ABSTRACT
The wave of immigration that began in the latter half of 1989 was the largest wave of immigration to arrive in Israel. Israel’s population increased by some 16 percent, with the arrival of 800,000 immigrants. Thirty-one percent of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) came from the Russian Republic and 30 percent from Ukraine. In 1995, Ukraine became the major republic of immigration and this trend continued through 1997. Among the FSU immigrants, 73,000 declared upon arrival in the country that they were employed as engineers prior to their immigration. Approximately two-thirds of the immigrants were employed prior to their emigration. The immigrants from the FSU are highly educated and many were in professions that demanded higher education. In 1989, the median age of FSU immigrants was 32 as compared to 26 for the Israeli population. However, the immigrants to Israel are much younger than the Jewish population remaining in the FSU.
