Affirming their typical nature, each posting inspired sympathetic and supportive comments by other group members. Comments praised the heroines’ stamina in the face of hardship and recalled similar experiences.
Theoretical anchors
We conduct our empirical analysis at the intersection of several theoretical fields including sociology of immigration and integration, internet and social media, and theory of cultural trauma. By combining these theoretical lenses, the article lays ground for a new concept of ethnic trauma in migration.
Discourse of trauma in migration
This article applies a sociological lens to collective traumatic experiences among Russian-speaking immigrants of Generation 1.5 in Israel. It is but one case of the global mobilities and migrant exclusion faced by millions of people in the late-modern age (Schouler-Ocak, 2015). Experiences of discrimination and exclusion can traumatize all immigrants, both legal and undocumented (Marlowe, 2010). Every migration story entails biographical disruption, calling for mobilization of all personal resources to survive and adjust under new circumstances. Although Jewish ‘homecomers’ (Olim) in Israel are allegedly welcome and entitled to all political and economic rights, their resettlement has been as fraught with crises as any other migration (Remennick, 2012). Moving to Israel in mid-life, they had to start from scratch: to overcome the loss of their professions and social status, learn the language and cultural codes of the new society, earn a living, and ensure wellbeing of their dependent children and elders. The social downgrading and existential insecurity took a toll on migrants’ mental health. Olim had higher risks for psychological distress and poorer coping resources compared to natives, even if conditions for their settlement were deemed favorable (Yakhnich, 2008). Migrant adolescents and young adults manifested higher levels of distress but lower help-seeking behavior than their native peers (Mirsky, 2010).
While the mental health discourse on stress and coping refers to relatively transient and situational phenomena, the framing of the negative experiences as traumatic assumes more lasting, damaging effects on individuals’ well-being and social behavior (Furedi, 2004). In their narratives, Russian Israelis often referred to the cumulative adversity of exposure to multiple traumatic experiences among their generation: The USSR’s demise with concomitant loss of national pride, personal security and livelihood; for immigrants from Ukraine and Belarus, permanent health hazards after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; migrations within ex-Soviet space, and finally moving to Israel, with the attendant security threats, cultural shock, and economic struggle. The 1990–1991 Gulf War shortly after their arrival, children’s military service during recurrent wars and terrorist attacks in the wake of the Oslo accords (1995–2005), combined with poor housing and switching from white-collar to manual or service work – all these collided into a long chain of synergistic traumatic exposures (Remennick, 2007, 2012).
Beyond their own struggle at school and in peer groups, ex-Soviet children and adolescents witnessed the strain and humiliation of their parents and had to become their guides to the new society. Having learned Hebrew and new social codes faster than adults, these youngsters had to shoulder family responsibilities, sufficing with little parental support and supervision. Many years later, young women who came of age in Israel under these circumstances shared their private stories as part of the collective integration saga of their cohort. Similar challenges have probably marked the immersion of Ethiopian-Jewish children in the Israeli schools and peer groups (augmented by racism), but their personal narratives of trauma have yet to emerge in the public domain and on social media. Few interviews with the leaders of the Ethiopian-Israeli community published so far (Lyons, 2007; Sharaby, 2021), as well as recent street protests by young Ethiopians, manifest their ongoing integration struggles. So far, ex-Soviet 1.5ers (especially women) have been more forthcoming in articulating their hybrid identity and Aliyah-related grievances (Remennick and Prashizky, 2019). Viewed in retrospect, the writers framed their biographic narratives as traumatic but eventually victorious, in line with the common romantic plot.
This kind of framing reflects these women’s exposure to the contemporary therapeutic culture that became ubiquitous in the fields of mental health, spirituality, arts and creativity, romantic relationships, and migration as an ultimate life crisis (Illouz, 2008; Lerner, 2020; Lerner and Rivkin-Fish, 2021). Therapeutic culture entails discursive practices developed by clinical psychology and psychotherapy that encourage people to feel traumatized and depressed by negative experiences hitherto deemed routine (Furedi, 2004). The definition of trauma in psychology is not clear-cut, referring to individual and subjective perception of events as traumatic. Psychological trauma is the unique experience in which the individual’s ability to absorb and resolve her emotional load is overwhelmed. It often entails the failure of essential social ties: the traumatized self feels profound helplessness and abandonment (Pearlman and Saakvitne, 1995).
