In Search of the Self: Reconciling the Past and the Present in Immigrants’ Experience S a T O R 12 ELM Scholarly Press

S A T O R 12

In Search of the Self: Reconciling the Past and the Present in Immigrants’ Experience S A T O R 12 ELM Scholarly Press

Larisa Fialkova Maria Yelenevskaya

In Search of the Self: Reconciling the Past and the Present in Immigrants’ Experience

Tartu 2013 Authors: Chapters 1, 2, 3: Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya Chapter 4: Larisa Fialkova Chapter 5: Maria Yelenevskaya Series editor: Mare Kõiva Cover design: Kadi Pajupuu Back cover photo by Janos Makowsky 2013 Layout: Diana Kahre

Editorial board: Reet Hiiemäe, Tiiu Jaago, Mare Kalda, Tarmo Kulmar, Nikolay Kuznetsov, Mare Kõiva, Aado Lintrop, Emily Lyle, Mirjam Mencej, Jonathan Roper, Marju Kõivupuu, Ülo Valk, Tatjana Vladõkina, Irina Vinokurova, Ergo-Hart Västrik

Indexed in Internationale Volkskundliche Bibliographie. Supported by and affiliated to projects SF0030181s08 and ESF grant no 8137.

ISSN 1406-2011 (print) ISSN 1736-0323 (web) ISBN 978-9949-490-80-6 (print) ISBN 978-9949-490-81-3 (web) doi:10.7592/Sator.2013.12

Editorial address: ELM Scholarly Press Sator Vanemuise 42 Tartu 51003 Estonia Telephone: +372 737 7740 Fax: +372 737 7706 E-mail: [email protected]

Part 1 Preface 9 Introduction 15

Chapter 1. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 23 Place, Identity and Identification 23 Material 24 Immigrant-Settling Policy in Israel 28 Urban Life through Immigrants’ Eyes: Points of Interest and Concern 33 New Towns, New Neighbors 34 A Big City or a Small Town? 44 City Threats: Between Missiles and Delinquents 63 Long Distances in a Small Country 70 City Internet Forums: A New Form of Group Solidarity and Place Involvement 73 Conclusions 78

Chapter 2. Legal Anthropology: Dilemmas of Law and Order in Immigrants’ Life 83 Ex-Soviets and Legal Consciousness 88 The Court Saga 95 How to Outsmart the System: Immigrants’ Trickster Stories 119 Old Attitudes in the New Surroundings 123 Single-Narrator Stories 125 Twin Stories 130 Conclusions 141 6

Chapter 3. Holidays as Border Crossing: The Case of Russian-Speaking Immigrants in Israel 147 Introduction 147 Holidays: Time to Bind or Separate Families 150 Holidays and Ritual Foods 161 Magic Days, Simoron and Survival Strategies 165 Holidays as Arena of Ideological Strife and Consumer Bonanza 172 Conclusions 179 Part 2

Chapter 4. Immigrant Literature about the Fourth Wave of Russian Emigration: The Case of Germany (Larisa Fialkova) 185 Material and Framework 185 Identity Issues in Immigrant Literature 190 Ethnic Identity 191 Religious Identity 197 Identity and the Great Patriotic War 200 Conclusions 208

Chapter 5. Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web: Representation of the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Humor of Russian-Speaking Israelis (Maria Yelenevskaya) 215 Introduction 215 Channels of Humor Dissemination 216 Demand for Political Humor 218 The Role of Precedent Texts in the Framing of the Conflict 221 Confronting Terror with Mockery 228 Addressing Transnational Audiences 236 Humor at the Service of People’s Diplomacy 240 Conclusions 242 Bibliography 247 Part 1

Preface

It has become a universally accepted convention in scientific publishing that acknowledgements are placed after the preface. We would like to violate this rule and begin by expressing our deep gratitude to our Estonian colleagues, and to Mare Kõiva in particular, for initiating this project. Our professional ties with the Estonian Literary Museum began at the ISFNR Congress in Nairobi in 2000. Relatively frequent encounters at various meetings complemented by publication exchange and joint editorial activities paved the way to this project. We were given an opportunity to publish a volume of our articles, written in collaboration and individually but united by one theme. This offer once again revealed that in our professional circle we came to be perceived as an “academic duet”. When we began working on this book we realized that its completion would mark the 15th anniversary of our joint work, so some reflections about collaborative research and writing are in place. We first met in 1998 at an International Conference of Sociolin- guistics held at the University of Haifa, where both of us contributed papers about the use of Russian in Israel. In fact, Larisa’s participation was unexpected even for her, since as a literary scholar and folklorist she was not used to attending linguistic meetings. She accepted an invitation of a colleague who apparently was not acquainted with other scholars, recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU), but wanted a discussion about the increasing role of the Russian language in Israel. As a result, Larisa did not expect an incidental conference would have any impact on her future professional life. We listened to 10 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya each other’s presentations with interest, exchanged some remarks in the intervals, and one of us gave a ride to the other, but no plans for future encounters, let alone joint projects, were mentioned. Several months later we ran into each other in town, and decided to get together for coffee. Only then did Larisa suggest a topic that required joint efforts of a folklorist and a linguist used to analyzing texts in English – a study of ghost stories on the Internet. Working out a procedure for joint research was not a simple matter. How should we handle preparatory work: literature search, web-site monitoring, text selection and coding, archiving of materials and finally, their analysis? We had to decide how to distribute these tasks and divide time. An additional complication to this project stemmed from our poor computer literacy. Many a time did files disappear, messages wouldn’t open and SOS signals were sent to our techno-savvy friends. We proceeded very slowly until the decision was made to reserve one day a week for sitting together discussing or writing. In later stages we would usually meet twice and sometimes even four times a week. Years later when our computer competence improved, and Skype became available we could maintain the usual schedule even in the periods when we were in different countries. In the beginning, we probed our way forward carefully, learning about each other’s work styles and testing the limits of mutual tolerance. At that stage we knew so little about each other that nothing was taken for granted, and every small decision was made together. Four months later a potential conflict started lurking: one of us was ready to submit the text to a journal; the other one was convinced that we were only half way through. The compromise was found, leaving both a bit disappointed, but the article was sent off. It is worth mentioning that although it was devoted to the internet, it was sent to the journal by snail mail – an anachronism difficult to imagine today. At that time, although each of us had a record of publications in the USSR and the FSU, neither had publications in peer-reviewed Western journals. One had a bitter experience of rejected papers, the other was so scared of the possibility of impolitely formulated rejections that did not even dare submit, and like a Soviet dissident self-censured her own writing and shelved it. To our surprise, our first joint venture was accepted almost immediately, although scheduled for publication in two years (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2001). Narrating this story now we see that its plot fits well into the article about lucky coincidences viewed as miracles in immigrants’ stories which we wrote in the framework of Preface 11 our second collaborative project on personal narratives of ex-Soviets in Israel (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2001a). Had “the first pancake been a blob”, our first joint project may well have proved to be the last one, but exhilarated by the first victory, we decided to continue and make a foray into immigrants’ personal narratives. Academic collaboration in humanities still remains a controversy discussed in scholarly publications (see, e.g., Harris 2000; Page & Smith 2010; Stone & Thompson 2006). Clearly, some of the problems and concerns of “academic relationships” are apparently common to all. First comes a question of hierarchies. Since we work at different universities, our partnership was never affected by institutional structure. Neither was it marked by status differences: both came to Israel as “Candidates of Sciences”, the degree that was transformed into the internationally accepted Ph.D. We are almost equals in terms of age and length of professional experience. Furthermore, we immigrated and entered Israeli academia at the same time, so our exposure to the new professional conventions was also similar. Last but not least, we entered the field of internet research and later immigration studies in which both were complete novices. In terms of taxonomy proposed by Dustin Griffin for literary partnerships we started as equals, although we were neither friends,1 nor bound by contract (Griffin 1987: 2–3). Personality traits are also an important factor for successful collaboration. As educators we are used to being leaders and over the years may have developed dominant personalities often ridiculed in school folklore. It required a lot of self-restraint not to assume the dominant role because we quickly realized that neither of us would agree to be “closeted” as Stone and Thompson vividly describe invisibility of a partner in unequal collaborations (2006: 6). For institutions, personal problems and family circumstances are to a large extent irrelevant. By contrast, joint research and collaborative writing are shaped by partners’ readiness to take them into account. Making schedules and keeping to them, choosing the home in which to write, making adjustments when family members need care, or disasters like house remodeling befalls one of the partners are all essential elements of joint work. We also feel that comparable speed of thinking and reacting, humor appreciation and tolerance of critical remarks are essential for a long-term partnership. Numerous hours we spent together travelling to conduct fieldwork, discussing and analyzing material, writing and preparing conference presentations, 12 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya as well as cooking meals to relax during long work sessions2 elevated “just work” to important social interaction and friendship. Since most of our joint writing is in the realm of immigration studies, we couldn’t refrain from expressing our ideological position, be it our attitudes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, ethnic policies, immigrants’ use of their cultural capital or relations between religion and the state. If our opinions in these matters were not compatible, collaboration would be impossible. While our colleagues often envy our creative companionship that helps avoid inevitable loneliness of single-author research, our institutions are ambivalent as to how to evaluate our long-term co-authorship. At the initial stage of our joint work on immigration we received a small grant promoting collaboration between our institutions. Yet in Maria’s case there were obstacles to getting this grant as administration did not appreciate her spending time on investigating topics that had no direct impact on her teaching Technical English courses. As the number of joint publications grew, administration and colleagues in Larisa’s university became perplexed and doubtful as to how to assess her joint publications when she was up for promotion. The most radical opponents of collaborative research in humanities suggested dividing the number of joint articles by two; others counted essays in which her name came first. These attitudes taught us to alternate the order of names. Moreover, while working on articles in legal anthropology we borrowed a formula used by jurists: irrespective of the name order we always add a footnote stating that the contribution of both authors to the reported study is equal. In several cases we were offered collaboration by some other colleagues. It may have been fruitful to join efforts with jurists and sociologists while investigating issues in legal anthropology or professional re-integration of immigrant scientists, but the prospect of losing a name and becoming “et al.”, let alone dividing the number of publications into three stopped us. Clearly, this consideration is on the mind of many researchers participating in joint projects. Scholars’ concern about evaluation of their contribution is manifested in word juggling to invent terms which would reveal the hierarchy of contributors. Thus, in an article devoted to gender differences in publication rate and impact we came across the terms “senior author”, “first author” and “last author” (Duch et al. 2012), and in the essay reporting the results of a similar study the term “first co-author” is introduced (Fellman 2012). Preface 13

We find it ironic that we have to “play according to the rules of the game” because if we were asked to identify which idea is whose in our writing, we would be unable to answer. Like other research collaborators, we experience what Hughes and Lund aptly called “blurred boundaries of authorship” (1994: 50). We also know that when each of us writes separately the themes of studies diverge and the style changes. This is one of the reasons why selecting material for this book we had to be very careful to choose individually written chapters that would not disrupt thematic integrity of the whole. We hope we managed to achieve cohesion, and the five chapters of the book form a coherent whole, but at the same time are self-sufficient and can be read separately. We wish to thank our interviewees for their willingness to share their stories and reflections about the influence of immigration on their life. We are grateful to Kadi Pajupuu for the design of the cover which reflects the spirit of the book, and we are grateful to Diana Kahre for her meticulous work on the layout. We would like to thank our families for their constant support and encouragement. We appreciate their interest in the topics we investi- gate and their tolerance as listeners of our endless stories.

A Note on Transliteration

Throughout the book we have used the U.S. Library of Congress transliteration system for Russian proper and geographic names.

Introduction

This book is a follow-up to our project devoted to personal narratives of ex-Soviets in Israel. Our original plan was to collect previously published articles dealing with immigration issues but differing from the main themes of our book Ex-Soviets in Israel: From Personal Narra- tives to a Group Portrait (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007). The themes of immigrants in the city, attitude to law, immigrants’ literature and humor were touched upon but not developed in depth in that volume. They were researched in a number of papers written later (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2006, 2006a, 2011, 2012, Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2006, 2008) and discussed in our presentations at 11 scholarly conferences. However, when we re-read the articles we realized that the situation in the Russian-speaking community was so dynamic that studies conducted three-five years ago should be seriously revised and updated. The result is that the three co-authored chapters were rewritten and expanded to such an extent that they can be regarded as new texts. The two chapters authored individually have never been published before. In Ex-Soviets in Israel we were concerned with reasons for immigration, first impressions of the new country and encounters with members of the host society. Although the subjects quoted in this book were interviewed for different projects, all of them had substantial experience of life in Israel, and their perspective was markedly different from what we encountered in the interviews recorded in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Life before immigration moved to the background and comparisons with the country of origin were less pronounced, although the influence of the pre-immigration experience was still noticeable. 16 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

In this book we do not limit our material to oral stories about immigration to Israel, but include investigation of Internet discussion forums, analyses of writing about immigration by Russian-speaking authors in Germany, and Russian émigré humor devoted to the Arab- Israeli conflict in traditional and electronic media. The core theme unit- ing such different topics as attitudes to law, perception of urban life, relations with host societies, and others is identity and its evolution in the new environment. In the last decade, complexities and dialectics of FSU immigrants’ identity have drawn attention of researchers in the countries where ex- and post-Soviets formed enclaves. Despite inevitable acculturation processes, more than 20 years after the beginning of the fourth wave of Russian emigration symbolic boundaries between FSU immigrants and host societies have not disappeared. Russian speech is still audible in public space, and various services ranging from clinics run by Russian-speaking doctors through afternoon schools to tourist agencies are offered to immigrants by their co-ethnics. While the circulation of conventional immigrant press is on decline, numerous Internet portals and specialized sites have sprung up and are visited by Russian-speaking users residing in different corners of the world. The repertoire of leisure activities offered to immigrants in their mother tongue in Israel, Germany, the U.S.A. and other countries can satisfy any age and taste and includes shows and concerts, literary contests, bard festivals, national and international shows of student cabaret KVN, and so on. All of these phenomena of immigrants’ life have been observed and documented in numerous studies devoted to émigrés of the fourth wave. Most of these investigations dwell on the hybridization of identity. Thus, Ilatova3 and Shamai postulate that ethno-cultural self-identification of immigrants to Israel should be regarded in the framework of a bi-dimensional rather than a mono-dimensional model. The mono-dimensional model presupposes that as immigrants acquire and accept the culture of the host society, their original culture retreats. By contrast, the bi-dimensional approach demonstrates that the combination of the two cultures in immigrants’ identity can vary without creating cognitive dissonance (2007: 123–125). The bi-dimensional model of acculturation, and as a result hybridization of identity, was confirmed in the study of immigrant youth in Israel by Niznik who shows that cultural integration of young people is not linear. They are bi-cultural or globalized rather than assimilated into the dominant Hebrew culture. Her findings are “in line with the segmented assimi- Introduction 17 lation theory and also exemplify a ‘limited’ or ‘selective’ acculturation scenario” (Niznik 2011: 104). Identity issues often arise in the discussions of Russian-language immigrants’ media which sprang up in various countries. Elias believes that the Russian-language media in Israel had a central role in their integration and in acquiring knowledge about the culture and history of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. She also claims that the flourishing of the Russian media did not stimulate immigrants to read the Hebrew-language press; rather it became a mediator between the immigrants and the host culture. She contrasts pressure for assimilation put on “Russian” Germans in Germany with Israeli tolerance and openness to the newcomers’ cultural habits (Elias 2008: 143–145). One other reason for continued use of the Russian media can be explained by linguistic attitudes observed by the Russian linguist Zemskaia in various enclaves: Russian-speaking émigrés display reluctance to acquire those local languages that do not enjoy the international status (2001: 42). In this respect, proficiency in German may be regarded as a more important asset than fluency in Hebrew. We agree with Elias’ conclusions about the socializing function of the Russian-language media but like some other researchers, we cannot support the claim of Israeli openness to the immigrants’ culture. Although Israeli mass media are multilingual: radio broadcasts in seven languages and TV in four (Epstein 2006: 226), the host society’s attitude to the maintenance of immigrants’ languages and culture (with the notable exception of English) still remains negative. Kenigshtein, for example, suggests that proliferation of the Russian-language media in Israel can be partially attributed to the obstacles put by the Hebrew-language press for Russian-speaking journalists.4 In the absence of “Russian” voices the prevailing image of immigrants in the Hebrew media is negative. Content analysis he conducted revealed that as immigrants started to compete with the veterans in the political and socio-economic spheres they came to be presented as “aliens” in our home” (2006: 107–110). In the last couple of years debates about FSU immigrants’ loyalty and their identification with traditional Israeli values has intensified with members of the “old” elites, journalists and academics expressing suspicions about the wish of Russian-speaking Israelis to integrate. Moreover, there is an unprecedented discussion about the alleged massive emigration of the “Russians” from Israel, shaping the perception of the lay public (Khanin and Epstein 2010: 101–103). Notably, revulsion 18 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya against Jews leaving Israel is reminiscent of the treatment of émigrés in the Soviet Union as traitors. In this context the Russian-language media were instrumental in community building, not only by shaping the positive image of co- ethnics who succeeded professionally, created numerous NGOs and made contributions to Israeli science and culture, but also by publishing materials about the contribution of Russian Jews in laying the foundation of Israel, fighting in Israel’s wars and against the Nazis (Zilberg 2008; Yelenevskaya 2009a). Boosting the positive collective self-image helps shape positive identity of the in-group and dispel negative hetero- stereotypes pervading in the Hebrew-language mass media. Most of the studies devoted to socio-cultural practices of FSU immigrants are also related to identity as an ongoing process of negotiating Russianness with the values, habits and patterns of behavior of the host societies. Even presentation and perception of the immigrant’s body is part of this process. Thus Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder in- vestigate how self-presentation of the body among Russian-Israeli students may reflect either a desire to be indistinguishable from their Hebrew-speaking peers and thus “invisible”, or an intention to fit one’s own image irrespective of its ethnic belonging (2010). Reflecting on the identity of Russian speakers in Germany, Darieva observes that the presentation of the “immigrant body” in Germany is defiant in the demonstration of wealth and sexuality – the image compatible with the ill-famed “New Russians”. It is this image which has become part of the negative stereotype in the host society (2007: 38–39). In the last decade there has been a noticeable shift from quanti- tative to qualitative methods in the study of immigrants and their changing identity, because sociologists noticed that “hard” methods may yield misleading results. Ilatova and Shamai, for example, noted a statistically valid discrepancy in the ethnic self-identification of immigrants when they were choosing an in-group on a scale and in free verbal communication in semi-structured interviews (2007: 131–32). Sociologists Remennick and Al-Haj, who have made important contributions to the study of Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel using surveys, now also show greater leaning to qualitative methods and elaborate on the usefulness of soft data. While Remennick sees ethnography rather than statistics to be fitting for the understanding of the “thin fabric” of Russian Jewish culture and the social boundaries between Jews and other former Soviet citizens” (2007: 6), Al-Haj emphasizes the benefits of focus group discussions for dealing with Introduction 19

