ABSTRACT
Many writers have noted the difference between the aliya from the USSR of the 1970s (to which I myself belong) and the wave of the 1990s, which recently began to fill the streets of Israeli cities. Too often this distinction has been described in terms of ideology, thus explicitly favouring my group, which was motivated primarily by Zionist impulses. It may be true that in our case ideology played a rather large role, but that does not necessarily mean that we were more spiritual.