The cultural theory of trauma developed by Jeffrey Alexander (Alexander et al., 2004: 1) stresses its lasting and life-changing nature: ‘Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collective feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks on their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways’. According to this view, both personal and cultural trauma entails damage or loss of community ties and threatens people’s social identity. People describe themselves as traumatized when their environment suddenly shifts in an unforeseen and dramatic manner. Wars, genocides, and political upheavals are classical sources of collective trauma, often on both sides of conflict lines, often accompanied by the crisis of meaning. Migrations across national borders intensify intercultural contact and confrontation, making spatial mobility a common source of cultural trauma in the contemporary world (Alexander et al., 2004).
To gain social acceptance and legitimacy, the affected groups communicate their trauma and related claims via their most articulate and motivated representatives. Access to education, cultural and economic resources can help communicate trauma and receive social support. Cultural traumas are socially constructed; the creation of a universal master narrative of trauma grants legitimation to the emerging crises and concomitant traumas (Alexander et al., 2004). Completing this logical chain are instrumental and political uses of trauma, such as claims for symbolic and material reparations. Framed politically, a collective trauma adds legitimacy to demands of collective rights and entitlements, rendering it a tool of mass mobilization (Fassin and Rechtman, 2009).
The social discourse of trauma is deeply rooted in contemporary Israel society (Friedman-Peleg, 2017; Lerner and Rivkin-Fish, 2021). According to Lieblich (2013), autobiographical stories of Israelis dealing with pain and loss typically invoke the Holocaust, Arab-Israeli conflict, wars and terror, immigration and poverty. She argues that, since 1990, the social discourse in Israel has been shifting from one stressing collective effort and heroism to one focused on trauma and individual suffering. However, personal stories featuring disasters and losses typically close the circle by the sense of moral redemption. One recent example is a Facebook forum of settlers’ children who grew up beyond the Green Line under constant violence of the First and Second Intifada: after years of silence, they discuss their childhood traumas and coping strategies. Another is the emerging media discourse on adult circumcision led by ex-Soviet immigrant men who underwent this traumatic ritual surgery during the 1990s (Remennick, 2021). The therapeutic turn in popular culture posits that public disclosure of painful experiences by speaking and writing about them has a strong healing potential. Thus, victims of political and intimate violence, sexual minorities and asylum seekers are encouraged to share their traumas via storytelling that should bring relief and reinforce social solidarity (Lieblich, 2013; Mahmood and Shams, 2012).
We argue that autobiographical stories published by young Russian Israelis consolidate the discourse of collective trauma of their encounter with Israeli society during the 1990s. These narratives typically include three components: 1. Their lives as children in the USSR/FSU and the drama of uprooting; 2. The crisis of insertion in the Israeli society, their parents’ and their own privations and struggles; and 3. Overcoming integration problems and eventual success. It follows the archetypal structure of Israeli autobiographical narratives that often invoke uprooting and difficult absorption (Lieblich, 2013). These stories add the voices of immigrant women, as carriers of the shared traumas of their cohort, to the national narrative tapestry.
Another argument is about the social construction of meaning born out of trauma. Although trauma per se is destructive, it can be instrumental in fostering collective identity, as well as building ties between the self, significant others, and a broader society. Framing crises and privations as trauma transforms individual suffering, imparting it with the sense of higher purpose and helping mobilize human agency (Alexander et al., 2004; Hirschberger, 2018). The narrative of endurance, ingenuity and personal achievement against all odds fosters the collective identity of Generation 1.5 as capable, ambitious, and well-integrated part of Israeli society.
Our final argument refers to political usage of trauma in migration. Various migrant categories – asylum seekers, labor migrants, and diasporic ‘homecomers’ – deploy their trauma differently, yet all of them seek official recognition and equal rights (Fassin and Rechtman, 2009). In our case, ex-Soviet Olim who joined the Jewish majority in Israel, claim symbolic belonging and legitimization through the discourse of trauma. By contrast, previous Aliya waves, including two generations of Mizrahi Jews who had also suffered from exclusion and poverty, could not recourse to (then non-existent) language of trauma to frame their suffering. Today, third-generation Mizrahi activists actively deploy trauma discourse to describe the absorption saga of their (grand)parents and claim moral reparations (Chetrit, 2004). Influenced by their example, young Russian-speaking bloggers join the scene of local identity politics to negotiate their belonging in the Jewish state through discourses of trauma and redemption.
