Cite as: Kislev, E. (2014). The Transnational Effect of Multicultural Policies on Migrants' Identification: The Case of the Israeli Diaspora in the USA. Global Networks. 15(1):118-139. Source: Global Networks. 15(1):118-139 Find on: ResearchGate.com, Personal Website
The Transnational Effect of Multicultural Policies on Emigrants' Identification: the Case of the Israeli Diaspora in the US ELYAKIM KISLEV, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, 501 Knox Hall, 606 West 122nd Street, New York, NY 10027,
[email protected]
Abstract While it is hard to gauge the effect of multicultural policies within countries, it is even harder to measure it across countries. However, this paper uses fundamental multicultural changes that have occurred in Israeli society in recent decades as a case study, and tracks their effect on the identification of Israelis who reside in the US. Analysing the US census and the American Community Survey, this research focuses on three groups of Israeli-born immigrants in the US: Israeli-Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and the Jewish-majority. Findings indicate that originating from a minority community in the homeland predicts not only a different rate, but also different longitudinal trends of Israeli identification. Several possible explanations for these variations are offered here, but an in-depth analysis of the Israeli case underlines the transnational effect of the changing multicultural agenda in Israel as the leading mechanism.
Keywords MULTICULTURAL POLICIES; IMMIGRANTS; MINORITIES; IDENTITY; ISRAEL; DIASPORA; THE US.
In recent years, many nation-states have demonstrated an increasing interest in their diaspora communities. Countries such as Mexico, Turkey, and India have invested substantial resources in an attempt to promote higher levels of national identification 1
among their expatriates – a factor which in turn strengthens the economic and professional contribution the latter make to their homelands as well as encourages their political support (Castles and Miller 2009). According to the World Bank data, remittance flows to developing countries in 2010 totaled US$325 billion, while just a decade before, US$80 billion were sent to developing countries (Mohapatra et al. 2011). This outstanding increase in flows of remittance has prompted governments to strengthen the relationships with their diaspora communities and see these flows as part of their main sources for investments (Jones-Correa 2001; Mullings 2011). The political impact of expatriates is significant as well. Fourteen percent of the Mexican adult population, for example, resides in the US (Marcelli and Cornelius 2005). Such a large block influences significantly the domestic political agenda of Mexico as well as their foreign affairs with the US (Baubock 2005). Accordingly, the next challenge is to understand the exact characteristics of these ties. Various studies (e.g. Farley 1991; Jones and De-la-Torre 2011; Rebhun and Lev-Ari 2010; Waters 1990) have examined numerous factors influencing identification among emigrants. Among the common predictors discussed we can find age, education, citizenship, gender, and years of residence in the target country. For example, in their study on Israelis in the US, Rebhun and Lev-Ari (2010) show that 'age' and 'being female' are positively correlated with Israeli identification. In contrast, ‘tenure in the US’, ‘having a BA degree’, ‘being married’, and ‘having American citizenship’ are negatively correlated with Israeli identification. Yet their study excludes Israeli-Arabs and does not distinguish between the Jewish majority population and Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Distinguishing between minority groups and the majority group is crucial. Research on other groups of Diaspora minorities reveals that repression in the source country is one of the main reasons for higher assimilation in the host country and diminishing ties with the source country. For example, a study on Iraqi-Kurds (Akkaya 2011) reveals that repression of Kurds in Iraq is one of the main reasons for development of a Kurdish ethnic sentiment among the Iraqi-Kurdish Diaspora in Sweden. Furthermore, the literature that focuses on refugees, such as a recent study conducted in the Netherlands (De-Vroome et al. 2011), shows that education and economic condition in the country of origin is negatively correlated with refugees’ identification with the host country. If they have held low status in their homeland and have being low-achieving educationally and economically, they tend to assimilate 2
faster in the host country and identify less with the source country. Borjas (1982) shows that Cuban refugees assimilate faster than other Hispanic immigrants due to what he calls the 'higher costs of return' that encourage them to assimilate. The current paper contributes to this ongoing investigation and asks two questions. One is whether minorities from democratic countries develop the same patterns of identification and assimilation as oppressed immigrant minorities and refugees from non-democratic countries. In this case, the question is whether being an Israeli-Arab or an Ultra-Orthodox Jew correlates with different rates and trends of national and cultural identification from the Jewish majority group. I shall show that the sense of national identification held by US immigrants originating from minority groups in Israel differs quite profoundly from those belonging to mainstream society in Israel. This claim pertains both to the level of identification and, more surprisingly, to longitudinal trends in identification. The second question is whether changes in policies and social attitudes towards and of minorities in the source country (Israel) have a transnational influence on the parallel immigrant grouping in terms of national identification over the years. In other words, even if the answer to the first question is positive and the social status of minorities in the source country affects the parallel group overseas, we still need to ask what happens when the agenda in the homeland changes. Can we track some transnational mechanisms