“puzzling data” of the surveys (2004: 10). Equally reflective about advantages and disadvantages of qualitative methods in sociolinguistic research is Shulamit Kopeliovich, who observes that the ethnographic method and in-depth interviews give researchers insights into the social norms of the community under study and help explain individuals’ linguistic behavior (2009: 37–44). Yet prejudice against qualitative methods and unstructured con- versational interviews still lingers on in social sciences. We observe that when authors indicate the type of data collection and methods used to analyze the material they don’t defend their use of quantita- tive techniques, but when “soft” methods are applied, they sometimes find it necessary to justify their choice, as if apologizing for what is still considered semi-reliable. Studying literature, we also came across cases when the method of data collection was identified as structured interviews, although the quoted lengthy excerpts from unedited interviews suggested that they were in fact semi-structured (see Kenigshtein 2008: 209). We can hardly suspect that this experienced ethnographer does not know the difference between structured and semi-structured interviews; rather it is the desire to present his research as objective and more trustworthy that caused this mismatch. The interviewer gave his subjects maximum freedom to express themselves, not typical of structured interviews, feeling that the delicate issue of changing ethnic and cultural identity would yield more subtle and reflective observations in this format. In immigration studies a special issue is the language of data collection. Most researchers give their subjects a choice whether to be interviewed in their native language or the language of the host society. Only one research team we know, Edna Lomsky-Feder and Tamar Rapoport and their research assistants excluded the subjects’ mother tongue. Although the two principal investigators do not speak Russian, their assistants, first generation immigrants who did their university studies already in Israel, speak Russian well enough to conduct interviews, transcribe and translate them into Hebrew. The “language policy” of Lomsky-Feder and Rapoport’s projects was not only thoroughly thought out but also theorized in one of their articles. The cornerstone of their arguments is that as “home-comers” immigrants should shed the language and culture of the Diaspora and fully assimilate. In their view interviews in Russian would marginal- ize their subjects creating a gap between them and veteran Israelis. Thus they presuppose that for an immigrant to speak the language of 20 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya the “old country” and to identify with its culture and values perpetu- ates an inferior status. These researchers looked for confirmation of their position in the attitude of the interviewees. While some were disappointed, because their Hebrew was insufficient for rendering the richness of their cultural associations, others found the experience of telling a familiar story in a foreign language challenging and even empowering (Lomsky-Feder & Rapoport 2001; 2003). In their later article these researchers remained loyal to the same principle (Rapoport & Lomsky-Feder 2010). We believe that offering subjects a choice of language is a better strategy. The interviewees’ decision may depend on diverse factors, such as the age at immigration, the length of time spent in the host country, and aptitude for languages – all the factors that affect the command of the newly acquired language. But no less important are cultural values and attachment of the subjects to the culture of the “old country”. We discovered that some authors refrain from quoting their immigrant informants altogether. For example, in the articles by sociologists Sabina Lissitsa and Yohanan Perez (Lissitsa 2007, and Lissitsa & Perez 2008) the authors state that they conducted “personal interviews on the problems of integration” with immigrants and veteran Israelis, as well as interviews with experts. Each interview was about 90 minutes long, yet there is not a single quotation from what the subjects said to the researchers. All the collected data are presented in charts which compare attitudes of the immigrants and old-timers to such sensitive issues as pride in one’s country, desire to live in it and perception of Israel as home. The reader can conclude that free expression of ideas and emotions, and sharing experiences is transformed into numerical data, more fitting statistical analysis than interview-based research. By no means do we want to downgrade the importance of researchers’ interpretation of the data collected, yet people who agree to share their experiences, attitudes and emotions have the right to be heard. Without giving them the floor, the authors risk to turn subjects into objects and perpetuate hierarchical relations between the researchers and the researched. What happens when the text of interviews makes it to the reported research? Here there are different approaches. The authors of the book about the town of Katzrin, Israel, for example, did not indicate how the interviews had been conducted: whether the settings were formal or informal, whether the interviews were recorded or only notes were made, etc. Moreover, while the names of the experts are given in the Introduction 21 bibliography, the lay people who participated in the project are not listed at all. They remain anonymous, with just the first name indicated, and we do not know whether anonymity was the decision of the researchers or whether it was the wish of the subjects. This strategy could be prompted by the desire to protect informants, but it creates a hierarchy within the group that is investigated. Another distinction intensifying hierarchical relations is the use of direct quotations and reported speech: the experts are quoted and their words are graphically marked, while the lay people’s stories are primarily reproduced. Direct quotations from these interviews are scarce and are not marked graphically (Horowitz, Shamai & Ilatov 2003: 54–68; 122–126). Some authors, e.g., Al-Haj and Remennick, introduce their informants to the readers, but supply direct quotations with minimal information, for instance: “a participant in the student focus group said...”, “one student from the Russian Federation had to say...” (Al Haj 2004: 174, 165), “one of my Bostonian informants, hard-working single mother (ethnic Russian...)”, “Nina, forty seven, a music teacher...” (Remennick 2007: 198, 261). Different research topics dictate how much information about the subjects should be disclosed. For example, when we worked on the material on legal anthropology (see chapter 2) we decided to give less information than usually, for fear that recognition could harm our interviewees. While most of our informants relax when they are told about anonymity, some still feel threatened. More than once our potential interviewees changed their mind and refused to tell their stories or asked to withdraw their narratives already recorded and transcribed. Naturally, respecting the subjects we never insisted or violated their wishes. There are also informants who wish their names to be mentioned. The reason may be a confusion of an analytical research publication with a report in the media. Mistakenly, some interviewees expect either publicity or assistance in solving their personal problems. Although we saw that anonymity disappointed these individuals, we preferred not to expose them since all the issues related to identity are sensitive. As in all our other studies, collecting material for this book we applied qualitative methods. In the interview-based chapters we include excerpts of various length, as well as quotations from internet discussion forums. In the last two chapters devoted to literature and humor the reader will hear voices of the immigrants, be it fictional characters, protagonists of jokes or writers reflecting on immigration experience and identity in published interviews. As the focus in these 22 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya two chapters is not on poetics or linguistic mechanisms of humor but on anthropology of immigration, the quoted excerpts and humorous texts present an extension of immigrants’ discourse. Although the book is addressed primarily to researchers specializing in immigration studies, it may appeal also to urban and legal anthropologists, folklorists and members of the wide public interested in how individuals cope with the changing of the self in the environment of their new country.

Notes

1 Stone and Thompson observe that studies grouped under the label “literary collaboration” focused on couple male, canonical heterosexual writers while detailed studies of textual relations and joint writing practices of other types of couples such as cross-gender partners, siblings, parent-child collaborations were much less common (2006: 7). Both of us had prior experience of such partnerships. Larisa compiled a book of medical proverbs together with her father (see her reflections about it in Fialkova 2010: 11–12). Maria, on her part wrote a number of course books for students of Technical English with her senior male and female colleagues.

2 Friends often make fun of our workaholic tendencies, while in our families it has become a standard joke that “she said she was going to work on her new article with her research partner but made a big bowl of salad before leaving the house.”

3 Note that the same author appears as “Ilatov” in English and Hebrew publications and as ”Ilatova” in Russian. In English and Hebrew there are no gender differences between male and female family names. Many immigrants did not protest against Hebraization of their first and family names (e.g. Misha becomes a Moshe, Svetlana turns into a Liora, and so on). Others, including the authors of this book, put up a fight with the Ministry of the Interior to preserve their names unchanged, viewing the name as a substantial element of their identity (see Yelenevskaya and Fialkova 2005: 168-176). There are also others who continue using both versions, the original and the new one, depending on the situation.

4 See similar observation in Epstein 2006: 249. Chapter 1. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis

Place, Identity and Identification

The ultimate dream of an immigrant is to find a better life and feel at home in a new country. Home often serves as a metaphor for a familiar territory and activity, an embodiment of a place where one feels safe and comfortable. Yet almost inevitably immigration is associated with the feeling of loss, be it separation from family and friends, inability to conduct a habitual way of life, or speak one’s native language. In addition, migration presupposes that a person abandons familiar places, including one’s favorite places. Although for contemporary people space is primarily functional and secular, and a relative desacralising and desymbolising of the environment seems undeniable, in particular in everyday life, for many psychological links with familiar places remain strong. Moreover, these links may become apparent only under conditions of stress (Relph 1976: 65). No wonder then that overcoming the longing for the old place and adapting to a new one is an essential part of integration processes for immigrants. The purpose of this chapter is to trace the evolution of place identity among Russian-speaking Israelis, immigrants of the last wave. Place identity is understood as an interpretation of self that uses environmental meaning to symbolize or situate identity. Place identity answers the question, “Where do I belong?” (Cuba & Hummon 1993: 548). Following Korpela we see place identity not as a chaotic mix of images and feelings about physical settings, but as cognition with its own internal logic and coherence as a result of active self-regulation. 24 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

The main basis of place identity is some sort of emotional attachment to place (Korpela 1989: 245). Since place has both physical and social aspects and is viewed as a social category, place identity is not an isolated or separate part of identity concerned with place, rather all aspects of identity, to a greater or lesser extent have place-related implications (Twigger-Ross & Uzell 1996: 206; Dixon & Durrheim 2000: 27). A person’s identity is not a frozen construct but keeps evolving under the influence of the environment and events in which one participates. Similarly, places have to be regarded in relation to the world. They are continuously produced and reproduced in interaction with their surroundings, and as a result may acquire new meanings for individuals and groups (Massey 1994: 155; Gustafson 2001: 6). What is of a particular interest when we consider immigrants’ place identity is whether newcomers experience places in their new country as insid- ers or outsiders, and how the shift from an outsider’s to an insider’s perspective is manifested in the discourse. In other words, we adopt the approach of studying the city “from within” as it is experienced by its inhabitants (Schneider 1986). Place identity and attachment can be investigated using different spatial ranges, from a house to a country (Hidalgo & Hernández 2001). Before emigration, Soviet Jews were predominantly city dwellers, and in choosing their new domicile they also gave preference to urban areas. In our previous projects related to immigration it became clear that the city of origin was an important part of our subjects’ self-description. Moreover, in talking about the perception of space in the new country, it was the native town, the city where subjects studied or liked to visit that were often used as the basis for comparing the quality of life and life styles in the old and the new countries (Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2002; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 174–180). Our more recent ethnographic observations suggest that for those who immigrated over 20 years ago, as well as for the greenhorns, the city remains the main reference point for place identification.

Material

The material for this chapter is drawn from three different sources. The first body of data is interview-based. In our study of immigrants’ personal narratives we conducted 123 in-depth unstructured interviews with 143 respondents who immigrated to Israel between 1989 Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 25 and 1999. Among the many themes that emerged were perception of space, meanings of places and cities. We did not ask our interviewees specific questions about their towns of origin or the towns where they settled in Israel, yet many of them addressed this theme. In 2006 we added 10 focus interviews with young people who had immigrated as small children or adolescents, and whose time in Israel ranged from 6–18 years. We were interested to know whether these young people felt at home in the towns where they live now and whether memories of their towns of origin influenced their perception of Israel’s urban life. We also wanted to check what symbolic values are attributed to cities by young Russian-speaking Israelis and whether they have inherited the perception of urban life from the generation of their parents who had spent part of their adult life in the USSR. While analyzing focus interviews we compared the interviewees’ opinions and observations of urban life with those that had been expressed in personal narratives about immigration in our earlier project (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 157–180; Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2006). The second source of material that we have used is articles about city life in the Russian-language press and electronic media. Although compared to the peak in the late 1990s, the number of the Russian- language newspapers has dwindled, those that have survived without turning into mere digests of the Russian and Ukrainian press still give extensive coverage of city life. Thus, the daily Vesti (News) and the weekly Novosti Nedeli (News of the Week) publish supplements providing chronicles of events in various Israeli towns, especially those where the concentration of Russian speakers is high, e.g., Haifa, Upper Nazareth, Ashdod, Netanya, and so on. The newspapers inform the readers about local building programs, educational and social projects, as well as cultural events, such as festivals, concerts and exhibits. They interview municipal officials and discuss city problems, in particular those that concern Russian-speaking residents and various NGOs launched by immigrants and catering to their needs and interests, e.g., Veterans’ organizations, Associations of Scientists, communities of fellow-countrymen1, and so on. Besides information about current events in Israeli towns, newspapers publish essays about towns in the FSU. The titles of the columns publishing such materials are either reminiscent of the Soviet press: Stone Jungles, The Country of Facades, or mobilize cultural memory alluding to Russian culture and folklore: Pharmacy, Street, Lantern…, (an allusion to Alexander Blok’s poem The Night, the Street, the Lantern, and the Pharmacy), 26 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Whose Are You, Aliya? (an allusion to Iosif Heifets’ screen adaptation of Boris Vasiliev’s novelette Whose Are You, Old Guys?), and so on. These texts present a collage of nostalgic memories of the past, ironic chronicles of the Soviet era and travelogues, in which authors report on their trips to post-Soviet towns emphasizing the mix of novel trends and idiosyncrasies of the past: “Wow, Ukhta, Wow, Kargopol” (Davi- dovich 2012), “It Happened, It happened in Odessa” (Kerdman 2001), “The Intoxicated Empire, Or a Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (Biased Notes)” (Kotliarskii 2003) Not all of these articles are written by professional journalists. Thus in 2003, on the eve of tercentenary of St. Petersburg, the newspaper Vesti and the association Israel-Russia held a contest “This beloved city”. The jury considered over 100 texts in prose and verse, and some of them were later published in the newspaper (Vasilieva 2003). In recent years, the Russian-language press has increased the number of articles devoted to historical monuments and memorial places in Israeli towns. Journalists invite the reader to explore Israeli towns, discover nooks and corners that are not included in the standard repertoire of guided tours or trace Russian presence in Palestine and the role of Russian Jews in its modernization and urbanization. The following titles may serve as an illustration of this trend: The Paral- lel World of Jerusalem (Palant 2012); At the Whaling Wall. Russian Travelers and Pilgrims (Brio 2012), I am from the street of I: From the Cycle “Strolling in Tel Aviv” (Rybalka 2011). In addition, newspapers publish translations of the articles that appear in the Hebrew-language press about the “Russian” contribution to city life in Israel (such as Russian-speaking buskers in Tel Aviv (Birnberg 2012), about twin city ties between FSU and Israel: Our Man in Ramle (Badalov 2011) and impressions of Russian visitors of urban life in Israel: The Jerusalem Bus through the Eyes of a Muscovite (Slovin 2011), etc. City life is also covered in the Russian-language electronic media. Two of the news portals have whole sections devoted to towns. One of them, the portal Izrus – News of Russian Israel (http://izrus.co.il/) puts the heading “Towns” in its main menu. This section of the portal is divided into News of the Center providing links to 19 towns, News of the North, 16 towns, News of the South, 13 towns and News of Jerusalem which is subdivided into Jerusalem, the town of Modiin and settlements in Judea. Search for specific articles can also be carried out on the basis of thematic categories: crime, events, culture and municipal information, and at the end of each text there are links to Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 27 other articles published on the portal that deal with similar themes. The second portal providing city news is israelinfo.ru – Israel in full view (http://israelinfo.ru/). Besides news, each city section of this portal posts interviews with city officials and public figures, photo reports of local events, ads and catalogs of businesses. Each one is also linked to the city forum and to the booking office “Bravo”, which posts repertoire of the shows, concerts and other cultural events in Russian all over Israel. When we monitored israelinfo.ru in 2005–2006 it gave users access to more than 20 city publications. Today their number has dropped to 17, although one can still access archives of five other local electronic papers that stopped posting new information in 2009–2011. The most active electronic paper is News of Haifa, with several news items appearing every day. These are followed by talk-backs and are also discussed in the city forum and in the facebook group (http://www. facebook.com/groups/228377432160/, last accessed on 18 Sept 20122). Our third source of material was discussions in 25 city forums of israelinfo.ru and posts in life journals. Discussion threads in internet forums are similar to unstructured interviews in which subjects may deviate from the line of conversation planned by the researcher and thus bring up unexpected twists and show a hierarchy of values by the very choice of topics. Monitoring the forums enabled us to have access to a larger number of voices and thus validate conclusions made on the basis of our interview analyses. The most active city forums are in Haifa (3,772 discussion threads and 79,039 posts), in Ashdod (1,033 threads, 16,391 posts), and in Beer Sheva (1,019 threads, 36,225 posts (last accessed on 15 Sept 2012). Importantly, the number of viewings always far exceeds the number of posts. When analyzing messages in the discussion forums, we have to take into account that the average age of the contributors is gradually going up, because most young people belonging to one-and-a-half and second generation immigrant groups find it difficult and/or uninter- esting to communicate online in Russian. They may still prefer their co-ethnics as friends, but they tend to speak Hebrew to each other. While in 2007 Evgenii Finkel, the editor of israelinfo.ru told us in a private conversation that the average user of the Russian news portals was male with an academic degree and aged 35–45, the poll conducted by the portal Zahav.ru in July 2012 revealed a different demographic profile of its users: the majority are over 45, and women make more than half of the users. The only position that remains unchanged is the prevalence of people with higher education.3 Material about city 28 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya life in blogs was found through links in talk-backs and city forums, and with the help of key words my/our+name of the town, e.g., my Ashkelon, our Haifa. Our purpose in using different sources was to check whether the topics raised in the interviews reflect issues important for the community as a whole. Although our study is not really longitudinal as we did not conduct repeated interviews with the same subjects, the archives of electronic papers, forums and blogs enable us to view the evolution of the Russian-speaking immigrants’ place identity and changes in their attitudes to urban life.

Immigrant-Settling Policy in Israel

Studies of urban life often show controversial effects of immigration waves on city life. On the one hand, an influx of newcomers stimulates economic activities and requires creation of new jobs. Immigrants enrich the life of host societies, contributing to the development of new branches of industry and introducing elements of their traditional culture, such as crafts, cuisine, applied arts and music. In the era of “knowledge” economy national and city governments seek to attract highly educated and skilled migrants and their resources of creative capital (Wood et al. 2005: 15). At the same time immigration waves cause tougher competition in the labor market, destabilization of existing employment niches, and as a result often trigger xenophobia and an increase in crime (Ley 1999; Waldinger 1996). According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel has one of the highest urbanization rates in the world, although among 1,183 localities only 202 are classified as urban (with population of 2,000 or more) and 981 are rural (Yaffe 1999). Despite this ratio, in 2009, urban localities were home to 91.7 % of Israel inhabitants (http://www.cbs. gov.il/publications/isr_in_n10e.pdf: 6, last accessed on 22 Jul 2012). As mentioned earlier, prior to resettlement the majority of immigrants from the FSU were residents of large and middle-size industrial cities, and in Israel they also showed preference for urban localities.4 Since the early years of the existence of the State of Israel, governments have made attempts to encourage immigrants to settle in peripheral areas, creating the so called “development towns”. Yet, these programs saw little success, as the main infrastructure needed for integration could be found primarily in the center of the country. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 29

This factor was particularly relevant for immigrants from the FSU, who had a high percentage of university graduates. Prior to immigration, about 60 per cent of the FSU immigrant labor force worked in academic professions (Leshem & Lissak 1999: 144). As a result, those who succumbed to the lure of privileges promised to the residents of development towns found it difficult to benefit from their cultural capital (Lewin-Epstein et al. 1997; Tzfadia 2000). Already in the first years after the State of Israel had been proclaimed, its government was confronted with the problem of how to provide housing for new arrivals. A book devoted to Jewish immigration and settlement shows that throughout its short history, building housing for immigrants has been one of the primary challenges of the young Israeli economy (No Author 1973: 125–131). Although a special agency, a branch of the Ministry of Labor was established to build houses for new immigrants, and land in various parts of the country was put at its disposal, it was difficult to meet a burgeoning demand – in the first two decades the population tripled. It was necessary to build quickly, overcoming shortage of financial resources, building materials, equipment and skilled work force. Some of the immigrants were given accommodation in the houses abandoned by Arabs who had left voluntarily or had been ousted (Yazbak & Weiss 2011). Yet, on many occasions there was no choice but to resort to temporary solutions putting up barracks and shacks and using whatever was at hand – wooden planks, asbestos boards, corrugated iron, or even canvas stretched over wooden frames.5 Quite often immigrants who had no previous experience in building were employed to construct their new houses. The quality of permanent housing erected in the first years was pitiful: they were built of the cheapest materials and with methods suitable for the relatively unskilled workers. Apartments were often handed over to the eagerly waiting tenants barely finished, sometimes without internal doors. The quality of building improved only in the second half of the 1950s and 1960s. By that time, however, many old Arab and some of the hastily built new houses had deteriorated, turning whole neighborhoods into slums. In the 1960s most of the state building projects were conducted for immigrants, about half of them in the development towns in peripheral regions. After the Six-Day War incomes grew and the general standards of living improved. Demand for housing was still higher than supply despite the application of more advanced building technologies and methods (No Author 1973: 125–131). In the 1970s and 1980s the state housing policy underwent 30 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya several changes, and since the late 1960s assistance to immigrants has been provided in the form of mortgages, financial help in paying rent in the general housing market and the rental of public apartments. In the early 1990s, in order to meet the huge demand for housing caused by mass immigration from the FSU and Ethiopia, the Ministry of Housing built about 103,000 apartments, however, due to the insufficient demand for apartments built in peripheral areas (the Galilee in the north and the Negev in the south) more than 40,000 remained unoccupied for a period of two years (Dadon 2000: 8–9). As Feldman aptly remarks, the state settlement policy met the opposition of immigrants from the FSU because in their system of priorities employment prevailed over privileges in obtaining housing (Feldman 2003: 50–51). As the study conducted in the 1990–1992 showed, 71% of the FSU immigrants rented their apartments from private owners. Like immigrants in other countries, the majority tried to settle in the core of the country, in metropolitan area of Tel Aviv where job opportunities are considerably better than on the periphery, in particular, for professionals. But shortly afterwards, gradual dispersal from the core to periphery began (Hasson 1996: 170–171). Government subsidies for rented housing were provided for three years, and the burden of living in the expensive center proved too heavy for immigrants’ incomes. Despite the high level of education, ex-Soviets who came to Israel in the 1990s were poorly informed about the labor market or the housing market, so choosing their first domicile in Israel many tried to settle close to friends and relatives – the tendency typical of immigrants everywhere in the world. Demographic surveys conducted in the 1990s are confirmed by the corpus of personal narratives we have collected. In the first stage, for many of our informants potential support of friends and family seemed to be more important than economic considerations. Some immigrants stayed with friends while looking for apartments for rent, others moved into the apartments found for them by friends and relatives who had arrived earlier. One of our interviewees tells a story of her family’s nomadic experience which was not uncommon in the early 1990s:

Marina, 31, emigrated from Moscow in 1988, a single parent, at the time of the interview was an M.A. student and lived in Kiryat Yam [a town in metropolitan Haifa]6 Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 31

Yes, and then we arrived. In fact we still travelled via Vienna. Well, so we arrived and were brought directly to Haifa. There used to be a hotel in Hertzel street, I think it was called Hertzlia… or something of the sort. It’s on the corner, now there is a beit-avot [Hebrew for an “old people’s home”]. We stayed there for a week or two, and then we moved… Our relatives put us up in their house in Migdal ha-Emek [an industrial town in the north of Israel]. My grandfather’s sister has lived there since the 1970s. Then we moved again to some other relatives in Ariel [a town in the vicinity of Jerusalem, beyond the Green Line7], and then again and stayed with some other relatives in Kiryat Yam. And there we lived for a whole year. And then we filed an application for this, what is it called? Amigur, yeah, I think it’s Amigur. And we received a three-room Amigur apartment, not far from the place where we lived then. And this is where we settled and since then we have lived there. Several years later we bought it, with grandpa’s help. Thank God we did, and so there are no mashkantas [Russified Hebrew for a “mortgage”] to pay. My grandpa worked here as a dentist, and he moonlighted. And this is how we live8. Since the private housing market reacted to a mounting demand by a sharp increase in prices, many families chose to pool resources and rent apartments together with close and distant relatives, sometimes with friends and even with mere acquaintances, thus reproducing the ill-famed phenomenon of communal apartments. About 38.3 per cent of the immigrants surveyed in 1992 rented apartments together with others (Hasson 1996: 170). Such arrangements enabled new arrivals to settle in more or less prestigious areas for the period when rental was subsidized by the state. When it came to buying apartments for permanent residence, the picture changed. Immigrants could afford to buy in less expensive areas, e.g., in Yaffo or southern zones of Tel Aviv (Menahem 1996: 156), or move to more peripheral localities in the north and south of the country. The same tendency could be observed in Haifa, where immigrants moved from the prestigious areas on Mount Carmel to the neighboring Krayot (see the excerpt above), or the towns of Nesher & Yokneam which also belong to metropolitan Haifa (Fialkova &Yelenevskaya 2011: 145). Socio-economically weak immigrants who could not afford to buy apartments or rent in the private sector applied for public housing maintained and managed by eight companies, including Amigur mentioned in the excerpt quoted above. Lacking information about government housing policy, FSU immigrants tended to overlook that the majority of subsidized public houses were in low-prestige neighbor- 32 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya hoods and in peripheral towns. Moreover, many public houses were old and in bad need of repairs. Those who moved to development towns found that jobs, in particular those requiring high-occupation skills, were scarce. This made people who were determined to integrate in the labor market using their professional qualifications look for jobs far away from their new homes and spend considerable sums of money for commuting; others reconciled with low-paid unqualified jobs or long-term unemployment. As a result of internal migration from the core to the periphery, 13 enclaves emerged in which FSU immigrants make from 25 to 40 per cent of inhabitants (Feldman 2003: 50–51). More than 20 years after the beginning of the big wave of immigration from the FSU affordable housing remains one of the sore points for the community. The Russian-language media regularly inform the readers about changes in the real estate market and in the rules of obtaining public housing. They monitor activities of parliamentary committees concerned with building social housing and interview Russian-speaking politicians involved in their work. The web site of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption provides detailed explanations in Russian about different types of public housing and lists categories of citizens eligible for it. This site enables new immigrants to download all the necessary application forms and monitor applicants’ progress on the waiting list (http://www.moia.gov.il/Moia_ru/Diur/WaitingList. htm, last accessed on 20 Jul 2012). Some of the explanations target those who have not yet immigrated to Israel but are only considering this step. Relevant information with the definition of terms used in bureaucratic procedures can be also found on web sites of Russian- speaking lawyers (see, e.g. http://www.femida.co.il, last accessed on 23 Jul 2012), in Internet communities (Jewish Internet Club, http://base. ijc.ru/repkv.html, last accessed on 25 Jul 2012) and in live journals (http://israel.at.ua/index/zhile/0-12, last accessed on 25 Jul 2012). Yet many immigrants are still unaware of their rights. Thus, according to the survey “Housing of Russian Israelis” conducted by the portal http://newsru.co.il in Jul 2011, 57 per cent of the respondents admitted that they didn’t know what categories of citizens were eligible for public housing (http://newsru.co.il/realty/10jul2011/dom_opros_103.html, last accessed on 15 Jul 2012). With few exceptions, Internet publications and posts in discussion forums are highly critical of the state housing policy, blaming the government for artificial an deficit of affordable housing, profiteering at the expense of the socio-economically weak and indifference to the Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 33 plight of the old and the sick. Another frequent complaint addresses the shortage of public housing in the center of the country, which increases the gap between the prosperous center and the poor periphery, the urban and the rural localities. Notably, among the respondents of the Internet survey quoted in the previous paragraph, 48.8 per cent prefer to live in large cities, 33.3 per cent favor small towns and only 10.5 per cent are in favor of rural localities.

