ABSTRACT
This chapter explores experiences in Canada and in Israel in integrating new immigrant groups that are too distinctive or too large and self-contained to be assimilated. It describes the evolution over the last two decades of the concept and policy of multiculturalism in Canada as an approach to promoting the integration of minority and immigrant groups of diverse backgrounds. Canada and Israel, two very different societies in some fundamental respects, are both preoccupied by the project of nation-building, at the same time as they are trying to adapt to the reality of increasingly assertive ethno-racial diversity. The impact on social cohesion may be gauged both in attitudes towards and on the part of immigrants, and actual behavior between immigrants and the veteran population. The earlier immigrants have served as a significant reference group for the 1990s immigrants, providing them with social support, guidance, and the precedent of their relatively successful experience in social and economic integration.