that tie the two parallel populations and affect them synchronically? This investigation is especially important in an age of globalization, when the media and the internet serve as mediators between different communities across the globe (Alinejad 2011; Ogelman 2003; Wright 2012). In this sense, globalization does not just accelerate multicultural changes within countries, it also provides novel ways to think about identity and define the subject across political boundaries (Cohen 1996a; Sassen 2006; Sassen 2007). Phrasing it in Appadurai's (1991; 1996) terms: new 'ethnoscapes' and 'ideoscapes' are emerging in the new global world in which cultures act simultaneously. Thus, it is an open question how different groups forge their identity in diaspora under the influence of changing social circumstances back in their country of origin. I will suggest that an in-depth analysis of the Israeli case prompts us to see the differences in Israeli identification over the years and across the groups as a reflection of changes in policies and attitudes occurring within the source society.
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In investigating the Israeli case I have classified Israeli immigrants according to three principal groups: Israeli-Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and the 'Jewishmajority'. The two minority populations were chosen on the basis of three factors: a) the distinctiveness of their culture and way of life – reflected, for example, in separate educational systems; b) the fact that, for various reasons, only a very small percentage within them participates in compulsory military service in Israel – an experience that plays an important role in shaping Israeli citizens’ identification with the state and integration within mainstream Israeli society alike (Lieblich 1989); c) the two minority groups form a demographically-significant sector of Israeli society (together they are more than a quarter of the entire population) and are the fastest growing minority groups (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 2009). The following sections of this paper analyse the background of these minorities in detail and examine how their sense of national identification has developed over the years. A greater comprehension of the character of these populations in the source country will enable, I propose, a better understanding of their parallel immigrant communities.
The Characteristics of the Israeli-Arab Minority As of 2011, the Arab sector in Israel numbered approximately 1,600,000 – around 20.5 per cent of the total population. The distinctive characteristics of the Israeli-Arab minority include: 30 per cent lower participation in the labor force than the Jewish population, 30 per cent lower wage per hour than the Jewish population, an earlier age of marriage, and 70 per cent less BA holders than the Jewish population (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics 2011). The issues of identity and cultural identification within the Arab minority in Israel are complex. Identity in Israel has two layers of formation. The first includes all civilian citizens within Israel, irrespective of background. The second relates to the Jewish character and culture of the state, which distinguishes the Israeli-Arab minority from the majority culture (Herman 1989; Horenczyk and Ben-Shalom 2006; Oron 1984; Kimmerling 1994; Tatar 2004). In addition, the Israeli-Arab minority also displays a complex partial identification with Palestinian Arabs (Ghanem et al. 1999). The 1948 war brought about a split between the Arabs residents in Israel territory and those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a division wielding a significant effect whenever the Arab minority attempts to identify with one specific community (Israeli or Palestinian). 4
Suleiman (2002a; 2002b) mentions three models that can explain the complicated relationship between the two identities of Israeli-Arabs, the Israeli and the Palestinian. One is the model of 'two poles' where the Israeli identity and the Arab identity contradict each other; a tendency to identify with one contradicts the cultivation of the other. The second model is the marginalization model which describes the sense of alienation and lack of identification with both identities. The third model is the integration model which describes the existence of the two identities together without a contradiction between them. In this respect, reports (Smooha 1992; Smooha 2005; Smooha 2010) indicate that the Israeli-Arab minority exhibits two parallel trends. The first reflects a process of 'Israelization,' whereby the Arab minority demonstrates an increasing rate of Israeli national identification and rapport with Israeli culture, as part of the accelerated processes of modernization to which it is exposed. The second is a process of 'Palestinization,' whereby the Arab minority identifies with Palestinian-Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A close examination of Smooha’s longitudinal findings, however, reveals that the main trend of increasing is that of national identification with Israel. In Smooha’s words: 'Numbers show clearly that the Israeli dimension of Israeli-Arabs’ identification is the most central because it is shared almost by everyone' (Smooha 2005: 36). Thus, the percentage of individuals identifying themselves as 'Palestinians within Israel' increased from 12 per cent in 1976, the first year of survey, to 40 per cent in 2009 as opposed to the category of 'Palestinians possessing no connection to Israel' which decreased from 33 per cent in 1976 to 17 per cent in 2009. Nevertheless, opposition to Israel's existence expressed by Israeli-Arabs together with a support for violence against the State of Israel show fluctuating trends and response closely to political changes in Israel1. Therefore, as Smooha claims, the dominant trend is increasing participation in Israeli society, though it comes through ambivalent processes. Shafir and Peled (2002) suggest it is due to the fact that there is integration on the individual level, while as a collective, the Israeli-Arabs still feel oppressed.