Urban Life through Immigrants’ Eyes: Points of Interest and Concern

As mentioned earlier, in 2006 we conducted 10 focus interviews in seven towns: Jerusalem (1), Tel Aviv (1), Rehovot (1), Haifa (1), Kiryat Yam (2), Upper Nazareth (2), and Eilat (2). Two subjects had emigrated from Moscow, two from Tashkent in Uzbekistan, one from St. Petersburg, two from Kiev, one from Orgeev in Moldova and one from Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan. Their families range from middle class to those hardly above the poverty line. None has a history of delinquency. All of them are secular and do not observe the Jewish tradition, which does not allow Jews to use transport on the Sabbath and religious holidays. At the time of the interview one informant worked as a teacher, two combined work and university studies, three were full-time university students, three were high school students and one was temporarily unemployed after an accident. Despite the diversity in the respondents’ backgrounds, socio-economic status of their families and the degree of their integration into Israeli life, there are clear-cut tendencies in their perception of Israeli cities. The overall attitude to Israeli towns expressed by our young interviewees was clearly negative. Evaluating urban life they raised the following topics: • opportunities for work and studies • availability of entertainment • the social status of their towns/neighborhoods • the quality of public transport • security • the quality of architecture • attractiveness of the city/landscape • Israeli towns as compared to European cities 34 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Since the interviews were conducted in the format of informal conversations in which we allowed the subjects to take the lead expressing their attitudes to the towns where they live and urban life in general, the themes listed earlier did not emerge as discrete blocks but came up reflections of the interviewees’ preferences and concerns. Thus, discussing the architecture of the towns and neighborhoods where they live, the subjects touched upon the issues of ethnic segregation and socio-economic statuses of various districts; the theme of opportunities for entertainment was combined with the problems of mobility and public transport, and so on. The relevance of the majority of these themes for the entire community was confirmed by the study of newspaper material. We selected the weekly supplement “News – Northern Region” of the daily newspaper Vesti and analyzed 20 issues of the year 2006. City news reports were classified into 15 thematic categories.9 Five of them appeared in every issue and were covered most extensively: cultural news and opportunities for leisure; crime and law violation; building and infrastructure development projects; education for children and adults; the ecological situation in towns. In 2012, monitoring of the electronic papers of Haifa, Ashdod and Ariel (100 news items in each town10) showed that the same thematic categories remained prominent in the coverage of city news, although the emphasis has shifted: the news about cultural events, primarily those organized by members of the Russian-speaking community moved to the top of the list in Haifa (30) and in Ashdod (34). News items related to education were salient in Ariel (14), sports fared well in Ashdod (13) and new building and infrastructure development projects in Haifa (12). Ariel, located beyond the Green Line, is concerned with the issues of relations with Arab neighbors (10).

New Towns, New Neighbors

In analyzing immigrants discourse on towns we rely on the vision of place as a qualitative total phenomenon which cannot be reduced to separate properties (Norberg-Schulz 1980: 6–7). Moreover, people’s experiences of places are direct and often unselfconscious. The component parts are experienced in the fullness of their combinations and form the basic material out of which the identity of places are structured (Relph 1976: 46). Indeed, in the interviews and in Internet discussion Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 35 forums we find that towns are described in terms of “settlements” and “landscape”. Some narratives make use of space-defining categories dealing with the size and borders, but the emphasis in the analyzed material is on “character” which denotes the atmosphere of the place, which according to Norberg-Schulz is the most comprehensive property of a place (Norberg-Schulz 1980: 11–12). Immigrants’ reflections about towns are rich in adjectives which explicitly or implicitly form dichotomous pairs: large-small, beautiful-ugly, friendly-alienating, safe-dangerous, quiet-noisy, boring-lively, etc. Furthermore, attitudes to towns are often formulated with the help of symbolic meaning of colors. Their towns’ location is evaluated in terms of proximity to the sea and abundance or dearth of plants. Consequently, blue and green have strong positive connotations. Gray describes shabby houses and monotonous cityscape reminding our informants of “rows of boxes” – a standard metaphor for prefabricated apartment houses; yellow is associated with heat and desert, which is almost unanimously disliked; white is linked to the districts inhabited by the affluent European Jews while black is used to refer to neighborhoods belonging to other communities, Ethiopian and Moroccan Jews, as well as ultra-orthodox religious Jews. We have to admit that both xenophobic tendencies and a militant anti-religious spirit are observed among many Russian- speaking Israelis of all generations. Among other manifestations of intolerance of others is the unwillingness of a considerable percentage of Russian-speaking Israelis to have Arabs and religious people as neighbors. According to a representative sociological study by Al-Haj and Leshem, who interviewed 707 respondents, only 18.2 per cent FSU immigrants are willing to live next to Arabs, 49.6 per cent next to religious Jews, and 26.6 per cent to have Ethiopian Jews as neighbors (Al-Haj & Leshem 2000: 39). An earlier study conducted in Haifa (200 participants) showed the same tendency: nine per cent of the respondents did not want to live close to religious Jews, 25 per cent close to Arabs, 13 per cent with neither of them, and 40–45 per cent said that they did not care who their neighbors were (Amir & Carmon 1993: 15). The latter number may have different interpretations: one is a cosmopolitan mood of this group of respondents, another, and a more plausible one, is that FSU immigrants, in particular those who emigrated from large industrial cities, are more used to building their social networks on the basis of common occupation, interests and values, rather than on proximity of residence (Walmsley 1988: 61). Urbanites, especially residents of apartment blocks do not form close 36 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya relations with neighbors, but as our interviews and discussions in internet forums show, immigrants evaluate the status of their towns and neighborhoods depending on which ethnic groups prevail in them.

Ekaterina, 29, and Anatolii, 21, emigrated from Tashkent in 1990 and live in Eilat. At the time of the interview Ekaterina worked as a school teacher and Anatolii was a university student in Beer-Sheva

Ekaterina: In Israel, society is broken into triangles, rectangles and other patterns that all fit together. Most often, if you are a Moroccan, you are poor. If you are poor, you live on the periphery. And if you are a Moroccan, you are poor and you live on the periphery, and you don’t have higher education. And, well, there is just one institution of higher learning [in Eilat] that was founded five years ago. The majority of the students are people from the north who want to get cheap education and come here to moonlight.

Anatolii: Because the majority of Eilat residents who want to study leave the town.

Ekaterina: They leave because that paper-thin layer of intellectuals that can be found here, it’s really... very few people. These are white, educated Russian-Polish… err, American-speaking...

Anatolii: They all leave.

Ekaterina: They all leave. Because arsy and frekhi [Russified Hebrew, pejorative for “Moroccan males and females”] driving around with shrieking music in red cars start irritating you, say, when you reach the age of 15.

Anatolii: And most of them [those who leave] don’t come back. The contrast between “white” and “black” towns and neighborhoods emerges in other interviews as well. Desire to live among the Ashkenazi Jews is viewed as a natural wish to improve one’s standards of living. Notably, two young mothers among our interviewees expressed concerns as to their children’s upbringing among the people with cultural backgrounds and behavioral patterns different from theirs. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 37

Liudmila, 26, emigrated from Orgeev (Moldova) in 1988, at the age of 9, single, a bank teller and a student of the Open University, lives in Kiryat Yam

Interviewer: Well, if you compare Kiryat Yam and Haifa, do you like Kiryat Yam better?

Liudmila: Yes.

I: And why?

L: Haifa is a very noisy city, and here it’s very quiet. And also there are many Arabs there. In my neighborhood it is quiet and clean.

I: In what neighborhood do you live?

L: In Dalet [In some Israeli towns new districts are named by the characters of the Hebrew alphabet: alef, bet, gimel, dalet, etc.].

I: Is it where Marina lives?

L: No, it’s a bit farther. Her shchuna [Hebrew for a “neighborhood”] is Dalet, the old Dalet [inaudible]. The houses there were built just 10 years ago. (…)

I: So it’s newer…

L: Yes, it’s newer.

I: It’s newer and closer to the sea. Probably the houses are of better quality, aren’t they?

L: Yes, and the public is …

I: And what public can you find there?

L: Primarily either Russians or, say…, there are no [inaudible] Cau- casians.

I: Are they in Gimel?

L: Yes, they are in Gimel.

I: Do you ever go to Gimel?

L: Yes, my grandma lives there. 38 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

I: How do you feel when you get there?

L: I don’t often go there, I don’t feel comfortable there, because there are always hooligans there. It’s not very pleasant, you know.

Marina, 31 (compares her neighborhood with others in her town): At least, it is better than old Dalet in Kiryat Yam, and it’s better than Gimel. Have you been to Gimel?

Interviewer: No, though I may have passed it.

M: But it is HORRIBLE. These [apartment blocks] are simpIy HEN COOPS. These are two-storey houses, and I call them hen coops. They make me furious, I simply cannot… I see them. First, most of their inhabitants are from the Caucasus. I’ve got nothing against them. But I’m against the people who are rude, tough and vulgar. They live in these hen coops. It’s as if you came to some [pause] aul [a mountain- ous village in the Caucasus or Central Asia]. I have never seen an aul, but from the stories, from what my mum and grandma say this is exactly what happens there. In fact, these houses were built still under the British mandate. That is, it’s something, it’s simply terrible. I passed there, and there were CHICKENS walking along the street and GOATS, and COCKS. And I think: WHERE am I? Aren’t we in the 21st century? (…) It’s horrible. I simply cannot [stand it]. When I pass there, it simply makes me furious. And they, the way they are dressed. Oh boy! And this Dalet… of course, it’s also a hole. But it’s a bit quieter. In fact, all the inhabitants of Kiryat Yam are Caucasians, Moroccans and Russians who didn’t come from the Caucasus but from some other places. Well, too bad. Both Marina and Liudmila speak about the same neighborhoods. While Liudmila, who comes from a small town seeks peace and quiet, an ex-Muscovite, Marina prefers the vivacity of a large city. Neither of the two conceals discontent with having members of other ethnic groups as their neighbors. Not only Moroccan Jews are classified as others, but also Russian-speaking immigrants from the Caucasus are excluded from the interviewees’ reference group. In their attitude to the neighbors Liudmila and Marina demonstrate familiar patterns of intolerance to the other. Liudmila juxtaposes her quiet and clean “Russian” neighborhood with Haifa, where there are many Arabs, thus implicitly blaming them for making the city noisy and dirty. Marina claims that she is unbiased in her attitude to the immigrants from the Caucasus (we find similar assurances in the excerpts quoting other interviewees and participants of internet forums), but attributes to Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 39 them those very qualities she detests. In other interviews thoughtless- ness in relation to others and impolite behavior of the residents are also quoted as indicators of the status of towns and neighborhoods: Ekaterina: (comparing Jerusalem and Eilat) … I saw a different layer of society there. (…) It is a very beautiful city (…) and there are plenty of intellectuals there. They don’t push you that much in the streets, they don’t pester you as much or use fowl language and so on. Well, nobody would pour coffee all over you when you walk.

Interviewer: Does it ever happen here?

Ekaterina: Here? Easily, any minute.

Rita, 27, emigrated from Kiev in 1990, lives in Jerusalem, at the time of the interview was a graduate student of the Hebrew University, separated and has a child (interview conducted over the phone and the transcript checked by the interviewee)

Rita: I have a feeling that there is nowhere to go. When I am in the streets with the kid, I try not to get into a crowd, I want to get away from the crowds.

Interviewer: Because of fear of a terrorist attack?

Rita: Not only. All this shouting, waving of the hands and screaming. This is all unpleasant. People treat you tactlessly. A heated discussion about Kiryat Yam, where Marina and Liudmila live, was conducted on the Haifa city forum in June-July 2012 in the thread “Living in Kiryat Yam” (202 posts and 9,437 viewings). Initi- ated by the user who was considering moving to the town and wanted to know the opinions of its residents about the quality of life in their town, the thread sparked a heated debate as to the advantages and disadvantages of living in a small multiethnic locality. One of the users summarized these arguments saying:

Rakdanit, 13/06/2012

I think a lot depends on where people come from. If you are from Mos- cow or Peter [diminutive of St. Petersburg], then surely Kiryat Yam will look as a small provincial village. I, for one, come from Biisk in 40 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Altai, and I don’t like big and noisy cities. I like it when there are many plants, when it is quiet, the air is clean and everything is conveniently nearby. And this is what I have in Kiryat Yam. Besides, my relatives and friends are here, my whole network is here, and my life here is already well organized.

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?t=46425&postdays=0&postor der=asc&start=15, last accessed on 18 Jul 2012. Where participants of the discussion had few disagreements was an- noyance about the presence of other ethnic groups and boredom. While our interviewees castigated behavior of the Jews coming from the Cau- casus, forum participants complained about Ethiopian Jews, blaming them for allegedly violent behavior among children and adolescents, noise and stench in the air around their houses – all the stereotypical complaints against the unwanted other. Our interviewee Marina formulates a negative attitude to the described neighborhood comparing it with a village: the houses remind her of hen coops, and the streets are open to domestic birds and animals. Complaints about de-urbanization of Israeli towns are also voiced in discussion forums, in most cases blaming non-Jewish ethnic groups for it. Thus in July 2009, one of the residents of Karmiel, a town in Galilee shared his discontent with the neighbors in the city forum. The title of the thread was “A Bedouin wedding” (20 posts and 8,943 viewings). The first post was relatively amicable: Ulitka: We are having fun here… A Bedouin wedding has just started right outside our house. Music typical of such events can be heard all over the place. May they be happy, but why is a large part of Ramot Rabin [a Jewish neighborhood] obliged to participate? The children want to go to bed, and adults have to go to work tomorrow. There are numerous banquet halls in this country for such occasions. Is it part of their tradition to celebrate in the open? But why do numerous people who have nothing to do with this tradition are coerced into being part of it?

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?t=34233&postdays=0&postor der=asc&start=0, last accessed on 20 Jul 2012. Users who responded to this post were more emotional in expressing hostility against non-Jewish neighbors. There were angry remarks about the Bedouin village with its “stinking cow sheds” preventing a new Jewish neighborhood from developing “properly”. While our interviewee Marina used the Turkic word aul, making it pejorative, Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 41 in the analyzed discussion thread the Bedouin’s village was ironically referred to as a khutor [Ukrainian for a “croft”]. Several posts in this thread lament the growing “Arabization” of their town which leads to turning it into a kfar [Hebrew for a “village”]. Bedouins and Arabs are also blamed for increasing the level of crime because of shooting during festivities and knifing each other. Similar complaints were expressed in the non-focus biographic interviews in Upper Nazareth:

Dmitrii, 53, emigrated from St. Petersburg in 1996, lives in Upper Nazareth, an engineer by training, employed as a worker

Dmitrii: [about Arab neighbors] They studied in our country [the USSR] and they learned Russian there. Well, but if you look at their life [in Israel], things are not too bad. They have families with lots of children, yet nobody starves. In every courtyard, there is a… Right across our house there is a village where they shoot all the time.

Interviewer: They shoot?

Dmitrii: Yeah.

Interviewer: Are these skirmishes, I mean, among them, or do they…?

Dmitrii: They shoot into air, but they shoot from automatic guns, and I don’t like it at all. You know what I mean. Look, here is this village, right over here [goes to the window to point to the village]. There were two terrorist attacks planned in this village. But they failed. One failed in Tveria [Tiberias], the other one in Haifa. The car was from Haifa, so two representatives [apparently he refers to policemen] came to the village. Naturally, the village said, that, “We”, they say, “We don’t know anything about them”, that “They are bad people, and we are all good.” But shooting is regular here, all the time. Suspicions that their neighbors can be active participants or accessories to terrorist attacks underlie many statements expressing Russian- speakers’ attitudes to life in mixed localities. Authors of the posts in the discussion thread in Karmiel are not only angry but also pessimistic. They don’t discuss any advantages of social and cultural diversity that have evolved to be traditional urban values (Zukin 1998: 826), rather they see full ethnic and cultural segregation as a welcome alternative: DBD: It’s a real drama when people with absolutely different mentality, belonging to mutually hostile religions with completely different 42 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

way of life try to unite in one enclave. The outcome can be seen when we observe, for example, the neighboring kfary [Russified Hebrew for “villages”] with Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze and Bedouins, and so on. There is no peace there and there will never be any. Intense Arabization of the town provokes inevitable clashes. The belief that Israeli towns are undergoing “Arabization” which came up in several interviews and discussion threads clashes with the analyses of left-wing Israeli researchers who claim that Judaization and de-Arabization of space has been a key strategy of the state since its inception (Yiftahel & Yacobi 2003: 679–680). In fact, delegitimizing Arab presence in their towns, immigrants legitimate their own presence as it “improves” the demographic situation, consolidating the Jewish character of the mixed localities. A good portion of criticism expressed in the Karmiel discussion targeted state authorities not only for their inability to impose rules on the level of noise permitted during festive events, but also for their failure to oust the unwanted neighbors from their territory, which according to the media and the rumors reproduced by the discussants, was occupied illegally. One of the participants wondered ironically why the authorities were unable to show as much decisiveness as they did when forcing settlers in the West Bank to leave their houses. Such discussions also emerge in other city forums where Jews and Arabs live together, including Haifa which boasts the greatest interethnic tolerance in the country. Some posts are farcical, suggesting solutions well familiar to Russian Jews from their past history and worded like old Soviet slogans: Nathan: Up with the Pale of Settlement for non-titular nationalities! Others show elements of siege mentality and are adamantly xenophobic: Murky: We want to live in a Jewish town. It’s enough that there is a sea of huge Arab villages around us. Let them live there. It’s enough that crowds of Arabs come to our stores, clinics, banks and offices. We want to live in a NORMAL town, not in an Arab one. Arabs… from our town!