Social media and social support
In late-modern networked society, internet platforms allow people to express themselves and create social connections in novel ways. One such increasingly popular venue is online support groups that empower their members by sharing experiences of people with common problems or marginalised identities, facilitating information exchange, sharing feelings, and providing support. The opportunity to share feelings, feel emotional support and solidarity helps individuals to manage crisis and improve their well-being (Bar-Lev, 2008). Women tend to focus on emotional exchange and participate in support groups (live and online) more often than men (Orgad, 2005). In the migration context, the range of digital technologies and social media enable immigrants to sustain transnational connections but also develop local social ties based on shared ethnicity (Marlowe et al., 2017). Since its emergence in the mid-2000s, the internet and social media have played a pivotal role in the integration journey of young Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel, helping them sustain old ties to the homeland and develop new interests and relationships in their adopted country (Elias, 2012). In our case, the online environment served for these women as an effective outlet for self-reflection, ‘venting’ painful experiences, and making sense of their difficult immigrant journey.
Drawing on this background, we introduce the term discourse of ethnic trauma deployed by racial and ethnic Others to oppose their discrimination and claim moral reparations from the mainstream society. Similar claims of moral worth and due compensation in the wake of trauma appear among different national/ethnic groups in transition or crisis, such as citizens of post-communist countries (Alexander et al., 2004), African asylum seekers (Brucker, 2017; Marlowe, 2010), refugees from Syria in Europe (Georgiadou et al., 2018; Schouler-Ocak, 2015), and Ingrian Finns repatriating from Russia to Finland (Flink, 2011). In all these cases, self-representation as traumatized victims of wars and violence, of losses and conflicts around migration, form a discourse of collective ethnic trauma.
Selected findings
The autobiographical immigration stories selected for our analysis represent the above-described romantic narrative structure with three main stages: 1. Pre-migration childhood; 2. The crisis of resettlement and absorption in Israel; and 3. Overcoming integration problems and achieving life goals. The middle section is typically central and most detailed.
Life before emigration: Happy childhood and sudden uprooting
A prologue to the Israeli saga is based on childhood memories of life in Russia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states, typically described as stable and happy. The economic and political turmoil of the late Soviet and transitional years had not directly affected these kids, who continued with their schooling, pastimes, and friendships as usual. Most were raised by educated parents and attended good schools, supplemented by ballet, chess, sports, music – a broad array of enrichment activities accessible to all Soviet children. Their memories highlight the diversity of Soviet Jewish experience in the late 1980s and early 1990. We read accounts of modest but dignified habitus of the urban intelligentsia with hard-working parents, homes full of books, summer cottages and nature hikes, educational investment and cultural stimulation for the children. Other families, especially in the provinces, were more down-to-earth and struggled to make ends meet, with parents unemployed and losing their savings during the post-communist transition. Many writers mentioned antisemitic insults and the fear of pogroms after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as voiced by their parents. Vera, who left a large industrial city in Ukraine in 1991 at the age of 12, reminisced: I remember my parents, both schoolteachers, complaining about working without a salary for months … we only survived thanks to my grandparents who still worked as engineers in a steel factory. For the adults, life was very difficult, but I remember being happy. I did well at school and had many friends; I played guitar and wrote poems … Everything was safe and familiar … so leaving this life behind one day was harsh for me, as it was for my brother and parents. It was a leap into the unknown, but we tried to see this as an adventure!
Many Jewish families hid their decision to emigrate to Israel from their children, friends, and neighbors, fearing reproach and official sanctions. Many writers recall the news of their rapid exit as a total surprise. Some described the trauma of suddenly leaving their school and familiar neighborhood with no chance to say goodbye to close friends. Tania left Moscow in 1990 at the age of eight: When I was in the 2nd grade, we left. As I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, I didn’t say goodbye to my good friend Katya. Until now, it hurts me to think what happens to a girl who gets up one morning and her best friend disappears without a trace. Anyway, farewells were forbidden…
Some stories begin with the memories of a difficult, protracted journey from their homelands to Israel, switching from cars to trains on the way to Europe, and finally the flight to Israel. Women recalled the worries of their parents who left behind all their material belongings and risked losing a few remaining bags on the way to the Promised Land. We left with multiple bags and suitcases (two per each family member) and I remember my granny counting them at every transfer and making me sit on them during our long waits at the train stations … she kept saying that these bags were all we had now; we can’t come to Israel as paupers asking for handouts … Some bags indeed got lost and she was very sad.