The Characteristics of the Ultra-Orthodox Minority According to a special working paper by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (Romanov et al. 2011) the core 'Ultra-Orthodox group' – representing the most devout sector – comprises approximately 4.1 per cent of the populace, while the broader 5
Ultra-Orthodox population is estimated around nine per cent up to 13 per cent by the most loose definition. The characteristics of the Ultra-Orthodox minority in Israel include: high birthrate that is more than double than the total Jewish population; early age of marriage; a lower rate of TV-usage; an independent educational system providing low-cost education; 50 per cent lower income than the total Jewish population, coupled with substantial reliance on state funds distributed according to household size; and 30 per cent lower rate of participation in the labor force than the total Jewish population, with more women than men working in professions which facilitate isolation from society as well as afford time for taking care of the family (Friedlander and Feldmann 1993; Friedman 1991b; Friedman 1991a; Gurovich and Cohen-Kastro 2004; Hoshen 2001). The Ultra-Orthodox view of the establishment of the State of Israel is governed by the principle of messianic redemption. This community regards national restoration to the Jewish homeland as a vision to be realized through divine forces, in reward for the observance of strict religious practices – not through human efforts. A wide consensus consequently exists among the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish populace that an independent and sovereign Israel constitutes an affront to the divine will. Israeli political institutions are thus perceived as representing a violation of the sacred law (Friedman 1986; Heilman 1999). In Ultra-Orthodox eyes, the State of Israel not only profanes the sacred by precluding the possibility of a miraculous redemption but also conducts itself in a fashion which contravenes an Ultra-Orthodox lifestyle and culture (e.g., working on the Sabbath, eating non-kosher food, etc.). When Judaism encountered the European Enlightenment movement in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Ultra-Orthodox Jews chose to withdraw from general society and secular culture in order to preserve the Jewish religion (Bar-Lev and Krausz 1989; Schachter 2004). Ultra-Orthodoxy is therefore customarily characterized by a constant alertness to the threat posed by modern, secular Western culture (Sivan and Kaplan 2003). Ultra-Orthodox opposition to Israel is thus not merely restricted to antagonism towards state political institutions but also represents a counter-resistance to Israeli society as a representative of Western culture. In recent years, however, a process of rapprochement between Ultra-Orthodox institutions and the State of Israel has manifested. Among the prominent expressions 6
of this trend are an increasing willingness to receive state funds and to recognize the state de facto (the positive attitude of the Belze Rebbe, the head of one of the largest and influential Ultra-Orthodox movements in Israel, being a significant factor in this regard) (Mintz 1992); the establishment of national volunteer organizations; participation in national ceremonies; and an increasing readiness amongst the UltraOrthodox community to serve in the army (Azulay and Etinger 2008; Levy 2003). It seems that both minorities, the Israeli-Arabs and the Ultra-Orthodox Jews have gone through processes of rapprochement to the Israeli mainstream. In the next section, I will show that this process was mutual and that governmental policies supported it.