9/02/2008, discussion thread “Zeev Boym: Arabs will live in Karmiel, and no obstacles should be created for them”11 http://forum.israelinfo. ru/viewtopic.php?t=26535, last accessed on 20 Jul 2012. And as a refrain that can be heard in such discussions on interethnic relations Internet users speak in favor of tough policies, because “only Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 43 brute force is respected in the Middle East”. The term “political correctness” is often sneered at in the Russian-language media in Israel, and, as a rule, Internet users are even less inhibited by its norms. As shown in the previous excerpts, they don’t shy away from voicing extremist views. Living among the Ashkenazi elites has been the goal of immigrants from the FSU throughout the past two decades. It has been noted in studies dealing with different immigrant communities that in the initial stage the most preferable neighbors for newcomers are co-ethnics because of commonality in mentality and life styles and reliance on social networks for solidarity and support (see, e.g., Logan et al. 2002; Trovato 1988). Yet for some FSU immigrants it is not a matter of choice but of economic limitations. Social upward mobility in many cases presupposes leaving “Russian ghettos”. This is what followed from the interview with Marina quoted earlier, and was even more radically expressed in the discussion threads about Kiryat Yam (see above) and about Ashdod. Like the Kiryat Yam discussion, the Ashdod thread (32 posts and 14,359 viewings) was started by a newcomer to the city who wanted to consult members of the forum about buying an apartment. She admitted that the only thing she knew about the neighborhood was that it was virtually completely Russian but couldn’t figure out whether it was good or bad. The attitudes of the authors of the response posts differed, although the prevailing mood was that it’s bad because it was synonymous with “cheap”. Only one discussant was convinced that choosing co-ethnics was natural: Femina: … almost all repatriates prefer to live among their own people. I’ve never seen anyone who would like to have Ethiopians, datishniki [Russified Hebrew for “religious”], or Moroccans nearby. (Please do not consider me a nationalist: it’s just about the difference of mentality.) All the participants took it for granted that the prestige of the neighborhood and of the town itself was inseparable from its ethnic composition. The most blunt classification with the pronounced Eurocentric bias typical of Russian-speaking Israelis was expressed by one of the active forum participant: Ursego: Ashdod is not such a great town and Gimel’ is its worst district (only Bet might compete with it). If someone had shown me photographs of this slum a la Seiful’-Muliukov [Farid Seiful’-Muliukov, a well- known Soviet journalist who used to cover events in the Middle-East], I may have refused to come [immigrate] to Israel. If Brooklin is Little 44 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Odessa12, then Gimel is Little Addis-Ababa. And now about Russians / non-Russians. The most valuable and prestigious districts are those where you cannot find (in the descending order) Ethiopians, the blacks [Sephardi Jews], religious, and Russians; that is the neighborhoods inhabited by local Israelis – Ashkenazi Jews. Note that the housing prices themselves filter the composition of the population. What is cheap is rotten, isn’t it? So Ashdod (despite the gorgeous architecture of the new neighborhood – hats off) is not something…, you know what I mean…

posted on 23 Sept 2004, discussion thread – Iud-Gimel District, http:// forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?t=7118&sid=80396af85be1cf014ea4 e95de117d9, last accessed on 27 Jul 2012. In the last several years the number of “undesirable neighbors” in Tel Aviv and some southern towns has increased due to an influx of thousands of illegal immigrants from war-torn Southern Sudan and Eretria. In May 2012 tensions over their growing numbers and media reports about their criminal behavior led to violent demonstrations in southern Tel Aviv demanding expulsion of the illegal African migrants. Although government policies towards them and the scope of the problem for the country were widely discussed on the Israeli Russian-language Internet sites, city forums we monitored have very few threads on this subject.

A Big City or a Small Town?

Among the motifs repeatedly coming up in the interviews and in the Internet discussion forums is the opposition of large cities and small towns. This is not so much about the size but about the quality – big cities are viewed as bustling and full of opportunities for those who are ready to take them. Big cities promise that things will happen; by contrast, small towns are seen as stagnant and “dead”, having little to offer the young and ambitious in terms of studies, jobs and entertainment. As was agreed in the online discussion about Kiryat Yam, which we mentioned earlier, small towns in Israel are ideal places for retirement and for those who need peace and quiet. Even Jerusalem and Haifa are seen by some young people as stagnant and “sleepy”. Interviewer: And how did Jerusalem impress you after Kiev and Budapest? It’s also a relatively large city. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 45

Rita: In Kiev and Budapest I had a feeling of wide space, while here I feel confined. I always felt that something might happen there, it was life. Here, everything is stiff.

Interviewer: And what about terrorist attacks? Can they happen?

Rita: No, I don’t mean terrorist attacks. I always know that something terrible may happen. But it may also happen in a small room. I mean, the feeling that space promised something unknown, something seduc- tive. Here this doesn’t exist. Attractiveness of the city is often associated with mystery and the lure of the unknown. This is particularly important for the young who need events and new discoveries rather than orderly and well-organized life. This is a frequent theme in literature, and it also came up in our interviews.

Miron, 25, emigrated from Moscow in 1994 at the age of 13, at the time of the interview was convalescing after a car accident, lives in Upper Nazareth

Interviewer: In your opinion, what is a good and what is a bad town?

Miron: As far as I am concerned, a good town is a place where you can find everything, where everything is nearby. It’s a place where you can study and go out, and you don’t have to go 50 kilometers away to get this. A place where there are jobs available and not too far away. This is how I see it. And of course, it’s a place where there is air to breathe.

Interviewer: And which of the Israeli towns meets these criteria?

Miron: Well, it’s somewhere near Tel Aviv. Although Miron seems to be more down to earth in his requirements of a “good” town than Rita, note his mentioning of “air to breathe”. Air in Upper Nazareth is fresh and is clearly less polluted than in metropolitan Tel Aviv, but like Rita, who feels “confined” in Jerusalem, rendering his search for a dynamic place, Miron resorts to a metaphor in order to express his need for vivacity and action which he lacks in Nazareth. Our young interviewees who live in provincial towns perceive them as “cut off” from the world and civilization. Only four cities are viewed as exceptions: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and to a lesser extent Haifa and Netanya. Paradoxically, this does not mean that the interviewees express their wish to live in these towns. Tel Aviv repels because of the 46 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya noise, congestion and alleged snobbishness of its residents; Jerusalem because of the limitations imposed on secular people by the religious community, Haifa because of a lack of jobs, and Netanya because of jealousy: the young find it difficult to work and study watching vaca- tioners enjoying themselves all year round. As a refrain in almost all the focus interviews we heard that there was nothing to do in the towns where our informants live, the only exception being Tel Aviv.

Evdokia, 17, emigrated from Simferopol (Ukraine) at the age of nine, in 1998, a high-school student, lives in Rehovot

Compared with other places, I like it that it [Rehovot] is green, but it annoys me that it looks terribly small. Sometimes I have a feeling that I live in a village (laughs). It could be because of the main street and this center, beyond which there is nothing interesting. This annoys me.

Interviewer: So what do you think an ideal city should look like?

Evdokia: Well, it’s this equilibrium that I’ve mentioned before. It should have enough greenery, well, and nature should be slightly different – fewer palm trees and more variety, as far as I am concerned, [inaudible] and naturally, it shouldn’t be boring. If you want to relax, to enjoy yourself, it should offer you enough opportunities. It should have enough places for me to go out, and not always the same place. Something like this… And naturally it should be on the coast… During the first years of life in Israel Evdokia’s family moved from a small southern town of Sderot to Beer Sheva and then to Rehovot, where her mother was offered a job. Evdokia did not get attached to any of the three towns and admitted that she did not know them well. The most vivid memory of Sderot was vacant plots between houses which she had to cross while going to school. According to rumors circulating among the children, there were snakes’ nests there, and Evdokia was haunted by images of confrontation with the reptiles. Beer Sheva left better impressions, although Evdokia said that she had seen little of the city, as she “wasn’t taken to places”. Our other young informants also admitted that they were not well familiar with the towns where they live or the towns where they go in search of entertainment. It is a well known phenomenon that children and the elderly tend to have limited impressions of the city because their routes are restricted to just a few and they reflect their daily routines (Walmsley 1988: 14–16). Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 47

In our small sample of focus interviews, even those who entered adulthood did not display curiosity and desire to explore Israeli towns. On the other hand, some interviewees were very enthusiastic about their native towns (Marina and Miron about Moscow, Rita about Kiev) and about the towns they visited during their trips abroad (Tamara, Rita, Marina and Evdokia). Interestingly, Evdokia’s memories of her native town of Simferopol seemed to be much more vivid than those of Sderot and Beer Sheva, although she had left it at the age of nine. Like other members of her family she still misses the Crimea. The family did not integrate well in Israel, and frequent conversations about possibili- ties of re-emigration or return to Ukraine may have intensified our interviewee’s negative attitude to Israeli towns.

Gennadii, 19, emigrated from Petropavlovsk (Kazakhstan), in 1997 at the age of 10, a high school student, lives in Upper Nazareth

Interviewer: What do you like and what do you dislike about Nazareth?

Gennadii: Well, what I like, I don’t know, I sort of got used to living here. There are many things I like. Well, it’s sort of boring here. There is no place to go out with friends. If you want to have fun, you have to go to another town, to the center or to Haifa. (…) The majority of the people who live here are the elderly. Life is quiet, that is, if you don’t take those, if you don’t take Arabs into account. (…) I don’t like quiet towns. I like it when there are things to do, when it’s not boring. Other- wise what: come out to sit on a bench. Sit and talk. Well, you know, it can be interesting to talk, but sometimes you are sick of it, when every Friday the only thing for you to do is to come to the bench and sit there. The proverbial “sitting on the bench” symbolizing placelessness and boredom in leisure hours was also mentioned by a resident of Haifa, Tamara. What our interviewees did not reveal in their narratives was that quite often groups of Russian-speaking adolescents spend a large part of their leisure time in the streets, because they have either little or no pocket money, which prevents them from going to cafes or discos frequented by their peers from more affluent families. Gennadii also remarked that places of entertainment in his town were either for children or for adults, with nothing fitting the interests of teenagers. None of our young interviewees participated in community centers, clubs, sports societies, etc., either due to financial constraints and lack 48 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya of mobility or because they did not find anything appealing to them. The non-involvement of young immigrants in activities organized by city administration was confirmed and partially explained by a participant of the Ariel city forum in the discussion thread “Premises for the Young” (6 posts and 4024 viewings). Mamontionok, 23/08/2006, Ariel’s eternal problem is a lack of place for the young people to meet. While adolescents can choose between hobby groups, an amateur theater, and guided tours, what is there for a soldier, a student, and a young proletarian to do? Finally, there is a chance for us to get hold of a place that would be our own. We know how to use it. No longer would we have to celebrate birthdays and spend holidays in parks, out of town or on parking lots. If there are enough people willing to participate, we’ll be able to launch music bands and hobby clubs. There is enough room for everything. The most important thing is to have walls to shield us from the wind, a roof to protect us from the rain, and electricity. At the moment what is required is to collect as many signatures as possible. I mean young people of 17-18 and older (not suitable for pensioners.) If you are interested, call my As’ka [Russian computer slang for ICQ].

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?t=16260, posted on 2 Oct 2006, last accessed on 2 Aug 2012. Judging from the lack of response to Mamontionok’s appeal, Russian- speaking youth in Ariel were not enthusiastic about claiming their rights to have a place for leisure activities. Our interviewee Gennadii and his friends, as they emerge in his narratives, seemed to suffer from apathy and were just dreaming of leaving Nazareth in search of better places. Neither did other interviewees mention any initiatives on the part of young people to make their leisure time more interesting. But there are counter-examples as well. One of them is the non-profit organization “Fishka” created in 2007 by young immigrants from the FSU Rita Brudnik and Elena Bushumenskaia. This organization targeting young adults who immigrated to Israel as young children sees its mission in maintaining and expanding the young Russian-speaking community promoting the values of creativity, cultural influence, social engagement and involvement. It seeks to help its members deal with complex issues of hybrid identities and search for ways of integrating in the contemporary Israeli culture without abandoning Russian roots (http://fishka.org.il/ru/about/, last accessed on 24 Aug 2012). Without denying the ingenuity and perseverance of the young people who conceived of this project, one has to mention that it took off thanks to the Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 49 support of various national and international organizations and the municipality of Tel Aviv/Jaffa. In some way, “Fishka” testifies that our interviewees are right when they speak about the vitality of life in Tel Aviv that is incomparable with other Israeli cities. Our interviewees’ complaints about boring urban life are similar to what was stated by respondents in a multi-faceted sociological study in the small northern town of Katzrin. Immigrants of various ages interviewed for that project said that life in Israel was boring and they felt that the cultural space available to them had shrunk compared with the FSU (Horowitz, Shamai & Ilatov 2003: 146–147). Our interviewees characterize life that does not satisfy their cultural needs as provincial or rural. Scornful attitudes to everything “provincial” typical of the worldview of contemporary Russian speakers has been confirmed by the Israeli experience. Notably, when complaining about petty bourgeois life styles, boredom and lack of cultural events, participants of city forums label their cities with the same words “province” and “provincial”, e.g., “Ashdod is an out-of the-way province”, “Kiryat Yam is a small provincial village”, etc. According to the journalist Anna Isakova, this is one of the things in which both Russia and Israel differ from the West, where contemporary provinces are not associated with the failure of public institutions, deprivations in everyday life, cultural backwardness, narrow-mindedness and boredom. Differing from the urban center in many respects, provincial life has important values to offer: attachment to the place and tradition, careful attitude to Nature, lack of haste, thoughtfulness and spontaneity in interpersonal communication (Isakova 2007). While none of the informants in both of our interview samples complained of deprivations in managing everyday life, other negative aspects of provincial life listed by Isakova, including higher unemployment levels than in the center are still associated with Israel’s periphery. As a result, residents may develop the feeling of alienation. Our interviewee Marina kept repeating that she couldn’t stand her town of residence. Miron contemptuously said that the only new building projects taking care of the residents’ needs in Upper Nazareth were “beit avot and beit kvarot” (an old people’s home and cemetery). A more reserved Ekaterina remarked: You see, I don’t live in the town. I live in my house. By definition (…) I want to live where I feel comfortable, I mean the comforts of my private life. It could be even in the Antarctic. It [the place] is not crucial for me, or almost not at all. Well, it is crucial, but I’ll survive, it won’t solve my main problems. 50 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Urban studies show that residents of a metropolis tend to suffer from cognitive overload and excessive stimulations that can make it difficult for urbanites to adapt and cope with the environment. Our material shows cognitive underload which contributes to stress and poses a major problem for the young (Pacione 1990: 5–6). The institution that is believed to raise the status of a town and make it more desirable is a university.

Anatolii, 21

Interviewer: How do you perceive Beer Sheva?

Anatolii: I don’t like it. Compared with Eilat, it is very gray. It’s ugly, and the people are not too amiable. But there is a university there [inaudible]. I don’t need anything else from that town. It’s my apartment, my university, my apartment, my university. I don’t need anything else. I’ll get a degree, then the second degree, and then I’ll leave. Because to live in Beer Sheva is absolutely… well, probably I could consider working there but living?! NO WAY! There is a theater there, I have friends there, but everything rotates around the university. Remove the university and Beer Sheva ceases to exist. (…) It’s a gloomy, oppressive town where the young do not want to live. The university was mentioned among the more attractive and friendly spaces in towns by other interviewees as well. Rita said, “The university is my place. I’ve got used to it”, and Marina echoed her: “I like it. I like the atmosphere itself, and I feel young there. I like the environment there, and, I don’t know, but, the UNIVERSITY IS MY PLACE. And even the people there are normal.” The significance of the university and the stimulating presence of students in town also came up in the Beer Sheva city forum in which participants compared the value of different neighborhoods (801 posts and 96,724 viewings). Proximity to the university was considered to be “strategically important” not only because it boosted real-estate prices in the nearby areas and gave access to the sports facilities of the university but primarily because it was believed to affect the general atmosphere:

Vova Z. (posted on 8 Jan 2010)

Yes, Dalet has changed a lot. In 1990 I lived in Shprintsag together with the jobless youth. In the evening I would come back home after work when the kids were already in good mood after a good dose of dope. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 51

They used to treat me to sunflower seeds and explain that my way of life was wrong. And recently I passed by and could see only students staring into their laptops there… Well, well, the neighborhood is gone.

Discussion thread “Dalet”. http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic. php?t=36673, last accessed on 25 Jul 2012. The irony of the last sentence does not conceal the satisfaction with the change that students brought to the neighborhood. In fact, the number of young drug addicts is a matter of concern for many adults and often comes up in the city forum discussions. The importance which Russian-speaking Israelis attribute to living in a university town was recently demonstrated by the struggle around the academic university center in the town of Ariel. Founded in 1982, it was the first Israel’s institution of higher learning beyond the Green Line. The Ariel college gradually expanded, and in 2007 the government decided to upgrade it and grant it a temporary status of a university center with the option of transforming it into a fully-fledged research university under the condition that it would meet all the requirements of such an institution. This decision stirred controversies on the political arena and in the academic circles. The left wing perceived the possible upgrade as further legitimation of the settlements, and many in the academia, including presidents of the existing research universities, saw this move as an unreasonable use of limited financial resources allocated for higher education. The Russian-speaking politicians of the party “Israel is our home” were among the most vocal supporters of the Ariel Academic Center (Briman 2012; http://izrus.co.il/obshina/ article/2012-07-03/18357.html, last accessed on 25 Aug 2012). The Russian-language media closely followed the unfolding conflict and displayed sympathies for Ariel’s cause; so did many bloggers (see e.g., an appeal to support Ariel in http://pinchas.livejournal.com/ which was reposted by other bloggers and http://xaxam.livejournal. com/487207.html followed by numerous comments, last accessed on 25 Aug 2012). One of the reasons why members of the Russian-speaking community showed great interest in this battle was that during the media campaign it became known that 16 per cent of the faculty of the Ariel Academic Center were immigrants, primarily from the FSU. The rector was also an FSU immigrant of the 1990s, and thanks to this the college had established various ties with academia in the FSU (Kogan 2012; Markov 2012; Mikhalçhenko 2012). Our analysis of the Ariel city forum demonstrated that the college and its prospects for the upgrade were frequently discussed in various discussion threads. First, 52 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya government support of this move diminished fears of the discussants that their town might be dismantled. The college was also mentioned as one of the biggest employers and as a contributor to the positive image of the town as “cultured and educated”. Here is one exchange which illustrates this motif:

Leonid G. (posted on 18 Jul 2012)

This is not unequivocally good: on the one hand, it means government subsidies; on the other hand, while in colleges tuition fees are higher than in universities, the passing grade is lower. So if there is money, a college is more accessible. (…) The “niche” of the college is in its acces- sibility to wide masses. And for the town the more students there are the better; so because of the university the number of students may drop. (…) As a university it will have to compete against more serious institutions.

Ded Murloz (posted on 20 Jul 2012)

And so it will! It will try harder where it still lags behind. (This also depends on the money, although not only on the money.) As a university it will get better students. In addition, there will be work places at the university and around it. And the entire atmosphere in the town will become more cultured and intellectual. Now we are a proper university town.

Mariet (posted on 20 Jul 2012)

And all the uncultured trash should be sent to exile beyond the 101st kilometer [in the Soviet period, ex-prisoners, dissidents and other so- called “anti-social elements” were prohibited to live closer than 100 km from big cities].

Discussion thread “The University in Ariel”, 41 posts and 15,993 viewings. http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=37595&start=30, last accessed on 25 Aug 2012. Mass occupational downgrading and as a result social downward mobility of the FSU immigrants (Dubson 2007; Remennick 2007: 73–93) had little effect on the high value attributed to culture and good education among the first generation FSU immigrants. The disappointment of the parents in the system of education13 makes them Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 53

Figure 1. “Russian” kindergartens of the 1990s, in which communication between teachers and children was conducted in Russian, gradually gave way to bilingual kindergartens. Many parents want their children to be prepared for the Israeli school and at the same time maintain the Russian language and culture.

look for alternative or complementing solutions in the Russian sector of the educational system. To the surprise of the ministry of Education and the Hebrew-language newspaper Maariv, private kindergartens run by Russian-speaking educators keep gaining popularity among co-ethnics despite the adoption of a new law granting free pre-school education from age three. And it is not only the more convenient hours (unlike most Israeli kindergartens, finishing work at 1 p.m., many Russian ones are open until 7 p.m.) that attract parents. It is also their orderliness, bi-lingual instruction and the diversity of activities offered to the children that make parents prefer kindergartens, where they have to pay, to free state-run institutions (posted on 17 Oct 2012, http://izrus.co.il/obshina/article/2012-10-17/19333.html, last accessed on 10 Nov 2012). 54 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

No wonder then that the quality of education is among the most popular themes in the city forum of a young city of Ariel. Parents and grandparents express hopes that if the schools are good, if the academic center continues to flourish, and if the project promoting new technologies, “The Smart Town”, is fully implemented, the young will stop “running away” from their town (discussion threads “Ariel: A city of the future” (30 posts, 5,798 viewings) http://forum.israelinfo. ru/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=43981; “Isn’t Ariel a smart town anymore?” (81 posts, 71,328 viewings) http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic. php?t=42427, last accessed on 25 Aug 2012). Yet, availability of jobs and opportunities to study do not seem to be enough for the young to be satisfied with urban life.

Yulia, 25, Upper Nazareth, emigrated in 1990 from Leningrad, at the time of the interview was a student at Tel Aviv University

Yulia: I believe there is only one city in Israel.

Interviewer: And this city is…

Yulia: Tel Aviv. That is, the way I perceive the city should be, it’s only Tel Aviv. Because Haifa and naturally, Natseret [the Hebrew pronuncia- tion of “Nazareth”] too, I don’t consider them to be cities.

Interviewer: Why?

Yulia: Err, because [smiles], well, Natseret, this doesn’t even need an explanation. Because [pause] I think there is simply nothing here. There is no night life, no opportunity to study and no jobs. Besides, it is a very small town. It’s a small town, few people and well…

Interviewer: There is no choice…

Yulia: Yes, and it’s not a city. Haifa is larger but still, it is not enough. I know there is nothing here for the young. I mean, no careers, no night life. There is nothing there. And Jerusalem is again something completely different. Well, those of my friends who live in Jerusalem are not content either.

Interviewer: Not content?

Yulia: No. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 55

Interviewer: How come?