The general tone of recalling the writers’ Soviet childhood was rather placid, with the bright memories outweighing the dark ones – the latter relayed mostly second-hand, from parental stories. According to Moshkin (2019), the romanticized and nostalgic depictions of the Soviet past are better understood as reconstructions emerging in the context of these youths’ difficult immersion in Israel and the rapid downward social mobility of the older generation.
In Israel: Euphoria, crisis and gradual adjustment
In the main segment of the stories, the women depicted their dramatic encounter with the new society and the painful process of building a new, hybrid identity. Typical for fresh migrants, many writers recalled their initial sensual perceptions of Israel as an exotic wonderland, with its eternal sunshine, sea and palms, colorful Levantine people, new food and dress styles. Sights, smells and tastes of Israel made ex-Soviet Olim both euphoric and dizzy, especially by contrast to the drab circumstances they left behind in the FSU. But soon enough reality kicked in: the need to find housing, jobs, schools for the children, clinics for the elders – all to be accomplished without Hebrew and local social ties, and on the very tight budget of the ‘absorption basket’ provided by the state for the first few months. Learning basic Hebrew was a vital necessity to get around, but language classes (Ulpan) had to be juggled with working shifts as cleaners, builders, janitors, and other manual jobs available to Olim.
This reality was called direct absorption – a policy under which the newcomers were basically sent on their way with scant public support. In 1989–1992 Israel’s Jewish population of under six million has grown overnight by some 20%. Its housing and labor markets, education and social services were overwhelmed by the critical mass of newcomers, testing their survival skills but also exposing them to exploitation and fraud. Ex-Soviet Jews, who deemed themselves invited to join their brethren in the national homeland, felt cheated and let down by the lack of Jewish solidarity.
Material privations: Balancing around poverty line
The key (and related) problems for the newcomers were finding jobs and decent housing. Many educated migrants could not master Hebrew and confirm their Soviet diplomas, forcing them to make a living by low-income manual or service work (Remennick, 2012). As opposed to Soviet public housing, Israel’s housing market of the 1990s was growing increasingly private under neoliberal reforms. Given high demand and soaring rental costs in the major cities, most Olim were compelled to move to the outlying towns of the North (e.g. Carmiel, Nazareth) and South (e.g. Beer-Sheva and Arad). Those with better-paying jobs rented apartments in the center, typically in working-class towns like Bat Yam, Holon, and Lod. Immigrants who left behind major Soviet cities like Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Minsk, with their broad avenues and grand architecture, were frustrated by the rundown concrete blocks and Mizrahi-Levantine habitus of Israel’s geographic and social periphery they now inhabited.
Families in rented apartments had to move every few years, as Israel has neither long-term lease nor rent control. For the children, this meant switching schools and looking for new friends – adding turmoil to their already shaky lives. Given the low incomes, three generations often had to settle under one roof to save on rental costs. Therefore, many Olim children were raised mainly by their grandparents, while the parents worked long hours and came home only to catch some sleep. Elena immigrated in 1992 at the age of nine from Siberia. She recalled the drastic economic downfall her parents experienced upon arrival: In Russia, my parents were middle-class: mom a pharmacist, dad an epidemiologist at the health authority. We had a spacious apartment and a summer cottage. Our grandmother lived with us … Our first winter in Israel was very cold, but in Nazareth where we settled there was no heating or hot water, I still remember my first freezing shower … Our second flat was shared; my parents could afford only one room and the owner lived in the other. It was in the basement with the window facing the courtyard. We had no money for a curtain, so the kids playing in the yard could peek in our window. This lack of privacy bothered me so much that even now I won’t live on the ground floor …
Many Olim children experienced the humiliation of poverty, especially compared to their native classmates and friends. Their parents collected furniture and clothes in the streets and charity outlets; they could not afford fancy toys (like the desirable Barbie dolls) and new clothes for their daughters. Some writers recall receiving gifts from wealthier Israelis who ‘adopted’ Olim for their immersion period. Across the 1990s, they carried their ‘Russianness’ as a stigma. Nadia who immigrated at the age of ten from Kiev, remembers the humiliation of poverty until this day: Our clothes came from charities in donation bags. We would tour the industrial area to search the dumpsters behind the stores; they’d put me in the bin to look for something usable … Our food was rationed in portions: one banana, one schnitzel and two slices of yellow cheese per day. On Saturdays we would walk 5–6 kilometers to and from the beach to save on minibus fare. My teacher, with best intentions, asked the children to donate clothes and shoes … they did but never stopped teasing me – I wore their old shoes … No matter how much I tried to blend in, I was never Israeli enough, always a poor ‘Russian’ girl.