Attitudes and Policies towards Minorities in Israeli Society Since the establishment of the state, Israel has been faced with a massive influx of over three million immigrants (Cohen 2009). Until recently, Israeli society has exemplified the 'melting pot' policy towards parts of the society (Kimmerling 2004), a strategy based on the recognition of unity and common values among Zionist Jews. On the other hand, it excludes Israeli-Arab and Ultra-Orthodox minorities as populaces not committed to the Zionist idea. Since the military service function both as an 'entrance ticket' into Israeli culture and as one of its primary shapers (Levy 2003; Lieblich 1989) Ultra-Orthodox and Israeli-Arab exemption from this civic obligation functions to exclude them from the Israeli majority culture, while the 'newly-recruited' immigrants stand squarely at the center of the 'melting pot.' However, while the 'melting pot' ideology was dominant for many years, a new approach is now emerging, which emphasizes the importance of pluralistic discourse. Two key processes occurring during the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century can be adduced as influencing this new approach. The first was the huge influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s. This populace accounted for approximately 15 per cent of the total population in Israel. The second was the accelerated privatization process intensified by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu between 1996 and 1999, a policy continued by his successor, Ehud Barak, and pursued by Benjamin Netanyahu once again during his term as an assertive finance minister between 2003 and 2005. This process was
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accompanied by more general processes of globalization and individualization (Cohen and Baruch 2010). With regard to the first process, mass migration within such a short period pressurized policymakers into abandoning the 'melting pot' policy and adopting new attitudes towards the various minority populations. With respect to the second, the encouragement of privatization led to an increasing decentralization of such hegemonic power centers as television and radio channels, with franchises for new national and local channels being offered for sale (including new Ultra-Orthodox and Arabic channels). Also, the broad privatization of state companies made substantial numbers of government jobs available to people from minority communities who had not served in the army, which is a prerequisite for most governmental jobs (Sagie and Weisberg 2001). These processes contributed to the introduction of pivotal changes within Israeli society at the beginning of the 21st century. Indeed, a new approach in which different cultural and religious backgrounds are more openly discussed and accepted has been promoted (Kimmerling 2004; Kimmerling 2005; Tatar 2004; Yonah and Shenhav 2005). Thus, for example, a new educational policy has recently been formulated which recognizes the importance of the preservation of minority cultures (Bahat 2004). With respect to military service, several additional changes have also taken place in the last decade and affected the Israeli-Arab and Ultra-Orthodox minority groups in Israel. In 1999, a special regiment was formed in the army which caters to the social, cultural, and religious needs of Ultra-Orthodox soldiers. In 2007, as an alternative to army service, an adaptive national service system for the Israeli-Arab and Ultra-Orthodox minorities was initiated, although its recognition and implementation still remain limited. Nevertheless, while only 22 Ultra-Orthodox young people were part of the national service in 2007, this number grew to 450 in 2008 and to 1860 in 2011. Among Israeli-Arabs, 628 young people volunteered in 2007, 1256 in 2009 and 2400 in 2011 (Bar-Zohar 2012; Smooha and Lechtman 2010). Likewise, the question of how to promote these minorities in the civil service has also been addressed in legislation. In 2000, a law was enacted assuring the representation of the Arab minority in the civil service, together with the allocation of specific positions for members of this group (Sagie and Weisberg 2001) In 2002, the 'Tal' Law was enacted, allowing Ultra-Orthodox Israelis to serve a shortened term in the IDF rather than the full period of military service. This bill encourages the 8
absorption of new generation of Ultra-Orthodox Jews into civil service positions which is restricted to post-IDF employees (Levy 2003). This background sketch forms the setting for the following examination of the identification of Israeli-born immigrants to the US. I will examine two main working hypotheses. The first is that these different characteristics and experiences of minority groups in Israel are reflected in different rates of national identification across countries – among the parallel groups in the US (minority-origin immigrants versus mainstream-origin immigrants). The second is that the recent mutual rapprochement between these two minority groups and the majority group in Israel has a transnational effect on the longitudinal trends of identification among emigrants to the US. In addition, I will support this examination with longitudinal trends in emigration from Israel to the US which also reflect changes in national identification. The more immigrants identify with Israel, the less they will tend to leave the country. This latter assumption is particularly valid for the Israeli case because the Zionist ideology regards emigration to another country as 'descent' (Cohen 1996b; Rebhun and Lev-Ari 2010).
Method This research draws upon the Public Use Microdata of the US censuses data from the years 1980, 1990, and 2000, together with the American Community Surveys (ACS) data from the years 2001–2010 (Ruggles et al. 2010). The US censuses files include five per cent of the population, the 2001–2004 ACS include 0.4 per cent of the population, and the 2005-2010 ACS include one per cent of the population. The ACS surveys were therefore pooled in groups or couples where small number of cases is statistically insufficient (see below). The cases selected for this study were chosen on the basis of the birthplacevariable given in the censuses and surveys ('Israel/Palestine'). Gaza-born and West Bank-born persons were not included, because, following the Oslo Agreement, those territories constituted a separate, autonomous authority and were given separate categories in the censuses and surveys. It should nevertheless be noted that in the 1980 census, Palestinians were classified together with Israeli-Arabs, due to the fact that no official separation existed between the two at that time (Ruggles et al. 2010). I shall address this issue below with some possible implications.