Yulia: Well, Jerusalem, that’s different. It’s a difficult city because there are plenty of datishniki [Russified Hebrew, “religious people”]. And this…, one feels uncomfortable, it’s unpleasant. And again, there are few young people there. They have nothing to do there. In the evening, there is no…no, it’s not like in Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv you can choose all the time and find what suits you. It is well known that making choices requires responsibility and may be difficult for the young. Yet, our interviewees find such challenges much more attractive than their absence. Reflections about opportunities for work and studies and comparisons of career prospects in various towns are mentioned in all focus interviews, yet it is a lack of entertainment that is central in the young people’s discontent with the towns. Among different types of entertainment, disco-clubs and pubs are most popular. Museums and theaters are also mentioned, although from the interviews and from our ethnographic observations it is clear that young theater goers consider themselves an exception among their peers. Moreover, some are even embarrassed to admit their exposure to high culture to their friends. This type of entertainment remains part of the family culture and is not easy for the parents to cultivate (see Niznik 2011; Remennick 2012). The emphasis on entertainment does not appear unexpected. The city was born as a square where festivities were held and temples were constructed. It was associated with festivals during which taboos were lifted; the city was a place where hierarchies were not relevant and where solutions to life’s contradictions could be found. For the village the city is associated with festivities because traditional culture perceives the city as a place of endless festival (Levinson 2004: 26–27). Today, a developed entertainment industry is an economic asset, and many leading cities in the world base their future prospects on their role as cultural and tourist centers (Jabareen 2009; Kotkin 2005: 151; Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2011). In European towns, spiritual life, commerce, and entertainment are concentrated in the center. The town center has a marketplace and a town hall, symbolizing civil authority; it has a church or a ca- thedral symbolizing religious authority; it has monuments honoring history and a square or open space through which many cross-town routes pass. The center organized like this is an indispensable part of the European town’s image (Augé 1995: 65–69). Like in Central and 56 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Western Europe, there is hardly a town or a village in Russia where one cannot find a center with institutions of power, whether religious or secular. In pre-revolutionary Russia this was a church; in the So- viet period power was symbolized by city or village Soviet. As Monica Rüthers remarks, early Soviet city planners of the 1920s-1930s made pioneering attempts to create an ideal socialist city markedly different from all the existing urban models. Most of these projects, however, were shelved, and socialist realism prevailed. It chose classicism as its vocabulary, and center-peripheral structure became a major principle of planning. While in the 1920s a socialist city was viewed as a city without a center, in the later years the center became the core of political and social life (Rüthers 2006: 197–200). This is how Soviet authorities saw the center, and it is this model of city planning that was internalized by ex-Soviets. Despite Eurocentrism that prevails in the mentality of contemporary Israelis, most towns were not designed with this concept in mind. Currently only Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are close to the European urban model. Jerusalem has always featured as a world religious center and accordingly attracts pilgrims and tourists. The Old City is familiar, even to a newcomer, through literature and art, and many of its memorial sites are familiar to ex-Soviets from literature and are mythologized (see e.g., Epstein & Kheimets 2001; Fialkova 1999; Tolstaia 1999). Besides memorials of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Jerusalem offers a wide range of cultural activities for the secular, such as theater, museums, libraries, and the like. Tel Aviv cannot compare to Jerusalem in terms of sanctity, but as the country’s center of commerce and entertainment it attracts residents from the rest of the country with employment opportunities, the abundance, and luxury of shopping malls, and bustling night life. Both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have centers that form the core of each city’s image. On the mental map of Russian-speaking Israelis Jerusalem and Tel Aviv form a parallel with two Russian capitals forever competing for supremacy of their role in the life of Russia.14 In an article devoted to the images of Tel Aviv and St. Petersburg in Hebrew literature Vladimir Papernyi (2003) suggests that since many Israeli writers are émigrés from Russia, the myth of St. Petersburg formed the foundation of the myth of Tel Aviv. An essential element of the Tel Aviv myth is that it is the antithesis to Jerusalem. This antithesis is based on several oppositions: a rationalized utopian project v. history; a coastal city, where the sea forms a natural border, v. a city in the center; a city built on the lowland, where humans have Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 57 to conquer empty flatlands, v. a city on the mountain, located in the center of vertically lying space. All these oppositions are the same as the oppositions of St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russian mythology. The relevance of the city images has not lost its importance among the young Russian-speaking intellectuals in Israel. One proof of it is the novel Jerusalem by the young writer, an immigrant of the 1990s, Denis Sobolev. Allusions to St. Petersburg are an essential part of the narrative (Sobolev 2005). In their desire to have better opportunities and enjoy a more comfortable life style many young immigrants hope that moving to a more prestigious neighborhood or town may solve the problem. This wish was expressed by our young interviewees from Upper Nazareth, Rehovot, Beer Sheva and Haifa.

Tamara D., 17, emigrated to Israel from Kiev in 1991 at the age of two, lives in Haifa

Interviewer: How do you feel about the neighborhood where you live?

Tamara: Well. I detest it because it is, it is, you know there are some districts which used to be beautiful, but ours, I don’t know. It may have been considered beautiful but by people with very peculiar tastes. Mostly it’s houses-boxes and in very bad shape too. And nobody fixes them because nobody likes them. All the people who live here feel they want to escape. No money, no opportunity, but one has to escape and swiftly. I mean, nobody plans to stay in this district. There isn’t a single person who would say: “I like this area.” Say, I have a friend and she lives on Hertzel street, the street with plenty of stores. And a girl from a more affluent neighborhood once asked: “So what, you live in a store?” I mean, people don’t even understand how come one can live here. Isn’t it strange, why should one live here if it’s possible to live somewhere else? Tamara feels that everyone living in her neighborhood wants to “escape”. The motif of escape also sounds in the interviews recorded in Upper Nazareth and in the discussion thread in the Ashdod forum quoted earlier. The excerpt from Tamara’s interview suggests that because of the social stratification of neighborhoods, adolescents suffer badly, in particular, if their parents decided to send them to good schools often situated in prestigious districts. Although it incurs considerable expenses straining modest incomes, some families chose this way, because good education ranks among the primary values of Russian-speaking Jews (Remennick 2012). Finding themselves among 58 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya native Israeli peers, immigrant adolescents are often confronted with snobbishness and tactlessness of their fellow-students and sometimes teachers too. Considering segregation of urban districts in Israel, sociologists Mesch and Stier indicate that the place of residence affects the socio- economic status of individuals and social groups. Opportunities for employment and acquisition of quality housing, income and taxation levels, as well as the quality of utilities and communal services differ from district to district. Stratification of places is used by the elites to distance themselves from less affluent and socially undesirable compatriots. Stratification of space which is gradually transformed into status stratification of districts appears to be stable and durable. Among its results is emergence of economic and social barriers, making some groups in society impenetrable for outsiders, especially for members of minority groups. In addition, stratification mechanisms affect the distribution of unemployment, poverty and crime. Clearly, affluent groups are better equipped to cope with demographic changes and economic activities (Mesch & Stier 1997: 61). Yet one has to admit that the social composition of the FSU immigrant group that came to Israel in the 1990s, first of all a high educational status of the newcomers, caused positive changes in the status of some urban localities and districts. Socially upward mobile immigrants aspiring to occupy a niche in the middle class try to move to more comfortable and more prestigious neighborhoods. One of the solutions for them is moving to districts that undergo early stages of gentrification – the process of reconstruction of neglected but his- torically and architecturally interesting or ecologically advantageous urban quarters. The process of gentrification is usually accompanied by ousting of socio-economically weak residents and small businesses and an increase in housing prices. In this respect, Haifa is an interesting example. Often called the “capital of the north”, it is an industrial center with numerous high-tech companies. Being the home of a university and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, it attracts young people, at least for the period of studies. Unlike most of the cities, Haifa does not have a distinct center. Hadar, described in the quoted excerpt from Tamara’s interview, played that role in the past when it was the site of government offices, and a religious and commercial center. The municipal theater, several museums, and a market are situated there. Veterans of Haifa remember this area as prosperous and attractive for businesses and real-estate owners. But neglect has made the majority of once elegant Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 59

Figure 2. Inviting residents of Haifa to enjoy a promenade on the seaside, Haifa municipality addresses the public in the four languages that are most often spoken in the city. houses shabby. The wealthier among the inhabitants have moved to new neighborhoods. Apartment prices dropped, and the population changed. In the 1990s the rising of several shopping malls in newer districts of the city deprived Hadar of its clientele, and many shops had to close down. Finally, the exodus of civil servants, whose offices moved to newly built high-risers close to the port, struck the district its coup de grace. While Hadar lost its status as the center, none of the other districts took over. Inexpensive, although often rundown apartments, proximity of residential blocks to shops, banks, and a market, and the concentration of public transport attracted low-income families, including new immigrants from the FSU. Among the Russian- speaking Israelis who settled in Haifa in the 1990s, 30 per cent chose Hadar. They returned a substantial part of the abandoned apartments to the real-estate market and re-invigorated the district. Many had their apartments renovated: about 30 per cent reported doing it before 60 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya moving in, and 20 per cent afterwards (Amir & Carmon 1993: 6, 12). But few immigrants could afford major remodeling in the first years after immigration. Moreover, reinforcing the structure of the houses, painting the walls, fixing the roofs and renovating staircases often proves impossible not only because of financial problems but due to difficulties in achieving consensus with neighbors. As a result, some of the immigrants who advanced socio-economically preferred to move to more prestigious districts rather than investing money and efforts in the real estate of a declining district. Several times the city authority announced that Hadar would be reconstructed. But only in the aftermath of the Second War in Lebanon which scarred Haifa did these plans become a reality. In September 2006 the municipal company in charge of infrastructure and public transport in the city began renovation of the two streets once considered to be the architectural gem of the area; others followed suit. The city has also invested nine million shekels in the renovation of the water supply system, sewage, reconstruction of the fences and new pavements. Special attention is given to the preservation of the architectural style of the houses that have historic value, stripping them of terraces, canopies made of corrugated metal or plastic and other elements added by tenants. New restaurants and bars, as well as antiquity shops opened their doors to clients, attracting the young and the affluent. Real estate in the area is in demand again, and those Russian-speaking Israelis who had bought apartments in Hadar in the period of its decline finally saw their investments justified. Another successful project aimed at reviving the once bustling area adjacent to the port and encourage the young to live in Haifa is creation of Kampus ha-Namal [Hebrew, the “Port Campus”]. This project also driven by the desire to help citizens of the north to overcome the destruction and trauma incurred by the war was initiated by the Municipality in collaboration with the University of Haifa. The Port Campus branch of the university opened in March 2009 in a renovated Customs House of the 1930s. It offers courses in the popular fields of Occupational Therapy, Creative Arts Therapies, Tourism, Pilgrimage and Recreation Research, and so on. Wizo Design College and Tiltan Academic College for graphic design, animation and communication have also moved to the new campus. Their students display their work in outdoor exhibits and are involved in the renovation projects aimed at rejuvenation of the derelict district. Like members of other ethnic groups, FSU immigrants are involved in the restoration of historic Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 61 buildings, sometimes in an unexpected way. An interesting example is the St. Mary’s Greek-Catholic church, whose icons and some of the interior frescos were painted by immigrants of the 1990s. Among them is St. George with a spear, Virgin Mary on her deathbed and a replica of Andrei Rublev’s “Trinity”. Moreover, on the fresco in the central apse one can see inscriptions in Arabic, as well as in Church Slavonic (Poltorak 2005: 19–20). The municipality also initiated and partially financed renovation of run-down office buildings that were turned into students’ dormitories. By the beginning of the academic year 2011-2012 over 700 students had moved into comfortable apartments fully furnished, equipped with household appliances and provided with wireless internet connection. In order to attract students to the city the municipality offers them various long-term grants, 70 per cent reduction of the city tax, free parking for the entire period of studies, subsidized subscription to the local theater, and so on. Moreover, the municipality offers additional support to those students who are involved in voluntary public activities in the city (http://palm.newsru.co.il/realty/16aug2011/hifa505.html, http:// www.mignews.com/mobile/article.html?id=170112_173629_14058, last accessed on 19 Aug 2012). In June 2012 the renovation project “Port Campus” competed against 40 municipal programs and was awarded the prize in the contest “City Design 2012”. The newly renovated area became the site of weekly summer festivals for the youth known as Kalabat Shabbat. The name is a pun on the Hebrew Kabalat Shabbat, the Friday evening prayers that welcome the Sabbath at sunset. This is a street event with free live shows, food stalls and craft fairs. They start at 16:00 with programs for children and later in the evening offer entertainment for youth audiences. The annual program of the festival is advertised on the web site of the Haifa Municipality, on news portals, including those in Russian, and on the sites providing information for domestic and international tourists (see e.g., http://mama.zahav.ru/Articles/1631/ kabalatshabat, http://www.krayot.ru/20110807759/культура-и-отдых/ schedule-of-summer-events-in-hayfe.html, last accessed on 27 Jul 2012). To hold public entertainments on Friday evening is unusual in Israel, where most businesses in the Jewish sector are closed for Sabbath. Therefore, Kalabat Shabbat attracts young people from various urban and rural localities of the north and promotes Haifa’s popularity among the secular, both Jews and Arabs. Its popularity among the Russian-speaking Israelis is testified by the variety of web 62 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya sites reporting on the events, ranging from the Russian version of the official web site of the municipality and electronic papers to the association of Israel’s consumers and blogs in which festival goers share their impressions and post photographs (see e.g., http://kot- bayun.livejournal.com/170141.html, last accessed on 19 Aug 2012). Like some other cultural events in Israel towns, announcements of the Kalabat Shabbat program have crossed the borders and the festival is advertised on the Russian-language tourist sites in the countries of the FSU, for example, in Ukraine and Kazakhstan (http:// lenta.mk.ua/article/1298244.html, http://www.turistu.kz/blog/gremsi/ kalabatshabat-kampus-kha-namal, last accessed on 19 Aug 2012). Our respondents, as well as participants of the Haifa city forum, view the main attraction of Haifa in its topography and greenery: it is situated on Mount Carmel and overlooks Haifa Bay. The sites frequented by tourists are dispersed throughout the city. The most imposing of them is the World Bahai Center and gardens, stretching from the bottom to the top of the Carmel. Like the religious sites of Jerusalem, it attracts members of the international Bahai community and contributes to Haifa’s popularity among visitors to Israel. The residents of Haifa, however, have mixed feelings about it. Interviewer: What’s your feeling, do you know Haifa well?

Tamara: I know the places where I go. I don’t remember the streets at all [She means street names]. I know, my legs carry me where I need. But, say, I know everything that is close to my house. Places to go to? There are not many, but actually I know them too.

Interviewer: And when you say “places to go”, what do you mean?

Tamara: I mean museums, or parks, but there are not many, so it’s not difficult to count them. The place you can always go to is the Bahai shrine. It’s really sad that the most beautiful place in Haifa is not Jewish and has nothing to do with the Jewish State, Israel. It’s the most beautiful place. It’s more than… it’s the only place where you feel that it is a city that is just… that you can, well, I don’t know, it’s just like paradise. I simply adore that place. Kotkin observes that a successful modern city should combine educational and job opportunities and entertainment. Besides, they should provide law and order and give their residents the feeling of security (Kotkin 2005: 154). The interviews show that young immigrants value all these attributes of the modern city but cannot find all of them in any town in their new homeland. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 63

City Threats: Between Missiles and Delinquents

Security of the citizens is among the primary concerns in Israel, in particular in the towns which have been targeted by missiles and terrorist attacks. Our interviewees did not dwell on these issues, but we found many conversations devoted to shelling in forums of the southern towns that have often been under fire from the Gaza strip (Askelon, Ashdod, Beer Sheva and Sderot), and from the Southern Lebanon (Kiryat-Shmona, Akko, Karmiel and Haifa). Some of these threads present retrospective reflections of what discussants went through, but most deal with the events as they unfold and serve to share information, give or ask for advice and calm down one’s own and virtual interlocutors’ anxieties:

Volener, posted on 23 Feb 2011, 23:03:

Two missiles fell in district… in Beer Sheva, two explosions could be heard [quotes the Internet source of this news item].

androdo, posted on 23 Feb 2011, 23:13:

In what district? Has anyone been injured? I also heard them; many people began to close iron shutters and then there was a boom.

Maria, posted on 23 Feb 2011, 23:20:

Four people have been reported to suffer from a shock. R [gives the name of a radio journalist] has just said on radio Darom [Hebrew, “South”] that no one was physically injured.

Mechta, posted on 24 Feb 2011, 00:17:

What really bothers me is what to do with the kids, whether to send them to school or not! It’s so good that there is a bitahon room in the apartment [Hebrew “security”, refers to built-in shelter]. 64 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Alinar, posted on 24 Feb 2011, 00:46:

We can hear missiles exploding, two or three per minute… I don’t know myself what to do with the kids tomorrow…

Discussion thread “If tomorrow brings war”15 (505 posts and 76,562 viewings), http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=41423, last accessed on 25 Aug 2012. Children and their psychological state is an issue of special concern to the parents and grandparents, so in some of the messages we can find links to the articles posted by psychologists who give recommendations on how to cope with stress in the family. Some admit that any noise similar to the thunder of an exploding missile alerts them to potential dangers; others complain that they find it difficult to concentrate on anything but just wait for the next “boom” to come. Not everybody is composed. Besides expression of anger against Palestinian militants, severe criticism is directed to what discussants see as weakness of the central government, its preoccupation with issues irrelevant for the population and indifference to the plight of towns under fire:

Dubinzik, posted on 10 March 2012:

We are worried about our grandchildren’s psyche, not to mention daily threats to their life… What if Tel Aviv were constantly shelled for years and years? What would be the response of the government and the army?

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=43629&sid=cd8e03ea e030d89cfae3f3b5e593050d, last accessed on 30 Aug 2012. Local authorities are also under scrutiny, and efforts of different municipalities to equip and maintain shelters and organize emergency services are compared. Forum participants discuss effectiveness of the new anti-missile system “The Iron Dome” and argue about the time needed to get to shelters after the alarm is sounded. The noun “shelling” often appears in the titles of these threads, e.g., “Shelling in Ashdod” (74 posts and 21,868 viewings, http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=2 1&t=43629&sid=cd8e03eae030d89cfae3f3b5e593050d); “Shelling” (the Ashkelon forum, 38 posts, 18,350 viewings); http://forum.israelinfo.ru/ viewtopic.php?f=26&t=30654&start=30), “More on shelling in Sderot” (268 posts and 88,863 viewings, http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic. php?f=71&t=21807, last accessed on 27 August 2012). In their wish Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 65 to express emotions and document attacks, forum participants post verses about shelling, upload photographs and even video clips shot from the windows of their homes or on the site of events. This can be seen as needless bravado, but it also serves as evidence that shelling has become part of everyday life in the targeted towns. Among the participants in the conversations about missile attacks we find residents of Israeli towns unaffected by shelling. These users inquire about the situation, express sympathy and offer help, such as giving shelter to families wishing to leave the town.16 Residents of the north who were targeted by Hezbollah missiles in the 1990s and in 2006 share their own experiences and encourage southerners not to despair:

Deizy, posted on 20 May 2007:

From the bottom of my heart, Natan, I wish you and all the residents of Sderot not to lose your cool. Just hold on! And good luck to you!

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=21807, last accessed on 27 Aug 2012.

Viktor, 12, posted on 22 Dec 2008:

Residents of Ashkelon, cheer up! Everything will be fine. Khamastan [a pejorative name of Gaza strip governed by Hamas] should learn and remember for a long time that shelling Israel is dangerous even with Allah’s agreement. The main thing is not to panic. I live in Naharia and our house was hit by two missiles. More than that, both ended up in the same apartment. The owner and his family were away. The apartment was repaired, and they still live in it. After the missile hit the house I climbed to the roof, blocked the water and took pictures.

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=30654&start=30, last accessed on 27 Aug 2012. Indeed, while anger is a frequent companion of these discussion threads, fear and panic are rare. Another observation that can be made comparing the dates of the posts is that even during the periods of the escalation of the conflict, the war theme does not prevail in the targeted towns. This may be a sign that FSU immigrants have adopted the Israeli habit of not letting war and terrorism interfere with everyday life and try to go on with their usual routines, adamantly pretending to be cool and undisturbed. 66 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

While avoiding the issues of terrorism, our young interviewees spoke about fear of crime and anti-social behavior in public places while reflecting about life in their towns. For example, Liudmila admitted that she was reluctant to go to that area in Kiryat Yam where her grandmother lived because she was afraid of hooligans. Tamara indicated the Haifa district which she avoided for the same reason. Gennadii mentioned several times that Upper Nazareth would be quiet and safe if it were not for the neighboring Arabs. Stress topography is known to restrict residents’ movement and affect their spatial behavior (Pacione 1990: 19). Discussing life in Eilat, Ekaterina and Anatolii pointed out that on the one hand, they felt safe in their town thanks to a large number of policemen and guards; on the other hand, after Eilat had evolved into a tourist center, it became attractive to drug dealers. They also deliberated on why a small town is unlikely to have a high level of crime: Interviewer: Is there crime triggered by xenophobia?

Anatolii: Nobody murders anybody here.

Ekaterina: It’s very problematic in a small town. No, of course there is much less crime here. That is, in the Jerusalem [university] dorms hatred against Arabs and Russians is much stronger than in Eilat.

Anatolii: Or in the Beer-Sheva dorms.

Ekaterina: Or in the Beer-Sheva dorms. That is, I think this advantage primarily stems from the same difference that exists between the Jerusalem and Beer-Sheva dorms on the one hand, and Jerusalem and Eilat on the other. It is a very small and restricted community. Just one violator of other people’s peace will immediately alienate a very big number of people. Because it will turn out that in the hospital he will be treated by the mother of his victim, in the police he’ll deal with the victim’s father, then he’ll go to a birthday party of the victim’s junior sister, and so on. Take the case of vandalism here. Not long ago they smashed several, well, quite a few gravestones. The kids did.

Interviewer: Just randomly or…

Ekaterina: Randomly. They are all children from very good and very cultured WHITE families. All the families are white, all the parents are educated, and the kids gave a real (pause)

Anatolii: Show. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 67

Ekaterina: Show. Apparently they drifted into a trance. And they smashed plenty of gravestones. As a result, very few families in town remained unaffected in some way or another.

