ABSTRACT
Israel’s demographic make-up is virtually unique in that Israel is not only a country with immigrants, but essentially a country of immigrants. With the beginning of the wave of new immigrants, an on-going survey on the processes of their absorption in Israel was initiated by the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption. The proportion of immigrants living in permanent housing rose from 15 percent, one and a half to two years after their arrival, to 50 percent in their fourth year in the country, and to almost 80 percent after five years in Israel. To assess the immigrants’ Jewish and Israeli identity, the motives behind their decision to leave the former Soviet Union and settle in Israel, as well as their general adaptation, some composite measures—all based on the respondents’ reports—were used. Data from a public opinion survey carried out by the authors in 1992, based on a national representative sample of the Israeli Jewish population.