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In identifying the three populations under discussion, this study based itself on the work of Cohen and Tyree (1994) and Cohen and Haberfeld (1997). The three groups were identified by birthplace (Israel) and by the language that they speak: Hebrew, Arabic or Yiddish. Individuals who were born in Israel and speak Hebrew were identified as the Jewish-majority. Individuals born in Israel and speak Arabic were identified as Israeli-Arabs. Individuals born in Israel and speak Yiddish, were identified as Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Note that identifying Ultra-Orthodox Jews by the Yiddish language excludes Sephardic Ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not speak Yiddish. This is justified because the Sephardic group identifies with the State of Israel in a fashion much more closely approximating that of the Jewish-majority group and many of them serve in the army. In this regard, this paper adopted the conservative definition for the Ultra-Orthodox population (Gurovich and CohenKastro 2004). Table 1 presents the number of cases in each group per year:
Table 1: Number of cases by year of survey: three groups of Israeli-born Immigrants in the US [about here]
Overall, the Jewish-majority group numbered 11,799 (72 per cent of the sample), the Israeli-Arab group 3,784 (23 per cent), and the Ultra-Orthodox group 859 (five per cent). Indeed, a comparison of these ratios to those of the same sectors in Israel reveals a close correspondence. Calculations were made both with the personal weights provided by the data bases and without (see: Gelman 2007; Lohr 2007). Both methods yielded very similar results. Below, I present calculations made with weights. After dividing the three groups, answers to the Ancestry question were used to check the identification component of each population and any changes occurring longitudinally. The answer to the ancestry question frequently indicates respondents’ identification in such surveys and has been employed extensively in various papers in order to classify identification and ethnicity (Cohen and Tyree 1994; Lieberson 1985; Lieberson and Waters 1985; Neidert and Farley 1985). Apparently, respondents usually choose their ancestries and tend not to give a 'scientific' answer indicating the exact composition of birthplaces in their family (Waters 1990). Waters finds in her study that factors such as the relative prestige of an ancestry, the family name, and the appearance all affect naming one ancestry over another. Thus, changes in respondents' 10
answers to this question reflect their changing identification with the several options they have to answer the ancestry question. Israeli-Arabs, for instance, can easily state that their ancestry is 'Arabic', 'Palestinian', or 'Israeli' among many other options (Cohen and Tyree 1994). When they choose one answer over another they indicate their preferences. Furthermore, findings of emigration trends are presented as well in order to see yet another facet of the same multicultural changes and their transnational effect. The assumption is that higher emigration rates (from Israel to the US) reflect lower identification rates. The more immigrants identify with Israel, the less they will tend to leave the country. This assumption is justified in particular when investigating the Israeli Diaspora because the Zionist ideology inherently ties the question of emigration to the question of identification (e.g. by naming emigrants “descendents”) (Rebhun and Lev-Ari 2010). Moreover, this test compares three different groups that emigrate from the same country and at the same time, and hence controls for the period effect (Borjas 1995). Thus, I present trends in the composition of Israeli emigrants to the US by year of emigration and group affiliation.
Findings
Descriptive Overview Figure 1 presents the proportion stating 'Israeli' as their ancestry, within the three groups, during the period 1980 to 2010 (due to small number of cases among UltraOrthodox Jews, the surveys of 2001-5 were pooled, as were the surveys of 2006-10).
Figure 1: Longitudinal trends of Israeli national identification among three Israeli diaspora communities in the US [about here]
This figure shows not only the different rates between the groups but also the varying longitudinal trends, which I shall discuss in detail below. Figures 2-4 present the division between the main categories of identification within each group. In addition, more detailed points of time were added in both the Jewish majority graph and the Israeli-Arabs graph, in which more cases are available.
