ABSTRACT
The decline and fall of the USSR was a major event in the history of Israel for it resulted in the emigration of some 500,000 Soviet Jews to Israel between 1990 and 1995, most of them during the first two years. This group had to be settled and found employment and the tasks of absorption and the costs thereof presented serious problems to the Jewish state. One factor was religious: some 100,000 of the Soviet Jews were not Jews at all by Orthodox standards and they were refused ordinary civil rights, thus precipitating a conflict between government and the Orthodox religious parties. Another factor was political: could the Soviet Jews be drawn into the existing diverse system of Israeli political parties or would they, as was proposed, form their own political party? Another question concerned whether they should be settled in Israel proper or predominantly in the occupied territories, a matter of intense concern to the Palestinians. And a last question was financial: to pay the costs of settlement Israel needed to borrow money, and to obtain a cheap loan it required a US government guarantee which was for a time withheld.