‘I Basically raised myself’: School, peers and early independence
Children from ‘Russian’ families had a hard time in Israeli schools, having to study new subjects (like Jewish history and Hebrew Bible) in the new language. Sabra (Israeli-born) kids were often hostile and socially excluded Olim; the teachers were overwhelmed by their mass influx into already-large classes. Moving places with their families, children often switched schools and could not develop meaningful social ties. Most memoirs mention the word herem (boycott) that Sabra kids used as a tool of shaming and isolating ‘Russian’ newcomers, especially in elementary and middle school. Many girls heard curses like stinking Russian and later Russian whore thrown at them by Sabra classmates, who apparently quoted their parents. Bullying and exclusion continued through high school – one of the reasons for Olim students’ higher rates of truancy and dropout (Mirsky, 2010). Some writers recall that as adolescents they found refuge and sympathy in the street gangs of ‘Russian’ kids lumping together to restore their self-confidence; singing, listening to Russian rock bands, drinking and smoking. Many went to work at age 14–15, after or instead of school, to get some cash for ‘cool’ clothes and gadgets their parents could not afford.
For the most part, the girls suffered silently, trying not to involve their parents in their troubled lives at school and beyond. For one, as most parents did not understand Hebrew and local social codes, they could hardly negotiate with the teachers and principals on behalf of their kids; for the other, they were always out working or tired and frustrated. Seeing their parents’ social and economic demise, these kids realized early that they would have to cope on their own. Moreover, Olim youths had to help their parents navigate Israeli institutions and handle most Hebrew-related tasks. As a result of this role reversal, parental authority deteriorated even further; an early uptake of filial duties often caused children’s stress and anxiety (Mirsky, 2010).
Many women recalled feeling abandoned by their parents at the most critical moment of their lives. Their overworked mothers, often divorced and in search of a new relationship, criticized their daughters’ choice of outfits, friends and leisure pastimes (increasingly subversive as they entered adolescence), while offering little guidance and emotional support. Showing love and sympathy was not part of these women’s Soviet socialization; children were expected to endure and overcome their pains of maturation in the hostile milieu. As a result, mothers and daughters drifted further apart. Yana, who immigrated from Ukraine at the age of seven, mused: I was at a new school and I didn’t know a word of Hebrew … Israeli kids were hostile: one pushed me and I broke my arm; another spat on me. One girl took my treasured Barbie doll and broke it into pieces. Like my doll, I was broken. I realized no-one wanted me here, in our Jewish homeland … For years I avoided speaking Russian next to my friends, ashamed to say my name, as it exposed my otherness and non-belonging. I never told my mother about parental events, as I was ashamed of her look and accent … For years I did everything to pass, not to be a stranger. Aliya was terrible for me, a daily war of proving my worth, conscious or not…
Many women mentioned weak emotional ties with their parents, despite fully appreciating their hardships and self-sacrifice for their sake. They lacked parental support at the critical time of immersion in the new milieu and had to mature too quickly. Perhaps it was inevitable, but these early experiences have damaged the inter-generational dialogue for years to come. Dana recalled her happy Russian childhood with well-to-do parents in the resort town of Kislovodsk, and the demise of family ties upon migration: Our life as a family suddenly came to a halt. I helped my mom, a former teacher, to clean villas for rich Israeli women. My father, an engineer with a Moscow State University diploma, returned home in dark mood covered with mud, as he worked in the fields. There were no other jobs in our rural area, and they had no money to move elsewhere. So my Israeli childhood was painted in gloomy colors. I remember mom’s sadness, and my own first depression as a ten-year-old who never stopped crying. I felt so lonely and detached, without anyone to turn to for help … So my younger brother and I raised ourselves. We learned to manage on our own. I came to hold back my emotions and hide my pain … a trait that would later lead me to divorce. I’d learned to trust only myself and never show weakness.