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Figure 2: Longitudinal trends of national identification among Jewish-Majority immigrants in the US [about here] Figure 3: Longitudinal trends of national identification among Israeli Arab immigrants in the US [about here] Figure 4: Longitudinal trends of national identification among Ultra-Orthodox immigrants in the US [about here]
These three graphs can teach us more about the main choices the three communities had, and the changes occurred over time in choosing Israeli identification over other prominent options. It should be noted that 'Religion' category was made in these graphs according to the following remark: “A few responses were not categorized in the samples and were instead coded 'Uncodable,' 'Deferred Cases,' or 'Other.' These uncategorized responses were usually religions” (Ruggles et al. 2010).
Israeli National Identification among Jewish-majority Emigrants The findings from the Jewish-majority group in the first three decades (1980, 1990, and 2000) indicate a continuous trend of an increasing rate of Israeli national identification – from 44 per cent in 1980 to 64 per cent in 2000. More recent ACS surveys, however, demonstrate a reverse trend, with a decreasing rate of Israeli national identification to 57 per cent in 2001-5 down to 52 per cent in 2006-10. It can be seen in figure 2 that the decrease of Israeli identification comes in parallel to an increase of identification with other ethnic ancestries. Identification with other ancestries among the Jewish-majority increased from 14 per cent in 2000 to 19 per cent in 2005 and 26 per cent in 2010. These results mean that in the last decade, the Jewish-majority chose to state the origins of their parents prior to immigrating to Israel more than they did beforehand. It is an important finding because it works against the assumption that Hebrew speakers, who were born in Israel, will tend to disregard or stop to refer to the origins of their parents over time.
Israeli National Identification among Israeli-Arab Emigrants A detailed analysis reveals an increase in the levels of Israeli national identification from the numbers appearing in the 1980 census (four per cent) and those given in 1990 (eight per cent). However, the 1980 census classifies some non-citizen 12
Palestinian stating their country of birth as the West Bank or Gaza strip as Israeli-born (See also Table 1, where non-proportional number of Israeli-Arabs appear in 1980). Therefore, it should not be considered as a real increase, in light of the improbability of Palestinians choosing 'Israeli' as an answer and thereby influencing the average sum. Considering this fact, it seems that the actual percentage of Israeli-Arabs stating they are Israelis remained generally the same over the years until the first years of the 21st century. Indeed, the most prominent trend has developed in the most recent years and registered a significant increase in the number of those identifying themselves as 'Israeli'. Figure 3 presents the gradual increase from seven per cent in 2000 to nine per cent in 2005 and up to 19 per cent in 2010. This increase is particularly evident in light of the opposite trend of a drop in Israeli national identification among the Jewish-majority population as shown in figure 2. It is interesting to note that this increase comes at the expense of Israeli-Arabs' ethnic identification. Figure 3 shows that the Arabic identification of Israeli-Arabs emigrants decreased from 46 per cent in 2000 to only 27 per cent in 2010. The Palestinian identification though, increased over the years from 23 per cent in 1990 to 30 per cent in 2010. These results closely resemble Smoohas' findings among Israeli-Arabs in Israel (Smooha 2005; 1992; 2010), in which Israeli-Arabs demonstrate two parallel processes of 'Israelization' and 'Palestinization' where the former is more significant. Yet, the percentage of Israeli national identification answers among Israeli-Arab emigrants is still low in comparison to the two other groups.
Israeli National Identification among Ultra-Orthodox Emigrants Low rates of Israeli national identification are also indicated among the UltraOrthodox population, although not as low as the Israeli-Arab group. The UltraOrthodox population further resembles the Israeli-Arab group in longitudinal trends, in which both display an inverse trend in relation to the mainstream population. Among the Ultra-Orthodox population, the inverse directions are even more evident, due to the fact that the first three decades witness a diametrically opposed trend to that displayed by the Jewish-majority group. Whereas the rate of Israeli national identification among the Jewish-majority population shows an increase, that of the Ultra-Orthodox group registers a decrease. Thus in 1980, the percentage of Israeli
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national identification among the Ultra-Orthodox populace stood at 30 per cent; this figure drops to a mere 15 per cent in 2000. However, the picture changes during the first decade of the twenty-first century. While, the Israeli national identification of the Jewish-majority group reveals a downward trend over the recent years, that of the Ultra-Orthodox population exhibits a prominent upward trend. The percentage of respondents who chose Israeli national identification rises sharply starting from 15 per cent in the 2000 census to 35 per cent in the 2001-5 ACS, and down a bit to 30 per cent in 2006-10. Figure 4 shows the main substitute for that choice. While Ultra-Orthodox Jews naturally refer to 'religion' (Jewish/Judaism) as their answer to the ancestry question, in the last decade the percentage of these answers drop from 59 per cent in the 2000 census to 48 per cent in the 2006-10 ACS.