Anatolii: And if, indeed, the mother works in the hospital and the father is a policeman, they have no place left in Eilat. Several motifs are of interest in this excerpt. First, our interviewees speak without any inhibitions about the intergroup hatred they observed among students in the dorms of their respective universities. They don’t elaborate on this theme because they take it for granted that the interviewer is fully aware of the spread of xenophobia targeting minority groups, including “Russians”. Secondly, they bring up the subject of close ties in a small community. While they present this as a crime deterrent, in other contexts of immigrants’ discourse close-knit networks are viewed primarily as a sign of a closed society and fertile soil for nepotism. It is not by accident that in Ekaterina’s narrative, relatives of a hypothetical victim whom a hypothetical criminal would be unwilling to confront are not street cleaners or supermarket cash- iers, but members of the local elite – hospital employees and policemen. Finally, the excerpt brings up the motif of youth violence that has become a major issue of concern in Israeli towns in the last decade. Ekaterina emphasizes that all the young hooligans who desecrated gravestones came from good “white” families implying that they should be the least likely criminals. This is another example that immigrants have internalized ethnic stereotypes of Israeli society. The increase in street crime and violence previously virtually unknown in Israel, where people used to be proud that it was unneces- sary to lock apartments, is widely discussed in the Russian-language media and in city forums. Among the most serious complaints are gang fights, vandalism, alcoholism and drug addiction, and disturbance of social order. While in some discussions the blame is primarily put on young Arabs and Ethiopian Jews, in others, for example in Ariel, discussants express anxiety about the involvement of Russian-speaking adolescents:

Boded, posted on 23 Aug 2012:

Dear ladies and gentlemen, I am not engaged in politics, but I wish to know whether there is police in our town. I pay land tax regularly and I wish to sleep peacefully at night and go to work after a good night 68 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

sleep. The place where our moteki [Russified Hebrew, “sweeties”, an endearing form often used to address children] get together to have fun, curse and break bottles is known to everyone in the vicinity, including the police. Yes, they are ours, ours. Most of them are Russian speakers and may even be children or grandchildren of those present here [in this forum] Why not? This place is a “100 meter race track” along the Rov ha-Alef shops. The kids are convinced they won’t be punished. It is clear to me why the surrounding adult guys ignore all of it (…) They are simply afraid. (…) Ladies and gentlemen! What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for your children to be detained in such company? Are you waiting for your daughters’ bras to be hanging on the lamp posts? Or do you think you will manage to escape this lot? With such an approach I doubt this.

Discussion thread “What’s going on in the town?” 1,838 posts and 241,538 viewings, http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic. php?f=39&t=36589&start=1830, last accessed on 28 Aug 2012. The Russian-speaking parents’ anxiety about their offspring is justified. The rate of school drop-outs and delinquents among the FSU immigrant adolescents is higher than among their native peers (Fishman & Mesch 2005). As a nation-wide study showed, when FSU immigrant adolescents report increased Israeli identity and reduced Russian identity but at the same time associate mostly with Russian-born peers (which is often the case in Russian enclaves) they are likely to suffer from the feelings of discrimination and alienation which increase the odds of becoming delinquent (Turjeman et al. 2008: 122). The city built originally for the sake of security – to protect residents inside the city walls against malevolent invaders coming from outside – in our times has come to be associated with danger rather than with safety. Contemporary fears are typically “urban fears” as exemplified by watched neighborhoods, surveilled public spaces, armed guards and electronically operated doors (Bauman 1998: 47–48). All these protection measures have become an integral part of Israel’s urban life too, although residents of the neighborhoods, where risks are highest cannot afford the most sophisticated of these. The spread of delinquency and growing worries of the adult population called for multi-faceted measures to combat youth anti- social behavior. In 2004 the sociologist Orly Innes and the mayor of Eilat Meir Itzhak Halevi initiated a complex program “City without Violence” that relied on joint efforts of the municipality, educators, social workers, psychologists, organizers of cultural events and volunteers. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 69

Besides more vigilant control of the streets by policemen and patrols manned by volunteers, the program included installation of numerous video cameras enabling 24-hour monitoring of public places and as a result faster reaction of the police to the violation of public order. The main emphasis, however, was put on creating better opportunities for young people to find jobs and places to study and participate in sports and cultural events for free, thus offering alternatives to “sitting on a bench”. The program’s success in Eilat led to its adoption as a nation- wide project in 2006, and today it operates in 98 municipalities (http:// www.cwv.gov.il/English/About/Pages/default.aspx, last accessed on 23 Aug 2012). The achievements and shortcomings of the program, as well as involvement of Russian-speaking professionals and volunteers in its implementation are regularly covered in the Russian-language media (see e.g., reports about the program in Ashdod http://www.ashdod. ru/news/gorod_bez_nasilija/2010-01-14-292, Karmiel http://haifainfo. ru/?p=12267 and Haifa https://sites.google.com/site/haifaiziteli/home/ socialnye-proekty, last accessed on 23 Aug 2012). Most of the municipal reports about the achievements of the program are scrutinized by the readers in talk-backs. Police are often criticized for insufficient vigilance (see the excerpt of the discussion in the Ariel city forum quoted earlier), and municipal officials for overstating the program’s success. Some authors of the comments appeal to co-ethnics to become actively involved and lead the “zero-tolerance” combat against street violence and crime (see e.g., http://haifa.israelinfo.ru/comments/?id=8469#rules, last accessed on 27 Aug 2012). Since most of the efforts of the program “City without Violence” target adolescents and young people, one of its active participants is the NGO Youth in Distress (ELEM). Founded in 1988 by American and Israeli young professionals, it targets homeless, runaways and delinquent children and adolescents. Among ELEM’s successful projects is “Friendship” Vans. These are mobile night-time help stations which offer humanitarian help (food, showers, clothes, etc.), informal consultations with professionals and volunteers, some of whom are students, and referral to social services when appropriate. Notably, although the web site of the organization specifies that it provides help for Arab and Jewish children, it gives detailed information about its activities in Hebrew and English, a summary in Russian, but there are no explanations in Arabic or Amhari (http://www.elem.org/index. php, last accessed on 23 Aug 2012). 70 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Long Distances in a Small Country

In our focus interviews the theme of safety in public places was discussed in parallel with the issues of mobility. As Amin and Thrift observe, the modern city is unprecedently based on mobility, and, moreover, a mobility that seems to increase year by year. On a number of different levels, far becomes near, and distance is therefore re-defined (Amin & Thrift 2002: 33, 43). Immigrants, however, are limited due to a shortage of resources. As one of our adult interviewees observed, “Israel is a huge country in which distance is not measured in kilometers but in shekels”. Only one respondent in the target sample had a car; the others used public transport. This means that they had to take distance and time of commuting into account when they looked for jobs or institutions to study. Moreover, they could not travel freely on holidays and late in the evening since public transport did not function after 11 p.m. Entertainment in Israel begins late: theater performances and concerts at 8:30 p.m., and disco clubs, pubs and bars fill up only after 9 p.m. Marina: Here it is problematic to get anywhere even on Saturday night. From Kiryat Yam it is problematic since there is no public transport.

Interviewer: And how about shared taxis?

Marina: They come once every one and a half hours. I mean, you can spend the whole evening waiting… It’s like, I got somewhere… simply horrible. I understand that Haifa is different. When I lived in Haifa, I could go out. You just go down the Carmel and find something. And there are shared taxis, and buses. And in Kiryat Yam you can’t find anything, I mean the town is cut off. (…) This town, yes, I feel it’s cut off in essence. It’s cut off from civilization.

Rita: Without a car I feel cut off, in particular, on Shabbat. There are plenty of religious people in our neighborhood. And in the playground it’s primarily them again. The kid doesn’t find a common language with them. If I had a car, I’d go to another neighborhood where my girlfriends live. The atmosphere in the playgrounds is different there. But the situation with public transport is bad not only on Shabbat. For example, when you want to go out in the evening you have to think twice before you make up your mind. To go by bus takes an hour, and you have to wait for it quite a while. And then you have to walk from the bus stop to where you want to get to. And if you go by car, it’s just 20 minutes. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 71

In recent years the situation has improved thanks to the introduction of night buses. Following the example of London and some other Eu- ropean cities, Jerusalem launched a pilot project in 2007, and a year later Tel Aviv and Haifa joined in. Four bus companies are involved and currently 41 lines serve over 50 locales. The main goal of the night lines is to provide safe transportation for young people and tourists travelling to entertainment centers. Night buses run on Thursday and Saturday nights and during vacation time on other nights as well. Only Haifa operates night lines on Friday night, which confirms its reputation of the most secular-friendly town in Israel. According to the Transportation Ministry Survey, 80 per cent of the passengers of night buses are under the age of 24. There has been a general reduction in the number of night accidents after penalties for driving following alcohol consumption became more severe. The survey emphasizes that the rate of serious accidents in the towns that operate night bus routes is 40 per cent lower than in those that don’t (Lior 2012). What the report does not mention is that night lines have increased mobility of the poorer layers of population, those people who cannot afford to have private cars. The work of public transport is among the recurrent themes in city forums. For example, in Ariel, the thread “Bus company Afikim”con - taining information about and changes and discussion of bus routes, schedules and services was started in January 2009 and is still going on, numbering 748 posts and 125,284 viewings, http://forum.israelinfo. ru/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=36523&start=735. In some cases such discussions function as a communication channel between bus companies and residents. For example in Haifa, where issues related to public transport come up frequently in the city electronic paper of Israelinfo. ru, the paper serves as liaison between officials managing public transport and city residents. In 2008 it published the announcement that participants of the city forum could address their questions to the bus company Egged operating in the city (99 posts and 26,230 viewings, http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=26127, last accessed on 29 Aug 2012). The questions that followed showed residents’ interest in a variety of issues ranging from future plans for changes in the routes and schedules to the interaction of buses with other transportation means (intercity trains and the subway). Besides, residents made various suggestions aimed at making public transport more efficient and convenient for the passengers (operating special school routes, putting up maps of all the routes on the bus stops, providing drivers 72 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya with hard copies of bus schedules, and so on). Making their suggestions, forum participants gave examples of what they thought to be good practices of bus companies operating in other Israeli towns and abroad. In the course of discussion many participants complained about inaccurate schedules and a lack of information about changes. They pointed to the needs of schoolchildren whose parents cannot bring them to school by car and to the difficulties of the elderly, who sometimes find it difficult to get home from the outpatients’ clinics since some of the bus routes stop operating at the hour when doctors still receive patients. The bus company had many critics but also supporters, who pointed to the excellent web site of the company that provides all the necessary information.17 Their opponents, however, argued that most of the passengers using buses are either too old to use computers or are too poor to afford buying them. Even using more familiar mobile phones can be a problem for these groups of population: Yazzon, 1/02/2008: Grandmas equipped with telephones can phone the call center and in ridna mova [Ukrainian, “native language”] enquire about the schedule of the bus she needs.

Mishka, 1/02/2008: Sure, just like this. I can imagine such a grandma loaded with bags that she drags from the market take out her mobile phone, call Egged [bus company] and start listening to music while waiting for an operator to answer her question in ridna mova. She may even start dancing, but time is passing, and the money she’ll have to pay for the conversation is clicking J. Although in a farcical way, this exchange has captured the problem of many underprivileged members of contemporary society. The transfer of various services to the Internet welcomed by the young and the middle-aged has become a curse for the elderly and poor who either have no access to or are incapable of mastering new technologies and so feel helpless. City forums also show that intercity trips still remain a problem for many residents, but like other Israelis, immigrants look for a solution in mobilizing their networks. Almost all the city forums have requests for a one-time ride or a long-term partnership in commuting. This practice is wide-spread among the affluent and among the poor, enabling cost sharing and optimizing time. In most of the towns there are places known as trampiadas, where people looking for rides can wait for a friendly driver to pick them up. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 73

In the Soviet Union people who owned cars were the minority; but public transport was cheap and functioned from early morning until late at night. In Israel youngsters without cars either become dependent on parents and turn them into taxi drivers, or have to travel in taxis, which is not affordable for many immigrant families. Further- more, Russian-speaking parents, who are much less permissive in educational matters than veteran Israelis, do not always allow their teenage children, particularly daughters, to take taxis late at night. Although night lines have improved the situation, young immigrants may still feel confined to their homes. An overwhelming concern of the less affluent population about poor public transport and heated Internet discussions about every new bus route, every kilometer of rail-track extension, and the running of the public transport on Sabbath testify to the importance of this problem for Israel.

City Internet Forums: A New Form of Group Solidarity and Place Involvement

Most of the online city forums that we have monitored started their activities in 2003, although some towns joined later, e.g., Eilat in 2004 and Sderot in 2006. As mentioned earlier, some of the city forums show few signs of activity, while others have hundreds of discussion threads and thousands of posts and viewings. This difference does not only stem from the number of Russian speakers in different towns, rather it reflects the vivacity of the local Russian-speaking communities, resourcefulness of moderators and the number of active participants posting messages instead of just lurking. As we have seen in the discussions about shelling, not all the users participating in online chats in a specific city forum are residents of that particular town. Some don’t even live in Israel, which doesn’t prevent them from being actively involved in discussions. In general, the attitude to newcomers in the city forums is positive, and their questions seldom remain unanswered. Practices for socializing newcomers are the same as in many other online communities: display of FAQs, no restrictions for viewing discussion threads and explicit invitations to sign up and join online conversations (Ren et al. 2007: 394). City forums are often used as a medium providing instrumental aid and support. Several forums with low activity function primarily as electronic notice boards, with immigrant-owned businesses offering 74 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya goods and services, and individuals asking about jobs, apartments for rent, addresses of organizations and agencies, and availability of various services. In such cases a thread can contain just one post, usually an ad, although the automatic counter sometimes registers hundreds or even thousands of viewings. One such example is the city forum of the town of Hadera: out of 175 discussion threads more than one third (65) contain one post and no responses or comments, and 87 have from 1 to 10 responses. Many topics in city forums are formulated as requests for help in matters as diverse as choosing a good school for a child, a doctor with reputation, a retraining course in a specific field or a barber for a dog. Some of these requests sound urgent if not desperate: • Please Help! My washing machine has broken down. I need your advice! • Help to find amishpahton [Hebrew, “private kindergarten”] in the vicinity of Dereh Iavne!!!!!!!!!!!!! • Save a child! Urgent! • Please help: A mother is unable to reach her daughter on the phone! The severity of the problems named in the titles of the threads may be incomparable, but the writers rely on the camaraderie of the participants and hope to reach large numbers of people. Campaigns to raise money for an expensive surgery or treatment often come from parents living in the FSU – in the recent years the so called “medical tourism” has grown considerably thanks to the reputation of Israel’s medical care and to the visa-free travel for Russian and Ukrainian citizens.18 Requests to find a missing person also come primarily from forum participants living outside Israel. Such ads are regularly placed in Russian-language newspapers, and in recent years, search for friends or family members has become a recurrent theme in city forums too (see a narrative about a successful search for a friend through a newspaper in Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2005, Vol. 2: 43–45). Many requests for advice in city forums come from new immigrants or those who are only planning to move to Israel. Future immigrants use city forums as a source of information before choosing a town to live. They ask about language learning courses, availability of jobs and social services. They inquire about the security situation in the chosen town, facilities for the children and the elderly and also about weather conditions – an important factor for those who move to a dif- Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 75

Figure 3. Although Israelis can post their ads in the press and on the Internet, the old method of sticking a private advertisement to fences, wooden boards or any other surfaces that seem suitable to the advertisers is still popular among the Russian speakers.

ferent climate. Some mention that institutional sites for immigrants are not informative enough and so they prefer advice of co-ethnics who have gone through the ordeals of immigration. Sharing information online increases immigrants’ social capital by simplifying access to the necessary services and organizations and creating a network of acquaintances. In fact, many messages end with suggestions to continue the conversation by e-mail or by phone. In some forums, there are threads in which participants discuss having get-togethers in real life. Online city forums are also used for organizing offline activities for members of the Russian-speaking community. Professional and amateur actors and musicians are invited to auditions, new members 76 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya are recruited to the local branches of the brain ring “What? Where? When?”, the Club of the Merry and Resourceful (KVN) and Bards’ clubs. There are invitations to participate in meetings for businessmen, art contests and festivals, sign up for domestic tours to popular and off-track destinations, attend lectures in scientists’ clubs, and so on. On some occasions, city forums are used to organize actions to protect institutions created by immigrants. This was the case with a Russian library affiliated with the Immigrants’ House in Ashdod. When in 2010 the municipality wanted to close it down and move the books to another library, the issue was discussed not only in the Russian-language press and on the state TV channel broadcasting in Russian, but also in the city forum of Ashdod (131 posts and 31,569 viewings, http://forum. israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=38813, last accessed on 14 Sept 2012). Those members of the debate who opposed the municipal decision called on forum members to protest against it, citing a successful campaign against closing the Russian library in Jerusalem. City forums clearly show growing involvement of the Russian- speaking residents in the life of their towns. As Wojcik aptly remarks, local electronic city forums are exceptional as they allow an unbroken opinion flow (Wojcik 2010: 7). We observe lively conversations when building or reconstruction projects are discussed. Some of the comments contain detailed description and evaluation of the projects, give links to the articles in the press about them and photographs uploaded by the commentators or copied from other sites. In each forum we can see a lot of criticism targeting local authorities in matters related to public order, ecology, operation of utilities and public transport. But these criticisms are not reduced to mere grumbling. In many threads we hear voices calling on co-ethnics to take an active stand in the approach to city problems. Thus, in the discussion thread “Residents’ proposals for the improvement of services and utilities in Beer Sheva” (67 posts, 3,166 viewings), the user who initiated the thread encouraged participants to photograph problematic places and people violating public order, and post their pictures in the forum.19 He/she also wrote:

Volerner, posted on 11 Jun 2010:

The situation won’t change by itself. If we want a change, let us ask ourselves a question: What can I do to change the situation?

http://forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=38264, last accessed on 12 Sept 2012. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 77

Figure 4. Graffiti in Israeli towns are as multilingual as their residents. This message on the wall of an apartment house in Haifa reads: Those who love animals do not eat them.

In the course of the discussion this user also offered help in fixing the broken swings on a children’s playground which were mentioned in the discussion among examples of bad maintenance of municipal property. Immigrants’ growing ties with their towns of residence are also manifested in the curiosity expressed about local flora and fauna and narratives about wild animals living in parks and wadies (beds of dried-up rivers with lush vegetation). Forum participants talk about the history of street naming and demonstrate concern about the protection of old buildings and historic sites. In several forums we find threads in which participants talk about prominent residents and achievements of the local institutions and individuals. See, e.g., the thread “Ashdod can be proud”, 174 posts and 47,299 viewings (http:// forum.israelinfo.ru/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=29660&sid=40655915f9caf cecaac9423179958d91, last accessed on 14 Sept 2012). It started with information about an award received by a Russian-speaking academic living in Ashdod and greetings sent to him by forum participants. 78 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

The conversation continued with the posts about successes of Ashdod sportsmen and young musicians. High rating of Ashdod high-school graduates in the matriculation exams was also mentioned as a source of pride, proving again that good education remains an important value for members of the Russian-speaking community. A similar thread in the Haifa forum, “They are from Haifa: Gold can be easily told!!!” started with the information about the Nobel Prize awarded to two professors of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology located in Haifa (40 posts and 19,246 viewings, http://forum.israelinfo.ru/ viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5375, last accessed on 14 Sept 2012). Like in the Ashdod forum, the conversation then moved to other prominent residents of the city contributing to its wellbeing and international image. The choice of celebrities in these threads is biased, as most of them are Russian Jews, which boosts the immigrants’ ego filling them with pride for co-ethnics and for the city. Finally, it is important to note that there is a deictic shift from “they” to “us” and a frequent use of phrases “my city”, “our town” in the immigrants’ discourse about urban life in Israel – a clear sign of cognitive positioning oneself in a place and appropriating it.

Conclusions

• The identity of a place can be perceived as a unit of three interrelated components – physical features or appearance, observ- able activities and functions, and meanings and symbols (Relph 1976: 60). Immigrants start their acquaintance with new towns from appearances. Everyday activities needed to settle and earn a living in the new environment make them learn the functions of various streets, squares and buildings. Understanding of symbolic meanings requires exposure to traditions and rituals and may take much longer to grasp, but without this knowledge the real identity of the town remains elusive to newcomers. As the biographic interviews we conducted showed, in the first years after resettlement, immigrants keep comparing their new towns with their native towns and other cities in the FSU. Nostalgia is not the only reason for this. These comparisons made it easier for our subjects to make sense of and structuralize their new experiences. In the majority of cases the first comparisons were not in favor of Israeli towns. This phenomenon was vividly described by Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 79

the Russian-Israeli writer Nina Voronel: “When I came to Israel, all the towns here looked the same to me, because none of them was Moscow. But gradually I came to like Tel Aviv: the longer I strolled along its narrow crooked lanes, the more I learned about its alleys and boutiques, the dearer it became to me. All the more so that the city has become so much more beautiful, young trees adorned streets turning them boulevards, while Moscow gradually faded and became distant” (Voronel 2011: 31). Indeed, many urban localities have become more comfortable for living and more attractive to look at. FSU immigrants have played their role by creating “Russian” islands with food and book stores, boutiques and beauty salons, kindergartens and afternoon schools, libraries and hobby groups run in community centers or in private apartments. While shops and services are increasingly used by Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking Israelis, cultural institutions created by Russian- speaking Israelis cater to members of the in-group where hybrid Russian-Israeli identities find expression and evolve new symbolic meanings. • In the Soviet Union mobility was limited by registered domicile, vigilantly controlled by the state. In Israel immigrants are free to choose where to live and nobody blocks moving from an inconven- ient or rundown neighborhood or town to a better organized and more prosperous area. Yet many FSU immigrants are still located in areas that they can afford, and as a result, in many cases their social environment does not correspond to their former, and sometimes current, social status. A high percentage of Russian-speaking Israelis live among members of other ethnic groups, in particular Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews, and Arabs, while the target of many families is to live among middle-class European Jews. To achieve this goal some families buy apartments in poorer neighborhoods, lease them, and rent in more expensive areas. An important motive behind these complex operations is to immerse the children in a desirable environment as regards school and potential friends. These tendencies show that Russian-speaking immigrants have internalized the sociospatial ideals of Israeli society and have joined the race to attain them. • The perception of core and periphery found in both interview samples and in discussion forums is in line with the Russian cultural tradition: the core is associated with the opportunity, prosperity, 80 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

culture, and entertainment, while the periphery is disliked and despised. The words “province”, “village”, “small town”, and “sub- urbia” are invariably used pejoratively to characterize the towns the interviewees and forum participants dislike. • Perception of distance among ex-Soviets has changed, particularly in the case of those who used to live in metropolitan areas. While daily commuting for over one hour is taken for granted in such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, etc., trips of the same length in Israel are seen as long and unacceptable as part of the daily routine, particularly for those who do not own cars. Despite some improvements in public transportation, immigrants without cars often suffer from limitations in mobility, making them feel they are second-rate citizens. • Discourse on urban life in Israel shows many signs that Russian- speaking immigrants of the 1990s-2000s have developed an insider position as regards urban life in Israel. Whether discussing changes occurring in their towns of residence, proposing improvements of city services, advertising cultural events or documenting local life in photo and video albums posted in discussion forums and blogs, Russian-speaking Israelis demonstrate a growing feeling of place belonging. This comes strongest in city forums when offline actions to improve liveability in towns are negotiated, and when “veterans” serve as guides and councilors for the new and potential immigrants. • Words from the semantic field “space” are frequently used in immigrants’ discourse to describe one’s degree of integration. The master-metaphor here is “to find or not to find one’s place” in the new country.

