Migration, Identity, Politics Identity, Migration, Migration, Identity, Politics Trans-inter-national: Russia, Israel, Germany OSTEUROPA is an interdisciplinary monthly for the analysis of the politics, economics, society, culture, and contemporary history of Eastern Europe, East Central Europe, and Southeastern Europe. A forum for East-West dialogue, OSTEUROPA also addresses pan-European topics. The journal was founded in 1925 and banned in 1939. Since 1951, OSTEUROPA has been published by the German Association for East European Studies in Berlin: <www.dgo-online.org> ISSN 0030-6428 (print) 2509-3444 (online) OSTEUROPA is member of eurozine network: www.eurozine.com Articles appearing in OSTEUROPA are indexed and abstracted by: European Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Interna- tional Political Science Abstract, Journal Articles Database, Periodicals Index Online, Public Affairs Information Service, Social Science Citation Index, Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Osteuropa, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Editors: Dr. Manfred Sapper, Dr. Volker Weichsel, Margrit Breuer, Dr. Andrea Huterer, Olga Radetzkaja English Copy Editor: Toby Harrison OSTEUROPA Schaperstr. 30. D-10719 Berlin Tel. ++ 49 +30 / 30 10 45 81 [email protected] <zeitschrift-osteuropa.de> Review copies, single issues, and subscriptions to OSTEUROPA should be ordered from OST- EUROPA. Annual rate: € 98 institutions and individuals; € 55 students. Single issues: € 12.00, special issues, depending on length, € 15.00 – € 32.00. Manfred Sapper, Volker Weichsel (eds.) Migration, Identity, Politics Trans-inter-national: Russia, Israel, Germany 200 pp., 2 maps, 31 illustrations Berlin (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag) 2020 € 18.00 ISBN 978-3-8305-3763-2 Cover: Olaf Kühnemann: Simple House 2019, Oil on paper, 40 x 30 The book is kindly supported by the Federal Agency for Civic Education and was produced as part of the Sylke Tempel Fellowship program of the German-Israeli Future Forum Foundation. Migration, Identity, Politics Trans-inter-national: Russia, Israel, Germany Editorial Parallel stories 3 Jascha Nemtsov Reviving A Forgotten Culture Russian-Jewish Music’s Struggles in Germany 5 Liza Rozovsky Familiar with being foreign Russian-speaking Israelis in Berlin 17 Shimon Stein “Megaphone diplomacy is not enough” Israel, Russia and expectations of Germany 33 Jannis Panagiotidis Russian German Immigrants Social characteristics, networks and self-image 41 Larissa Remennick Generation 1.5 of Russian-Speaking Immigrants in Israel and in Germany: Recent Research and a German Pilot Study 61 Karen Körber Resistant Pragmatism Young, Russian-speaking Jews in Germany 89 Jewish population in the World 99 Vladimir Khanin The diaspora of Russian-speaking Jews Political attitudes and political influence 107 Micha Brumlik Loss of Homeland, Belonging, Responsibility Motifs of post-migrant Jewish literature 117 Lidia Averbukh Realpolitik and Selective Cooperation Margarete Klein Russian-Israeli Relations amid the War in Syria 131 Tamara Or The X Syndrome and Antisemitism On German-Israeli Relations 145 Lev Gudkov Familiar Foreigners Natalia Zorkaya Images of Germany and Israel in Russia 151 Steffen Hagemann Reserved Friends Germany and Israel 177 Maps Jewish Population in Europe in 2018 102/103 Jewish Population in Europe from 2005 to 2018 102/103 Abstracts from the German edition of this volume 195 Parallel stories The end of the Soviet Union was the beginning of a great exodus. Since the early 1990s, more than a million people have left the Soviet Union and its successor states – and have found a home in Israel. At the same time, around 2.3 million “Russian Ger- man late resettlers” and almost 250,000 people “with Jewish nationality” received permanent right to reside in Germany. Women and men, old and young, Jews, Chris- tians and agnostics all came. Some lived in cities of millions, others in villages, some brought academic qualifications with them, others had been tractor drivers on collec- tive farms. They all had to build new lives for themselves. Three decades have passed since then. In the 1990s, integrating these people was as big a challenge for the destination society as for the migrants themselves. Today it’s considered a success. However, new questions are being raised. Integration is no long- er seen as a one-way street, as absorption into a society, but as reciprocal influencing with open outcomes. How does the self-image of people change in their new home- land? What stories do they tell of the reasons for their migration and their orientation in a new place? Is it traditional habits or the new surroundings that determine the choice of the private milieu, professional paths and