Multivariate Analysis The descriptive overview brought above evidently shows that minorities have different national identification patterns. The Israeli case exemplifies different rates as well as different longitudinal trends of identification among minorities versus the majority group. In order to test it statistically, two groups of logistic regressions were estimated, in which Israeli national identification formed the dependent variable. In addition, logistic fit of emigration trends by years of migration is presented thereafter.
The Effect of Minority/Majority Status on National Identification Rates in Comparison to Other Common Factors The first group of logistic regressions tested the effect of the minority/majority status on the Israeli identification. This status tested over the years (1980, 1990, 2000, pooled 2001-5 and 2006-10) while controlling for several other relevant variables: education, citizenship, age, tenure in the US, marital status, and gender (the income variable was tested as well but indicated on a very marginal impact). The results presented in Table 2 indicate a statistically significant negative effect of minority status on Israeli identification:
Table 2: Logistic regression coefficients of Israeli ancestry [about here]
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The coefficient rates of the minority/majority variable in 1980, 1990, and 2000 censuses, together with the ACS surveys are all statistically significant while controlling for other relevant predictors. In addition, they are all negative, meaning constant lower levels of identification among minorities versus the majority group. In addition, recall that Rebhun and Lev-Ari (2010) show that age and being female are positively correlated with Israeli identification. In contrast, tenure in the US, having a BA degree, being married, and having an American citizenship are negatively correlated with Israeli identification. These findings are only partly supported here when controlling for majority/Minority origins. For example, the US censuses and ACS surveys show that the percentage of married Ultra-Orthodox Jews is much higher (83 per cent) than the percentage among the Jewish majority (73 per cent) and Israeli-Arabs (74 per cent). Since Rebhun and Lev-Ari exclude Israeli-Arabs in their analysis, the difference between the Jewish Majority group and UltraOrthodox Jews might explain why being married is negatively correlated with Israeli identification in their study, while here it is only marginally correlated. If one includes Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the same sample, it might increase the correlation between lower Israeli identification and being married since Ultra-Orthodox Jews exhibit lower rates of Israeli identification.
The Effect of Minority/Majority Status on Longitudinal Trends of National Identification The second group of logistic regressions was designed to test the significant of the different reversions in the longitudinal trends occurred in the last decade. This test show that in the last few years a significant decrease in national identification has occurred among the Jewish-majority group while a significant increase has occurred among the two minority groups. Therefore, the analyses were confined to the 2000 census (the omitted category) and the pooled 2001-10 ACS. The analyses included the survey-year variable alongside the effects of education, citizenship, age, tenure in the US, marital status, and gender. These tests were conducted for the three groups: the Jewish-majority, Israeli-Arabs, and UltraOrthodox Jews.
Table 3: Logistic regression coefficients of Israeli ancestry by groups, year of survey factor (2001-10 vs. 2000) in comparison with other factors [about here] 15
The results clearly and consistently indicate that the difference between the census of 2000 and the surveys of the last decade are significant. More important, as predicted, the effect among the Jewish-majority group is negative (signifying a decrease in the level of identification in the last decade), while it is positive among the two minority groups (meaning an increase in the level of identification in the last decade). In other words, these tests show that the classification to minority and majority groups reveals different longitudinal trends in addition to different rates of identification as it was shown above (figure 2). Finally, it is important to support these findings with an additional facet, in which the ancestry variable set aside and the question of trends in leaving Israel is addressed. This question is particularly important on the background of the Zionist ideology that is prevalent in Israel and regards emigration to another country as 'descending' (Rebhun and Lev-Ari 2010; Cohen 1996b). Figure 5 presents trends of number of people arriving to the US by year of emigration and group affiliation. Each black marker represents an Israeli-born emigrant (the Jewish majority in circles and the two minorities in squares), while the lines separate between the three groups. All markers for a specific year add up to 100 percents of emigrants for this year of emigration.
Figure 5: Longitudinal trends of emigration among three Israeli diaspora communities in the US [about here]
The logistic fit is statistically significant for all three groups (p