In sum, most writers had a tumultuous encounter with Israel, coping with poverty, isolation and peer hostility and having no one to turn to for help. Feeling ashamed of their origin and striving to blend in, many responded by hiding their Russian identifiers. Others, on the contrary, stopped trying to become Israelis and turned to co-ethnic social networks for support. For the most part, their struggling parents were not there to guide and console them, leading to early maturity and self-reliance. Both generations seemingly shared the motto ‘What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’.
The victory: Becoming proud Russian Israelis
The final stage of the migration narrative is typically brief and optimistic. After nearly 30 years of struggle, the story of ex-Soviet Aliya has reached a happy ending. The writers have risen above their migration traumas and achieved dignified status as full-fledged Israeli citizens. There are three central motives forming this closure:
1. Confident Israeliness, along with the hybrid identity of Generation 1.5; 2. Success in education/career and raising a happy family of their own; 3. Gratitude to the parents whose migration and self-sacrifice made it all possible.
Their hybrid Russian-Israeli identity is described by most writers as their cherished personal asset. Vera came to Israel from Moldova at the age of 12; she has recently recovered her Russianness: For many years I hid my Russian roots trying to integrate, I had no Russian friends at all. I married an Israeli man and have two Sabra children … But today most of my girlfriends are Russian-speakers like me. I am more connected to my roots, language, food, and most importantly – to myself. Probably it was a healing process I had to go through to be complete.
Typically this comeback occurred during their early-mid-twenties, when they already felt secure in their Israeliness but with a large chunk of their identity missing. In their migration autobiographies, the women express tension between assimilative and hybrid scripts that spills over to their Israeli-born children. The writers’ own families largely manifest Israeli habitus but also speak Russian and are generally proud of their heritage. They no longer need to hide their origins, as the collective image of the ‘Great Russian Aliya’ has significantly improved since the 1990s (Remennick and Prashizky, 2019).
The emphasis on the eventual success casts the suffering of the Russian-Jewish immigrant families in a new light and brings their journey to a cathartic closure. Today the authors of most stories are in their mid-to-late 30 s and parents to young children, the same life stage as when their parents had moved to Israel. This fosters empathy with the parental post-migration struggles and signifies cultural continuity between generations. Sharing Soviet-Jewish values of social mobility via excellence and hard work (Remennick, 2012), the main criteria of success in the women’s migration journey were educational attainment and professional careers. All writers have college degrees, some at postgraduate level, and work in ICT, human services, law, teaching, arts and design. For many of them, the road to higher education was long and bumpy: improving their high-school grades during military service, combining study and work to pay tuition, etc. In contrast to their Sabra peers, their struggling parents coud not put them through college and sometimes asked for their help, instrumental and financial. Although most women had moved from peripheral towns where they grew up to metropolitan centers, their filial duties firmly tied them with their past. Julia (from Tashkent, in Israel since 1990) closed her account as folows: It took me many years to feel proud of my origin, my family, and resist those who humiliate us. I found balance between being Israeli and respecting traditions and customs I grew up with. After 29 years in Israel, we are in a completely different place. I have a degree in architecture from Tel Aviv University and work in this profession. My parents work in respectable jobs and earn a decent living. Everyone appreciates having come here, despite the difficulties we went through. I always remember that the time of shame is over for ‘Russians’; we have nothing to apologize for. We tell the stories of our Aliya – smiling through tears.
The third theme is gratitude to the parents who brought them to Israel and started from scratch to ensure their better future. Diana immigrated from Moldova in 1989, a 14-year-old with her parents and sister. She mused: Today I almost reached the age of my parents when they came to Israel. And I am a mother of two, so I try to imagine myself in Kishinev of the late 1980s pondering emigration. It was an act of courage: to leave everything behind and start afresh in a new country, with no language, connections or money. My parents immigrated in their late 40s, so that our life here would be better. I want to thank them for all they’ve done for me and my sister. I think they are proud of us today; we’ve built ourselves, started families and had children. They’ve raised good offspring who appreciate and love them. So, my dear parents, I love you endlessly and thank you for everything.
