Matti Friedman on the Russian Aliyah—30 Years Later

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After a decades-long, worldwide campaign to free Soviet Jewry, in the late 1980s the borders of the Soviet Union were finally opened, allowing its Jews to immigrate to the State of Israel. This period saw approximately one million men and women from the former Soviet Union leave and resettle in the Jewish state. They came in fulfillment of Zionist aspirations, in search of material opportunities, and in pursuit of greater freedom.

At the time that the Russians arrived, Israel had fewer than five million citizens, and these new immigrants brought with them an entirely new set of cultural assumptions and practices. And they posed a religious challenge as well, as a great many of them qualified for Israeli citizenship, but did not qualify as Jewish under the requirements of Orthodox law.

How did they transform Israel? Its economy? Its culture? Its politics? And how did Israel transform them? In the three decades since they arrived, what has happened?

That’s the subject of Matti Friedman’s November 2020 essay in Mosaic, and in this podcast, he joins Mosaic’s editor to probe the miraculous story of the Russian Aliyah and what it teaches us about the exceptional spirit of Israeli society and Israeli citizenship.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	After a decades-long global campaign, at long last in the late 1980s, the borders of the Soviet Union were finally open, allowing the Jews to leave and emigrate to the Jewish state.
0:19.4	The late 80s and early 90s saw about one million
0:23.1	women and men from the former Soviet Union leave Eastern Europe and resettle in Israel. They came
0:28.3	for Zionism. They came for material opportunities. They came for freedom. Welcome to the Tikva
0:33.4	podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. At the time that the Russians arrived, Israel had fewer
0:38.5	than five million citizens. This was an enormous number of new Israelis, who brought with them
0:44.4	new challenges and entirely different cultural assumptions. Many were well-educated and trained
0:50.1	in crucially important professions, like medicine and scientific research. They also brought
0:54.7	to Israel an urgent set of religious dilemmas. You see, a great many of the new Russian
0:59.5	immigrants qualified for Israeli citizenship under the law of return, but did not satisfy
1:04.9	the halakhic definition of membership in the Jewish people. How would these new Russians
1:09.5	transform Israel, Its economy,
1:12.0	its culture, its politics, and how would Israel transform them? The great waves of Russian
1:17.2	immigration crashed upon the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean 30 years ago. In those three decades,
1:23.2	what happened? That's the subject of Mati Friedman's November 2020 essay in Mosaic. This week,
1:28.6	Mati Friedman joins me to probe this miraculous story that teaches us something about the
1:33.3	exceptional spirit of Israeli society and Israeli citizenship. If you enjoy this conversation,
1:38.9	you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. I hope you'll leave us a five-star
1:45.9	review to help us grow this community of ideas. I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other
1:51.7	podcast episodes at podcast at TikvaFund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work
1:57.7	at Tikva, you can visit our website, Tikfafunds.org, and follow us on Facebook
2:02.3	and Twitter. Here now is my conversation with Mati Friedman.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.