Yes to Immigration but What about Immigrants? Local Attitudes to Immigrant Absorption

Immigrant absorption and attitudes toward immigrants in Israel may be conceptualized as part of the general phenomenon of migration and treatment of new members joining a social collective. ^* The veteran members of the collective are likely to see the benefits of accepting new members to the existing social framework, but at the same time are also generally aware of the costs they may be required to bear. Both benefits and costs may be defined in collective or in individual terms. Israeli society’s basic values, as well as its mainstream social ideologies, stress both the commitment to absorb immigration and the advantages to be gained from it. This commitment is derived from the very definition of the existence of a Jewish nation, and of the political entity of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish, people finding its institutional expression in the Law of Return. ¹ Furthermore, owing to Israel’s geo-political situation, the benefits to the collective and to the individual of accepting immigration are often weighed in terms of relative size and strength.