The final sections of many stories were suffused with Zionist motives. Although their families had come to Israel fleeing political and economic insecurity (i.e. ‘push factors’), over time they redefined themselves as Olim rather than regular migrants, i.e. homecomers committed to Israel's national ethos (Lomsky-Feder and Rapoport, 2008). Military service (Sasson-Levy, 2006), economic contribution and familism (raising families with several children) (Berkovitch, 1997) are the chief pillars of Israeli Zionism. Thus, despite criticizing their reception in Israel, our writers strongly identify with the national ethos, reaffirming their position in Israeli society as members of the Jewish majority. The above-cited Diana wrote in the end of her memoir: Today I feel that I am Israeli in every possible way: I served in the army, studied, acquired a solid profession, and raise a family in Israel. And no-one can tell me anymore ‘stinky Russian, go back!’ Because I am as Israeli as Sabras, and no one has the right to tell me that.
Finally, many women referred to the power of collective narrative they have created by publishing their personal memories and thoughts. Vicky, who immigrated at the age of ten, summarized this common feeling: I read all the posts in the group and they make me so proud! Your stories and emotions feel so real to me. We have so much in common; now I realize that I’ve never been alone! Similarity and sympathy ‘normalize’ our old pains and empower us as a group … My family of five immigrated 25 years ago from Kazakhstan with only $500. I’m proud that most of us managed to make it. The middle generation managed to finish high school, served in the army, got academic degrees, and landed even better positions than our Sabra peers, thanks to our hard work and ambition. Many of us are doctors, tech workers, managers, psychologists, lawyers and more! And those who are not ‘high achievers’ are no longer ashamed of their Russian names and accent … those who work in cleaning or security, they know their rights and can’t be cheated and exploited like their parents before … I am no longer ashamed to speak Russian and tell my children that they should be proud of their Russian heritage.
Conclusion
This article explores the discourse of migration-related traumas drawing on the narratives published by Russian-Israeli women in an online support group. Seen through the critical sociological prism, publicly vented traumas become instrumental in the struggles for recognition by marginal groups in the late-modern moral economy. Trauma has become a moral litmus test that defines the human rights of immigrants in different countries. Thus, the legal status of asylum seekers and refugees in Europe is determined mainly by the proof of (post)trauma resulting from the wars, violence and torture they fled (Fassin and Rechtman, 2009). Other types of migrants, including our homecomers-Olim, may also deploy trauma as a symbolic key to national belonging.
This explains why immigrants and ethnic ‘others’ turn to trauma to frame their autobiographical stories. The Israeli public and media discourses feature an ongoing competition between victims of different traumas, an indispensable part of local identity politics. Every minority and ethnic group, including Holocaust survivors, Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews, religious settlers, and African asylum seekers make claims about their traumas to demand recognition and reparations. This instrumental dimension of trauma discourse does not reduce the authenticity and significance of collective experiences of these groups. Rather, it places trauma-language in the social context, stressing its connection with the moral justification of claims. This local phenomenon exemplifies the global triumph of the social discourse of trauma and, more generally, Western therapeutic culture (Alexander et al., 2004; Furedi, 2004).
The autobiographical stories published at the Facebook forum Russian women without sense of humor join the broad generational narrative of ethnic trauma. The (post)Soviet Aliya of the 1990s, often presented as self-sufficient and successful, unexpectedly shows its underside, telling the story of loss and humiliation. This discursive turn reflects the public activism of Generation 1.5 – journalists, bloggers, artists and poets who advanced the trauma narrative by revealing their hidden wounds (Prashizky, 2021). Hundreds of autobiographical stories recently published by the FB forum reinforced this trend in a concentrated way, making claims about the collective ethnic trauma of Russian-Israeli Generation 1.5. They succeeded in making these moral claims public and legitimate via Hebrew media, now incorporated in the local mediascape. The feminist leadership of Generation 1.5 and the will to publish personal stories reflect the perils of Russian women’s encounters with Israeli society, their vulnerability and exposure to sexism. Apparently, they have stored more grievances than their male counterparts (or could articulate them more efficiently) and turned to resistance, speaking also on behalf of their silent mothers (Remennick, 2004).