political attitudes? What role does language play – as a marker of exclusion, as a driver of classification, and as a means of communication at work? What distinguishes those, who still were children when they came to Germany or Israel, from their parents? What does immigration mean to the destination society? How do these people shape the cultural life and the political culture of their new homeland? What connections do they maintain with their old homeland? Answering these questions comparatively is the way forward. This facilitates the grasp- ing of commonalities and differences between the destination societies and between the immigrants. In Israel, the Jewish immigrants were seen as “coming home”, so too the “late resettlers” in Germany. Both groups experienced exclusion and stigmatisation. Israel granted the “home comers” citizenship immediately but offered scant social support. In Germany, only the “late resettlers” promptly became citizens; however, even the Jewish immigrants were included in the social systems. The effects of the different approaches are ambivalent. In Israel, many immigrants underwent a social decline; in Germany, the difficulties of professional reorientation were cushioned. Yet in Israel, enforced self-help and familial cohesion were the foundations of a later rise. Many Rus- sian German “late resettlers” have successfully climbed the ladder into the middle class in Germany. The influence of the former immigrants on politics in Germany is, contrary to what is often stated, small. It shouldn’t be overestimated even in Israel, where they form a rele- vant group of electors. The same applies to international politics. It’s a myth that Russian speakers in Israel or in Germany are supporters of a politics that is especially friendly to Russia and they influence the external relations of Jerusalem and Berlin. However, the reverse is the case, and international relations have a considerable influence on the fate of just such people, who belong to more than just one society. The basis for so many Jews wanting to leave the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s had been created by the anti-Zionism, inseparably merged with antisemitism, of that country. The “new thinking” in Soviet foreign policy under Mikhail Gorbachev led to OSTEUROPA 2020, Migration, Identity, Politics, pp. 3–4 4 Parallel stories the abolition of travel restrictions and unleashed the wave of migration. Since then the world has fundamentally changed. Irrespective of numerous differences, Russia and Israel foster pragmatic connections. Russia is, since its intervention in the war in Syria in 2015, a new regional power in the Middle East. Israel is simultaneously the most militar- ily powerful and the most strongly threatened state in the region. Where Moscow and Jerusalem see advantages for themselves from coordinated actions, they work together. What binds the two states, for totally different reasons, is a view of international rela- tions in which international law counts for little, but state power, above all military might, counts for a great deal. This separates both states from Germany. Jerusalem and Berlin are still tied by the crimes against humanity of the Holocaust, German acknowledgment of guilt and the specific responsibility for the present deriving from this. But the clamp of history is getting fragile, and differences are growing. The two societies are drifting apart; in a Germany that is surrounded by peaceful neighbours, it’s difficult for many to put them- selves in the place of a society that exists in thoroughly hostile surroundings. This volume is a selection of contributions from the OSTEUROPA volume “Migration, Identität, Politik. Trans-inter-national: Russland, Israel, Deutschland”. It was produced within the framework of the first year of the Sylke-Tempel-Fellowship-Programme of the Stiftung Deutsch-Israelisches Zukunftsforum (DIZF) with the participation of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde (DGO) and the Zentrum Liberale Moderne (LibMod). The Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung is warmly thanked for making possible the international dissemination of the texts by generously supporting an English-language version. Berlin, October 2020 Manfred Sapper, Volker Weichsel Translated by Toby Harrison Jascha Nemtsov1 Reviving A Forgotten Culture Russian-Jewish Music's Struggles in German Culture The pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov is working to stop Jewish culture from being forgotten. As a music archaeologist, he has uncovered the works of persecuted composers. He has traced the Jewish legacy in European music and familiarised listeners with the sound of the New Jew- ish School. As an individual and through his work, Nemtsov represents the