Notes

1 Associations of fellow-countrymen were created to facilitate maintenance of cultural traditions of Jews coming from different areas of the FSU and consolidate ties with the countries and towns of origin. Besides organizations catering to immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Kyrgyzstan, mountain Jews, etc., there are smaller units formed by residents of towns, e.g., Tomsk, Donetsk, Cheliabinsk, Samara, and so on. Besides organizing conferences, informal meetings and cultural events, they function as solidarity networks helping newcomers to integrate in the new country. Israeli Towns through the Eyes of Russian-Speaking Israelis 81

2 Here and further the date following the address of the web site indicates the date when it was last accessed.

3 The following are self-reported data about the level of education of the respondents: unfinished secondary – 0.5%; secondary – 15.6%; unfinished higher – 13%; higher – 56.9%; Academic degree (Ph.D. or Big Doctorate) – 13.9%, http://polls.zahav.ru/?date=07-09-2012, last accessed on 18 Sept 2012.

4 According to the surveys conducted in 1992, 82.3% of FSU immigrants came from big industrial cities in the European part of the USSR (Hasson 1996: 169).

5 Note that there are some similarities between housing problems and methods of solving them in Israel and in the USSR. In the 1920s it was common practice in the Soviet Russia to distribute rooms in the apartments and houses abandoned by émigrés among the needy. Those owners who stayed on were forced to make do with a single room giving up the rest to ex-servants or strangers. This gave birth to the ill-famed communal apartments. Like in Israel, the standards of new housing projects were low, in particular in the 1930s, when the best building materials were kept for big industrial projects, building technologies were primitive, and the workers, many of them former peasants, unskilled (Lahusen 2006: 744).

6 We change the names of our interviewees but provide genuine demographic information about them for the time the interviews were conducted.

7 The Green Line is the term commonly used to refer to the demarcation of the 1949 Armistice Agreement.

8 Excerpts from the interviews and Internet posts were not edited and reflect contaminations and individual style of narrators and Internet users. Omis- sions are marked with (…), Hebrew insertions are italicized, and fragments emphasized by intonation are printed in bold font.

9 News items were classified using the following categories: local business activities, new building and infrastructure development projects, ecological situation, housing, municipality reports, international contacts, education, local NGO activities, culture and entertainment, holidays, sports, law and crime, interethnic relations, social protest and strikes, press portraits. Some of the articles could be included in two or more categories. In such cases the prevailing theme was determined by the title of the article, key words and the links to other articles covering similar topics which are given below each article. 82 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

10 The monitored papers are not equally active, and so the three equally big samples cover different periods of time: Haifa, from the 13th of June to the 25th of July; Ashdod, from the 27th of April to the 25th of July; Ariel, from the 23rd of June 2011 to the 17th of July, 2012.

11 In the original the second part of the title “Arabam v Karmiele zhit’, prepon ne chinit’” seeks to create a humorous effect, because it is rhymed and alludes to the edicts of the Russian czar Peter I.

12 Brighton Beach, an outpost of Brooklyn, came to be known as Little Odessa because several waves of Jewish immigration from the USSR turned into a Russian-Jewish ghetto. The name became proverbial after the 1994 movie of the same title by James Gray.

13 According to a recent survey devoted to school education, which was conducted by the portal Kursor, the majority of respondents believe the Soviet system of school education was more effective than the Israeli system (http://cursorinfo.co.il/news/novosti/2012/09/02/shkola/, last accessed on 17 Oct 2012).

14 Russian-speaking Israelis are active participants in online discussions about the role of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the past and today (Yelenevskaya 2011: 104, 108).

15 This is the first line of a popular Soviet song inspiring the nation to be ready to retaliate if an enemy wages a war. The music was composed by Dmitrii and Daniel Pokras and the lyrics by Vladimir Lebedev-Kumach.

16 In July 2006, when approximately 4,000 shells and missiles were shot at the northern towns of Israel from Lebanon, numerous families in the South offered to host families who had fled their homes. There were FSU immigrants among the hosts and the refugees.

17 One of the authors uses public transport regularly and can testify that inaccurate schedules make passengers waste a lot of time. The high-tech solution of downloading the program updating passengers about minute changes in schedules does not yet cover routes away from the center of the country.

18 Visa requirements for Russian citizens travelling to Israel were eliminated in 2008 and for Ukrainian citizens in 2011.

19 This is reminiscent of the notice boards with photographs of drunkards and hooligans under the title “They disgrace our town” which one could see in the streets of some Soviet towns. Chapter 2. Legal Anthropology: Dilemmas of Law and Order in Immigrants’ Life

Interdisciplinary ties between law and anthropology were established over a century ago. Social scientists working at the interface of these disciplines have investigated the relationship of law and society, in particular, the way in which legal categories shape, reflect, or tran- scend the categories of society at large. Yet as Riles remarks, legal scholarship still almost universally operates in the realm of generalized assumptions without precise consideration of how ideas or fragments of ideas migrate across the boundary that distinguishes law from everyday life. Therefore, a critical ethnographic consideration of the cross-fertilization between law and anthropology reveals some surpris- ing insights about the way in which ideas move among disciplines and, in particular, about how social categories come to be translated into the language of law (Riles 1994: 600–601). This task lies within the domain of legal anthropology. Definitions of legal anthropology differ, but as Nixon remarks, everybody agrees that it seeks to illuminate the ordering of human society (Nixon 1998). This discipline investigates the ways law, including custom law, operates in various cultures and analyzes concepts of justice as related to politics, religion, social life, economics and ethics. It studies how law influences society, and how society in its turn influences law. In the 1990s, experts in legal anthropology called for greater attention to interdisciplinary scholarship that would take into account advances in linguistics, narratology, and studies of transnationalism. Our investigation follows the latter trend as it is at the crossroads of legal anthropology, folklore, and immigration studies. 84 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Until recently legal anthropology remained on the periphery of the social sciences and humanities. Today it increasingly interests jurists, as well as sociologists, psychologists, sociolinguists, scholars of migration, folklore and literature. As the interdisciplinary methodology finds more proponents among social scientists, specific features of language use and construction of narratives in legal practices are moving to the foreground. According to N. Novikova (2012), legal anthropology views the human as a social being and focuses on legal dimensions and characteristics of social life from antiquity to the present day. The problems of interest to legal anthropologists include the right of the other to be different; the study of oral forms of law, such as regulations, norms, myths, legends, proverbs, sayings and other folklore genres; research into activities of institutions and sanctions facilitating conflict avoidance and prevention.1 In addition, legal anthropology investigates attitudes to law and its violations, and analyzes how various groups in society evaluate the effectiveness of the judicial system. There is no single definition of law because in different societies and cultures it has different manifestations. “Law” emerged and evolved as a Western term and concept, and attempts to include varieties of institutions and processes in non-Western societies that are the counterparts of Western legal institutions have led to a gradual widening and even dilution of the notion (Gulliver 1969: 12). In many countries several legal systems, such as civil, custom, and religious laws, function in parallel: in Israel, for example, besides civil courts there are rab- binical and sharíah courts. The concepts of the norm and its violation in these systems may differ and sometimes even contradict each other (see Barzilai 2003; Gulliver 1969; Rattner, Yagil & Pedahzur 2001). The question of whether the law is just and fair sparked philosophical debates already in ancient times and is reflected in Hellenist literature, for instance, in Sophocles’ portrayal of Antígone and Plato’s of Socrates (Harris 1996: 1–2). The conflict of the law and moral im- perative is also the subject of medieval Jewish literature of the sages, Hazal in Hebrew (see, e.g., Kosman 2002). Debates about the law, when they are not merely debates about how legal precedent mechanically applies in a particular situation, are also ethical debates because there is a difference between what is legally right and what we consider really right or just2. The discrepancy between what is legal and what is deemed moral is rooted in the peculiarities of the human psyche. The American psychologist Berne introduces the notion of “legal thinking” Legal Anthropology 85 evolving in childhood as an attempt to transgress without breaking a parental prohibition. Adaptive and non-adaptive behaviors often come into conflict, making a youth calculate the boundaries of the permissible. This type of thinking is particularly common in personal sexual ethics. For example, a boy who is told “not to mess around with women” may take this as permission “to mess around with other boys”. In terms of legal thinking he is in the clear because he is not doing anything his parents explicitly forbid (Berne 1972: 104–106). Just like children, adults are often confronted with a dilemma: how can one have one’s way without breaking regulations. In such cases legal thinking acquired in childhood may persist into adulthood. While legal thinking, according to Berne, is an attribute of an individual’s psyche, legal consciousness is an element of group consciousness. People may share legal consciousness if they have undergone similar experiences; this can apply, for example, to members of the same social class or to members of the same minority group. Anthropologists investigating legal consciousness focus on legal aptitude or competence or on perceptions and images of the law among members of the group being studied. The former conceptualize law primarily in terms of its substantive rules and procedures, and view legal consciousness as knowledge and facility in using them. Researchers who focus on communities of meaning, and we are among them, conceptualize “law” primarily in terms of its symbolic power, and focus on the ideas people have about legal rules and institutions (Engel 1998: 113, 139). The interpretation of the social world, including the law is no less real than that world itself. Thus the constructed world cannot and should not be ignored irrespective of whether certain concepts and schemas are real or not. As Ewick and Silbey have shown, belief in witches in the Renaissance Europe influenced how people saw one another, interpreted other people’s and their own behavior and how they responded to conflicts. What is illusory for our contemporaries was very real then (Ewick & Silbey 1998: 23, 42). Legal anthropology distinguishes the notions of “internal legal culture” held by legal professionals and academics from the “external legal culture” representing the opinions and pressures of the lay public and brought to bear by various social groups (Nelken 2004: 116). Our study lies within the domain of external legal culture, and since we have no professional background in law we are also bearers of external legal culture. The perspective, known as estrangement (Shklovskii 1983: 15), enables researchers from non-legal fields to reveal com- 86 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya mon (customary) legal consciousness. Propositions postulated from the perspective of other fields may be incompatible with conceptions of law as an academic discipline. This dissonance, however, is useful because it reflects the reality of legal regulations in various spheres (Zabbarov 1999). Legal anthropologists often focus on processes of dispute settlement. A case history should include three main stages: the prehistory of the dispute, the dispute itself, and the social consequences that follow settlement. Careful documentation reveals the prehistory of the conflict and discloses its genesis before it becomes a dispute, hence before evidence, inferences, and attitudes are modified or stereotyped (Gulliver 1969: 13–15). Since our expertise is studies of the narrative we don’t focus on the conflict itself but on its presentation and interpretation in the narrative. The processes of globalization and the ever increasing scope of migration call for new thinking in regard to law and migrants, who are influenced by at least two cultures and have to build their relations with the receiving society in the framework of a legal system that may differ from that in their country of origin. We agree with Harris that anthropology often focuses on individuals and groups that are at the frontiers of legality and whose relationship with the law is at best ambivalent (Harris 1996: 3). Immigrants belong to minorities, and various researchers have shown that minorities tend to distrust the law and legal institutions (see, e.g., He 2005; Seron, Pereira & Kovath 2004; Yagil & Rattner 2005). A significant feature of minority groups is that they have fewer opportunities and less power than dominant groups3. Immigrants’ legal consciousness and attitudes to law are of particular interest, because on the one hand they may be unaware of the adversarial nature of legal proceedings; on the other hand, fear of courts, or disappointment resulting from the realization that the rules are not golden, will contribute to more emotional distress in the already inherently stressful situation of immigration (Barrett & George 2005: 12). The purpose of this chapter is to analyze attitudes to law as they emerge in personal narratives about court cases and trickster stories told by immigrants from the FSU to Israel. Material for the study was drawn from in-depth 36 interviews which were tape-recorded with the interviewees’ consent. The interviews were conducted in informal settings in Russian, the mother tongue of the interviewees and interviewers. Thirteen subjects told stories of court cases; five of them Legal Anthropology 87 spoke at length about their various encounters with the law, the rest told us about just one. Some interviewees gave an account of stories that they had heard from their acquaintances adding them to their personal narratives. To interpret fieldwork material we apply content and discourse analyses and rely on our own experience as participant observers. We can define our approach as “ethnography of living voices” (Tishkov 2003: 36). Accepting Roberts’s warning that the range and kind of information obtained is circumscribed by the questions asked by the investigator and that these questions must be determined by his preconceptions as to what the legal system he is investigating is like (Roberts 1995: 332–333), we admit that we are full participants in the investigated group with all advantages and limitations presup- posed by this role. Like White, who emphasized the role of fiction in the education of jurists, seeing it as a way of looking at the law from the outside (White 1973: XX), we think that a similar goal can be achieved by focusing on lay people’s narratives. Although most of them lack merits of good fiction, they also serve to give the jurist a common sense of what legal literature leaves out, and define a context from which judgments can be drawn and against which they can be tested. Russian-speaking Israelis can be regarded as a community with its own subculture. Like any other subculture, it is on the periphery of society and is largely closed to outsiders. As mentioned in the previous chapter, immigrants from the FSU are distinguished by strong conviction that high educational level and affinity with Russian culture, considered to be an integral part of European culture, entitles them to a much higher social status than what they have attained to date. The vast majority of the group’s members are determined to preserve the language and culture of their country of origin and to reproduce a familiar way of life, including leisure activities, cuisine, holidays (see the next chapter), and so on.4 In addition, ex-Soviets have a distinctive attitude to law formed back in the USSR. In their stories narrators emerge in various roles: as perpetrators or victims of cheating and swindling and as interpreters of other people’s experiences. Some try to achieve justice by going to court; others refuse to try to defend themselves with the help of the legal system having no trust in it. Our task is to show mental structures linked to the notions of “law”, “justice” and “court” and analyze their relation to integration processes. Do immigrants perceive the law as protection by the state or alienation from it? 88 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Ex-Soviets and Legal Consciousness

Legal consciousness of a cultural community is reflected in the language. Ethnographic data testifies that there is an enduring and rigid opposition of law and justice in Russian traditional culture, and the notion of justice is superior to the notion of law. In Church Slavonic and in early Russian the notions of pravda (truth) and zakon (law) were closely linked semantically. Gradually, however, this connection disappeared. Pravda acquired religious connotations and came to be perceived as earthly reflections of heavenly truth. Zakon lost associations with pravda but remained ideological and acquired negative connotations that were reinforced by social practices (Chumakova 2006). The Russian concept of spravedlivost’, a semantic combination of the English “justice” and “fairness” is one of the most important values in Russian culture and is reflected in the lexis. Notably “law” and legality” are often juxtaposed with “justice” and “what is moral and fair” (see, e.g., Lebedeva 1999: 128–138; Lurie 1997; Stepanov 2001: 571–600; Volodina 2010; Znakov 1997). Unlike formal legality (zakonnost’), justice appeals to the inner sense (Levontina & Shmelev 2000: 282) and constitutes one of the most important ethical values in Russian culture. A typical Russian question is: “How should one rule: according to law or according to justice?” And it is difficult to translate it adequately into European languages (Shmelev 1999: 227). In an article first published in 1981, Lotman investigated historical antecedents of Russian legal culture and juxtaposed a magic and a religious socio-cultural model. The magic system of relations is distinguished by reciprocity, coercion, equivalence, and agreement. The religious model is not based on exchange but on unconditional submission to power. Relations of this type are distinguished by one-sidedness (the party that submits to a person/institution of power expects protection, but lack of reward cannot justify breaking the relationship) and absence of coercion (one party gives everything, while the other is free to give nothing in return), and they are not equal. So relations built according to the religious model are not based on agreement but on unreserved commitment. Russia’s transition from paganism, apparently rooted in magic, to Christianity resulted in coexistence of and constant tension between the two models (Lotman 1993: 345–346). Following Lot- man’s work, Živov postulated duality of the Russian legal system. He analyzed medieval legal texts in Russian and Church Slavonic, and Legal Anthropology 89 showed that the former were based on Russian custom law traced to paganism while the latter were linked to Byzantine, that is Christian, legal norms. A clear division between the Russian and Church Slavonic forms of law was that the latter enjoyed high social status but was not applied. Translation of legal sources from Church Slavonic into Russian began during the rule of the czar Alexey Mikhailovich (17th century). This boosted the status of Russian legal culture, but its effectiveness dropped. Some of the laws were never used, and none was obligatory (Živov 1988). Živov convincingly shows that legislation was turned into a weapon used by the Romanovs in their struggle to tame the unruly population. In that war society split into antagonistic groups, each evolving its own culture, morals and patterns of behavior. Legal consciousness was also divided: the law stopped being an institution regulating conflicts of interests; therefore the common basis of the legal consciousness of different groups disappeared. What was considered by one group adherence to the customs and rules imposed by society was perceived by another as violation of the law. Under such conditions the notion of “crime” varied from group to group. The common denominator for all was the conviction that any action against one’s own group was criminal, while actions against other groups were not subject to legal judgment (Živov 1988: 82). Legal duality and the split between the state and peasant communities were inherited by the urban culture (Lurie 1997). This ambivalence, as well as skepticism about the good intentions of government administration and courts, is reflected in Russian folklore. Most vividly folk attitudes to law and justice emerge in proverbs, which can be viewed as products of selection of social practices, and serve to reproduce national legal phenomena. The most authoritative collection of Russian proverbs, by Vladimir Dal’, has several sections dealing with law, truth, justice, and courts. Among them we find maxims formulating relations between the state and its citizens, community and individuals, landowners and serfs, and so on (Dal’ 1957: 169–175, 245–246). Many proverbs evaluate the Russian legal system, and although some show respect for law and praise law-abiding citizens, the overwhelming majority expresses acute distrust of the law, and especially of judges. The latter are suspected of bribe-taking, pettifogging, and bending the law as they please. These proverbs reflect the pessimism of a simple man, convinced that without connections or money he will not find justice in court (Tsikhotskaia 1999: 43; Tsikhotskii 2002: 127–28). Here are some examples of proverbs illustrating these points: 90 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Zakon kak pautina – shershen’proskochet, a mukha uviaznet. (Laws catch flies but let hornets go free).

Zakon, chto dyshlo – kuda povernesh, tuda i vyshlo. (The law is like a shaft – whichever way you turn it, you are shafted).

Sudeiskie vorota bez serebra ne otkryvaiutsia. (A judge’s doors open only to silver).