The unmet expectations and downward social mobility of their families have surfaced among Generation 1.5 in three related forms: Post-Soviet nostalgia and idealization of Soviet childhood (Moshkin, 2019); provocative and critical art depicting the everyday life of Russian immigrants (Prashizky, 2021); and the emerging discourse of ethnic trauma described in this article. These critical narratives challenge Zionist ethos and the image of Aliya as homecoming still widely shared by Israelis. While criticizing the flawed ‘absorption’ of the ‘Great Aliya’ by exposing their experiences of exclusion and exploitation, the narrators typically underscore their stoic endurance and eventual thriving, framing it as ‘traumatic victory’ (Alexander et al., 2004). Their personal achievements in Israel are presented along classic Zionist lines, stressing their solid contributions to the common good: The army service (defense and security), higher education and gainful employment (economic), and raising a happy Jewish family (demographic and social). They complete their stories as overt Israeli patriots.
Given their location on the cultural transition scale, have these Gen 1.5ers imported the trauma discourse from the USSR/FSU or rather adopted it in the host society? We see it as a product of interaction between the (post)Soviet heritage and Israeli realities and public discourse of the last 30 years. The therapeutic culture, and the concept of (post)trauma as its part, have emerged in Israel during the 1990s reflecting global intellectual trends. Having traded one marginal status for the other (expressed in a popular adage ‘There we were dirty Jews, here we became stinky Russians’), these migrants could never escape their ethnic stigma. The therapeutic way of thinking absorbed as part of their Israeli resocialization (Lerner, 2020) helped them process their nostalgia and social downgrading by means of the Soviet Jewish ethos of endurance and hard work. A retrospective framing of their integration experiences as traumatic casts them as respectable and legitimate, part of the national discourse of (post)trauma.
Arguably, many aspects of the ex-Soviet women’s integration journey in Israel, and its attendant pains, are shared by other immigrants crossing national and cultural borders. Yet in-depth narrative studies among migrant Generations 1.5 and 2.0 are still rare in migration and ethnicity research, both generally and among Russian speakers outside Israel. The Soviet-Jewish case is rather unique due to the high pre-migration human capital and common occupational-social downgrading in the host countries (Remennick, 2012). The American experience of young Russian Jews is terra incognita: a single survey including this group in New York was conducted in the early 2000s, focusing on its educational mobility and encounter with American Judaism (Zeltzer-Zubida and Kasinitz, 2005). A small, comparative study of Russian-Jewish 1.5ers’ experiences in Israel and in Germany suggested a smoother experience of their integration in Europe (Remennick, 2017). Despite surging research on online communities, we found no comparable narrative-based studies among young immigrants – in Israel, the US or elsewhere. As for other Olim in Israel, the suffering of Yemenite, Moroccan and other Mizrahi Jews in the early years of the State has held public attention thanks to the surging social-media activism of their (grand)children. The dramatic saga of African Jews (othered on both racial and religious grounds) striving to integrate into White Israel has entered the public spotlight after recent violent riots of young Ethiopians in Tel-Aviv (Sharaby, 2021). Thus, social research is clearly lagging behind ethnic activism in exposing migration traumas of subsequent cohorts of Israeli homecomers (Halamish, 2018).
Finally, our findings shed light on the process of healing of ethnic trauma. Previous research points to the healing potential of writing and sharing of autobiographical stories in live and digital storytelling groups (Lieblich, 2013; Mahmood and Shams, 2012). Trauma seeks ongoing verbalization and mutual reflection to become meaningful and allow its carriers to reach catharsis. The members of the FB group in our study repeatedly described the publishing of their life-stories as ‘therapy’ and ‘healing.’ All the stories were followed by chains of reinforcement like, ‘You are a champion’, ‘Great job,’ and ‘I send you a hug’. This online support group seems to have reached its goal of healing and empowering its members. Future studies of ethnic trauma among other immigrant and minority groups will advance our understanding of its unique vs universal dimensions, as well as its gender-specific facets. Women more often use social media and support groups to discuss traumatic events and their aftermath, while the men’s narratives remain hidden and require greater effort to be ‘extracted’ and scrutinized (Remennick, 2021).
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