Sudiam to i polezno, chto im v karman polezlo. (What’s good for the judge is what’s good for his pocket). (see English equivalents in Mertvago 1995)

Another folklore genre dwelling on legal issues is swindler novellas presenting a wide repertoire of cheating, from forgery to false evidence, from deliberate use of ambiguity in speech to making incredible sound plausible. The law, legal relations, and trials in a class society are presented as logically faulty, overly rigid, and detrimental to individuals. The law is not restricted to written laws, but also includes unofficial customary law. Novellas and animal tales invariably undermine, con- demn, and turn the logic of the law inside out (Iudin 1998: 177–178, 182). One of the favorite folk games of the past dealt with legal issues. Mock-trials were an indispensable part of Christmas-tide entertainment in villages. The key character of such performances was a “prosecutor”, while a “council for defense” was never present. The procedural details of the trial remained on the periphery, because they were needed just to present the “truth” about the wrongdoings of the “accused” to the audience. The ritual ignored the dichotomy of guilty - not guilty, sentenced - acquitted. Whatever the developments of the plot, it inevitably ended in the victory of the prosecution. Other outcomes were ruled out (Lurie 1995; Lurie 1999: 176). Of special interest is an anonymous Povest’ o Shemiakinom sude (Shemiaka’s Judgment) written in the second half of the 17th century. It tells a story of absurd decisions made by judge Shemiaka in favor of a poor defendant guided by false expectations of a bribe. As Shemiaka learned later a bundle in the defendant’s hand did not contain money but a stone to kill the judge in case of an unfavorable ruling (No author 1977). Lapitskii convincingly criticized the academic approach popular Legal Anthropology 91 in his time which had traced the plot of this story to foreign sources, either Oriental or Polish. Through meticulous comparisons of the plot and terminology used in the text with legal practices of the city courts of the low level, typical of that historical period, the researcher showed the Russian origin of the tale. He also stated that the proverbial saying “Shemiakin sud” (Shemiaka’s Judgment) did not have actual court practices as its antecedents but was drawn from the text, and so the tale is older than the saying (Lapitskii 1948: 99). The popularity of this saying is not limited to Russia, but is still popular among ex-Soviets now living abroad. In one of the Russian-language Israeli blogs, for example, we came across a proverbial saying “Shemiakin Bagatz”, a bilingual coinage adapting the familiar “Shemiaka’s Judgment” to Is- raeli realities. A user with a nickname akrav [Hebrew, for a scorpion] discussed a possibility of suing the then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the policy of Demarcation alleged to be a violation of the “contract” with his voters. The blogger pessimistically concluded that “our Shemiaka’s Bagatz [a Hebrew acronym for The High Court of Justice] will surely acquit sharoshka’s office”.5 Trickster stories and the theme of cheating are well-represented in Russian folklore-like novellas that became popular in the 17th century. They admired the boldness and wit of the smart swindler who cannot hope to achieve a worthy position in society by honest means, so he plunges into shameless adventures. In the 18th century the strengthen- ing of Christianity and the development of culture constrained amoral and mischievous behavior and its poeticized description (Egorov 2002). From the early 19th century to the present day legal themes in Russian literature can be roughly divided into three categories: unjust trials manipulated by people with access to institutions of power or capable of bribery; corruption of state officials; poetization of individuals re- belling against the system. Analyses of these issues can be found in the work of literary critics (Kariakin 1971; Murav 2001; Rogachevskii 2000) and jurists (see, e.g., Rivlin 1957). Distrustful attitudes to law intensified in the Soviet period as a result of Stalin’s massive purges when millions of people disappeared in the camps without public trials. Contemporary Russian folklore related to legal culture was enriched by the Gulag folk tradition. The penetration of the Gulag folklore into the speech of different social groups is demonstrated in Novikov’s analysis of student song culture. Gulag songs were performed in the late 1950s and 1960s at parties and on trips to the country. Besides genuine criminal cant that be- 92 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya came popular outside camps in that period, the students’ repertoire included stylized pieces of their own authorship (Novikov 1994). With the loosening of censorship in the late 1980s, the most popular of these songs came to be performed publicly on stage and were included in anthologies of songs. This confirms that the boundaries between oral and written folklore forms are blurred; neither are there clear-cut boundaries between folklore and literature. Gulag folklore influenced bards’ songs.6 Thus, in 1968 after the trial of demonstrators, who dared to come to the Red Square to raise their voices against the Soviet pogrom of Prague Spring, Iulii Kim wrote his “Advocates’ Waltz”. It was devoted to lawyers Boris Zolotukhin, Dina Kaminskaia, Iurii Pozdeev and Sofia Kallistratova, who chal- lenged attorneys’ status subordinate to the state prosecutor in Soviet political trials and risked their personal well-being to defend their dissident clients. Konechno, usilia tshchetny All the efforts are certainly pointless. I im ne vdolbit’ nichego: You’ll never drum anything into their heads, Predmety dlia nikh If matter is immaterial for them, bespredmetny, A beloe prosto cherno. And white is nothing but black. Sudie zaodno s prokurorom The judge and the prosecutor act in concert, Plevat’ na detal’nyi razbor, Why bother scrutinizing the facts Im lish’ by prikryt’ When the only matter that concerns razgovorom them Gotovyi uzhe prigovor. Is to hide behind talking and chatting that the verdict is ready to go. (…) Ved’ pravda moia My innocence is as clear as day light, ochevidna, Ved’ belye nitki vidat’! Just look and see how transparent it is! Ved’ liudiam dolzhno zhe These people should be ashamed of byt’ stydno their ways, Takikh zhe liudei ne But are they? I bet one can hardly take poniat’! it in!7 Legal Anthropology 93

While according to Kim, in view of Khodorkovskii’s and Lebedev’s trials this song remains up-to-date in Russia (Galperovich 2012), we think that at least several stanzas go beyond local significance. They put in a nutshell deep-rooted pessimism about justice in courts typical of ex-Soviets in different countries. According to post-Soviet surveys, the majority of Russians think that when the law collides with commonsense, priority must be given to the latter (see results of public opinion monitoring quoted by Oleinik 2003: 156). We tend to believe that in this case the notions of justice and commonsense converge. As a result, the attitude to law in present-day Russia demonstrates lack of trust. As Guboglo put it, a lack of trust is critical in the attitude to law since it leads to the supremacy of power over it. Ethical norms erode or are destroyed completely, while agree- ments and mutual obligations become valueless (Guboglo 2003: 215). Soviet social life was overburdened with numerous rules and limitations which were often impossible to comply with. To cope with this quagmire Soviet people had to rely on informal networks of mutual support and favors, blat, and often resorted to bribes. These were survival strategies crucial in the face of constant scarcity and they were used by all groups and in all domains. When people engaged in these activities were caught, they had to face punitive damages or even a prison term. In the official discourse blat and bribes were castigated as “shameful relics of the capitalist past” and were a frequent topic in the media. Yet lay people were tolerant of these phenomena, in particular blat. A well-connected person was seen as an example for emulation; moreover the power of connections and favors was often used not only for one’s own advantage, but as help to others and was seen as a type of altruism. Even bribes were often perceived as a form of gratitude for services impossible to receive using official channels, the attitude that can be traced to pre-revolutionary Russia (Heinzen 2007; Ledeneva 1998; Zorina 2006). Despite various methods that the Soviets developed in order to bypass the rules and restrictions imposed by the state, the individual often felt powerless in the face of the law. The average Soviet citizen would do his or her best to avoid any encounters with the legal system and going to court was an extraordinary event. When conflicts arose some people preferred to use public, trade union or party organizations as mediators. Others chose to take matters into their own hands, while still others would swallow what seemed to them wrong or unjust and silently endure offense in order not to get into more serious trouble. 94 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 5. A discussion forum “Israeli law” on the website of a popular portal Israelinfo. ru conducts discussions about issues important for newcomers (citizenship, passports and visas) as well as for old-timers (labor law, family law and social security), http://israelinfo.ru/forums-israel/, last accessed on 28 Jan 2013.

On the whole, skepticism regarding the legal system still prevails after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. According to a one survey, 40 per cent of the victims of various types of criminal offense did not turn for help to police. Thirty-nine percent of those explained that they did not believe state institutions were capable of protecting their rights, and 45 per cent preferred to defend their own interests. Only 4.5 per cent of Russian citizens filed legal suits seeking to defend their rights. On the basis of these statistics one can conclude that a post-Soviet individual does not consider himself or herself subject to law (Oleinik 2003: 162). This observation is confirmed by investigations of the practices of Russian businessmen who demonstrate distrust in and contempt for the legal system, which seems to be part of the Soviet legacy Legal Anthropology 95

(Hendley 2004: 338). Moreover, researchers investigating patterns of behavior and integration strategies of ex-Soviets émigrés in different countries (England, Finland, Germany, Holland, Israel, Poland, and the U.S.A.), observe the perpetuation of the habits and attitudes to law developed in the “old country”, particularly in the first stages of their immigrant life. These are distrust and manipulation of the law, avoidance of formal organizations in favor of personal networking, attempts to express gratitude by bribing officials, and so on (Kopnina 2005: 10–11, 42–43, 65–66, 131–157; Morawska 1999; Protassova 2004: 150, 162, 184; Remennick 2007: 30, 58, 61; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2006). The theme of attitudes to law, as well as stories about cheating and swindling, are widespread among immigrants. They regularly appear in the immigrants’ press and Internet forums.

The Court Saga8

Ex-Soviets are not exceptional in their reluctance to deal with courts. In Western societies too, some social groups tend to avoid going to court when conflicts arise. Merry, who investigated legal consciousness among working-class Americans in New England, noticed an interesting feature: the poorest first-generation immigrants, be they Hispanic, Italian, French or Polish, do not bring their problems to court, not feeling entitled to use the court; but their American-born children and grandchildren overcome this complex (Merry 1990: 26–27). In Israel it does not take immigrants long to realize that it is common practice to go to court to settle conflicts with employers, neighbors, building companies and various agencies. This is an entirely new chapter in the life of ex-Soviets because the system of civil law was almost non-existent in the USSR (Procaccia 2007: 144). In the absence of familiar alternative institutions it requires a good deal of courage and persistence to entrust the legal system with conflict settlement. Besides, people fear that the cost of lawsuits will be beyond their means and nullify possible gains. The narrators quoted below are among those who dared break the Soviet stereotype. Although not all of the narrators were satisfied with the court decisions, most of them were legally correct (Kirill K.’s case discussed further does not provide us with enough information to evaluate its outcome). Our first narrator bought a leather sofa at a discount and paid half of its initial price of 12,000 shekels. First she was very pleased with her purchase, but then problems began. 96 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Angela, 419

Five months later (pause) the seat of the sofa showed cracks. (…) The leather became soft and sort of flabby. It felt as if it was disintegrating to the touch. Our cat also did its bit (…) and tore the armrests. But we managed to solve this problem. Cats don’t like sharp smells, so I sprinkled the sofa with Armani perfume, and the cat stopped tearing it. Wonderful! Well, there were those funny cracks, small, disgusting and flabby, sort of unpleasant to touch. The leather began to peel, as if it were covered with disgusting scales. Yeah. So I called the store. I called the store, but they didn’t react. Then I began to write letters in both languages (Hebrew and Russian). I sent electronic letters because “N” (the name of the store) has an internet site. (…) And so I decided to contact them. I sent a letter which read something like this: “Your sofa is falling apart when you merely touch it.” Well, I wrote in Russian. No response. I sent another letter. No response. I sent a letter in Hebrew. No response. And then I began to inquire who I should send this letter to. It turned out that “N” was a funny firm. That is “N” is, indeed, “N”, but above it there are some funny guys. But I still sent letters there, this time in Hebrew. Well, I get a letter, I get a letter in which it says that the fault is all ours. But I didn’t accept that. I went on pestering them. Then they said they would send an appraiser. And the appraiser employed by the store, indeed, paid us a visit. It was a wonderful young man with a shaven head. By the look of him he was a mover rather than an appraiser. He examined it (the sofa). By that time there had already been… half a year had passed, and the correspondence lasted for about two months. So there was already a hole there big enough to put your finger through it. And fibers of the leather were sticking out. He examined the hole and announced that the upholstery had been torn by the cats. The cat did it. I say, “No, the cat couldn’t have done it. The cat couldn’t have LICKED this whole piece through to the point that upholstery is beginning to disintegrate at a mere touch. A scratch looks quite different. Would you like to see a scratch? Here is one. Look over there you can see a scratch left by the cat’s claws on the armrest. I mean, I am not asking you to replace the armrest, because it was damaged by the cat. And I am quite honest about it.” (…) Then I recalled that there is a consumer protection society and perhaps I should use some legal way. I know that I’m right, but I have to find a way to prove this and to show these people that they are wrong, and the cats have nothing to do with it. Angela contacted the Standards Institution of Israel and paid 700 shekels. for an expert opinion. The employee of this organization photographed defective sections and sent a letter stating that the Legal Anthropology 97 leather was of bad quality and considerably different from the rest of the upholstery. After that Angela turned to a legal advice office and for 300 shekels a clerk there compiled a letter of complaint in Hebrew to be submitted to the small claims court. Angela filed a lawsuit and a month later she received a letter that advised her to settle the disa- greement amicably. She consulted her lawyer who recommended her to go to court. Wonderful. So we came to the hearing. I was so nervous because of this whole business, simply hysterical. I had a feeling I was close to a heart attack. I felt terribly insulted and my heart was racing. So we went into the courtroom. And there was this judge there (pause). One can hardly consider me a racist, you know, but the judge, the judge was an Arab. I don’t know whether he was Christian or a Muslim, it doesn’t really matter. Yet I didn’t feel comfortable about what was going on. To cut it short, it looked like this. The lady representing the store was sitting here (points with her hand), and we were sitting across. And, naturally, the judge, he sort of had a brief glimpse at our file, yeah and said, and asked the lady what she could say in reply (to the claim). As one could expect, the lady said that the cats were responsible for everything. The judge agreed, yes, sure enough, the cats are responsible for everything. But, apparently, trying to demonstrate some goodwill in relation to the people who had bought that sofa he said, “OK, this store, this very store “N” where you bought this sofa of poor quality, the sofa damaged by the cats, well the store will give you a check for the sum equal to your expenses.” So as a result we got a check for about a thousand, say, 1,350 shekels, and on top of it we could spend that money only in that store. Nowhere else. (…) The funny thing is that a girl working for that store “N” said that they had had a WHOLE LOT of those sofas (meaning the leather sofa) and when customers complained they were replaced. It seems we got to the store half a year after they had received the lot, I mean, it was already end of the line, the whole lot had been already sold out. That is, I was just damned lucky, well, you know… (…) At the end of the hearing, when the judge said again that cats are known to tear upholstery, I became so furious that I simply STOOD UP and said, we were at the point of leaving the courtroom then, but I stood up and said, “Excuse me, but you have an expert opinion here in front of you that states that the leather of the damaged section is substandard, it’s of poor quality. And I insist that you admit right now that the cats have nothing to do with it. I have no objections to your decision. That is, you ruled that we should get 1,350 shekels, fine with me. But admit that the cats are not to blame, otherwise it’s simply unfair.” Tears were streaming down my face, but, naturally, nobody admitted that I was right. Now, wise after the event, I understand that it was damned stupid to say such a 98 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

thing in the courtroom. It’s like you stand up and say, “I demand that the cats which are not guilty should be defended!”10 On the other hand, at that time I thought that the whole thing was outrageous and I was simply in despair. And now comes something even MORE interesting. Serezha (her son) has a classmate whose father works at court, at the small claims court. His job is to bring those stupid judges all those files and folders. So this kid (…). His mother is that sort of a person; she managed to wring a transfer to a specialized science-oriented class for her son. You know the type, powerful, a real go-getter, a bulldozer. And so this kid said, “How come your parents didn’t call my dad? My dad would have fixed it in the best possible way for you.” This is what this wonderful little boy said. When I heard this I became even more furious. It sparked again the feeling that it’s outrageous, that it’s lawless, that there is no justice. I can’t understand how come the court ruling can depend on some little man sorting out and delivering folders! So here you are, this is my wonderful story about buying a sofa. Events described in Angela’s narratives occurred five years before the interview, but they keep bothering her, and she often brings them up in conversation. The story has a clear-cut structure and time sequence. It is charged with emotions and abounds in words expressing value judgments. Angela uses direct speech rendering her dialogues with various people and parodies their intonation and mannerism – a feature typical of the performative nature of folklore narratives. Of special interest is the dynamics of the narrator’s emotional state. Throughout the story she reiterates the word “wonderful”, which con- notes different, sometimes conflicting meanings. First it expresses her satisfaction with an allegedly good buy, but then she uses it when describing substandard goods and people who made her angry, adding a sarcastic touch to the story. Another key word in the narrative is the adjective “legal”. Angela tries to cope with an unfamiliar and unpleasant situation by learning “rules of the game”. She tried all the means available to her as a customer to convince the store that her complaint was justified. She persistently called the store and studied its Internet site, she repeatedly wrote letters to the management both in Russian and in Hebrew, and finally got the store send an appraiser. Only after it became clear that all her efforts were futile did she decide to go to court. Note that even then she did not trust her own judgment and summoned help of the legal advice office and the Standards Institution. She seeks an expert decision as to who is responsible for the damaged sofa, the customer (herself) or the producer, and consequently his agent, namely the seller. Legal Anthropology 99

Importantly, she did not try to amend the situation by concealing her cat’s mischief, and did not ask for a compensation for the scratched upholstery of the armrests. Going to court was an unfamiliar experience for Angela, and although the result of the hearing would not have had any palpable effect on her wellbeing, on the day of the hearing she was apprehensive of the procedure, almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Three other interviewees spoke at length about anxiety on the eve and during the hearing11. In general Angela is very eloquent in expressing her opinions and defending her position but during the hearing she kept silent until the judgment was read. When the recording of her story was over Angela explained that she had been confident that her case was well documented and that the papers “spoke for themselves”. She was convinced that the justice of her demand was irrefutable. The judge, however, betrayed her expectations by taking no more than “a brief glimpse” at the file she had been so careful to prepare12. Litigants’ irritation with judges’ behavior is quite common. Tyler observes that people’s concerns about the decision-making process are not merely instrumental. They consider evidence about representation, neutrality, bias, honesty and consistency. They value being treated politely and having respect shown for their rights; when their experience does not affirm that they are valued, it raises doubts about willingness of the authorities to protect them when necessary (Tyler 1990: 175). Going back to Angela’s story, note that the second party, the store’s representative, was well versed in legal discourse and formulated her position in terms of accusations and responsibility for damage speaking in the standard idiom of the courtroom. Angela, on the other hand, missed her opportunity to participate in the discussion, and when she finally did speak she brought up the quality of the sofa and flouted justice. If she re-analyzed her utterance in court correctly, she would see that she did not place blame for the damage directly on the store; but legal discourse is predicated on the formulation of a hypothesis concerning guilt and responsibility for it. A deductive method of proving a hypothesis is the conventional pattern of court rhetoric, and a litigant unable to structure his/her case in this manner may be at a serious disadvantage. Angela’s silence and failure to dispute the sum of compensation implicitly attested to her concurrence with the judgment. O’Barr and Conley show that lay persons often choose an inductive model in presenting their case, while lawyers always stick to deduction. Therefore, a mismatch of narrative models frequently 100 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya occurs in small claims courts when litigants represent themselves, and this partially accounts for the failure of inexperienced witnesses and litigants. The discourse of testimony differs considerably from everyday speech conventions (O’Barr & Conley 1985). People who often have to testify in courts, for example, store representatives, learn the conventions of the legal discourse and tend to present their companies’ interests more favorably than lay persons do theirs (Edelman & Cahill 1998: 32). Moreover, people who appear in court regularly are familiar with the procedure, can anticipate how the case will develop and don’t get nervous, which also gives them better hold on the situation. We do not know whether the store representative was a professional lawyer. The law does not allow lawyers to represent their client in small claims courts, with some exceptions that shall be stated by the judge. But jurists are aware that some stores employ lawyers and send them as their representatives to court hearings bypassing the law (Elbashan 2003: 525–526). An interesting feature of Angela’s narrative is description of the actors. “Good characters”, whose help Angela elicited to strengthen her position in court (the independent expert and the legal advisor) are mentioned only briefly. But the appraiser sent by the store and whose inspection of the sofa disappointed Angela is portrayed as a “wonderful young man with a shaven head”, a description that for Russian speakers is traditionally associated with the criminal underworld. The judge is labeled in terms of ethnicity. Although Angela claims that she does not suffer from xenophobia, the fact that he is an Arab immediately puts her on the alert. Even before the hearing starts she fears a biased attitude that may influence the ruling unfavorably for her. Ethnicity is a common subject of informal Israeli discourse, and Russian speakers are no exception, particularly in case of conflicts. As our previous research has shown, various “others”, Arabs in particular, are suspected of hostile attitudes even when there are no grounds for such suspicions (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 96–120, 129–153). While writing this chapter we shared our deliberations about the difference of discursive strategies in court and their influence on the outcome of her case with Angela. A professional philologist, Angela only partially agreed with such an explanation of her failure. In her opinion the main reason was the “resentment that the Arab judge felt toward new immigrants who could afford to buy such an expensive sofa”. Jurists admit that two types of narratives meet in the courtroom. The “external” narrative is the account of events and testimony; the “inner narrative” Legal Anthropology 101 is the pool of stories forming the socio-cultural background of each participant. Studying documentation and testimony, judges select and categorize data comparing them with their own inner narrative. This may be unconscious but it affects the formulation and reformulation of the court narrative in the judgment (Almog 2000: 59–60.) We do not know what inner narrative formed this judge’s background. Note that judges belonging to the same gender, ethnicity, or religion may have different outlooks and inner narratives corresponding to their personal experience. The bias of Angela’s inner narrative demonstrating distrust of Arab citizens is implied in her remarks. Her defeat in a court presided over by an Arab judge reinforces her belief that group agenda or personal feelings can outweigh judges’ commitment to be impartial in treating conflicts. The motif of distrust dominates the last part of the interview, telling of the missed opportunity to use connections to achieve a favorable outcome. Angela juxtaposes two contrasting but complementary characters, the parents of her son’s friend. He is scornfully referred to as “some little man sorting out and delivering folders” while she is “powerful, a real go-getter, a bulldozer”. Note the metaphor used to characterize people who will sweep away any obstacle in their way. Although Angela consciously avoids code mixing in her speech, she uses “bulldozer”, a calque from Hebrew, instead of its Russian counterpart “tank”. In describing the court clerk, we observe a complex allusion to Gogol’s “Overcoat”. The image of Akakii Akakievich blends with the image of the “Significant Person”. We can only guess whether the clerk would have been willing to try “pushing the case” and if he had, whether he would have succeeded. What matters is that Angela is ready to believe such a scenario possible. Moreover, the young son of the “influential” couple is already infected by the same system of beliefs. According to Bainiazov, Russians (and we may add immigrants brought up in the USSR) tend to identify authority and actual power with individuals (Bainiazov 1998). Such an attitude to institutions of power also occurs in the West among the poor and the underprivileged, for example, among welfare recipients, but not among members of the middle class to which Angela belongs (Sarat 1990: 356). Angela is not so much concerned with procedural justice as with the persons responsible for putting it into effect. FSU immigrants are often convinced that in Israel nothing can be achieved without connections in a relevant domain, be it favorable settlement in court, getting a desired job, or being promoted. In such 102 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya cases people rely on their pre-immigration experience with blat which is reinforced with what they observe in Israel, where the belief in the power of connections is a popular theme of informal discourse. The popular wisdom kshe iesh ksharim, lo tsrikhim protektsia (Hebrew, “There is no need to pull the strings if you have connections”) has struck the right chord in the soul of homo soveticus. Angela was annoyed that the practice she despised in the old country was imposed on her in the new one. The next narrator was more successful in her court experience than Angela, but although the judgment was in her favor, she could hardly consider the compensation for her losses satisfactory. About a year after Alexandra immigrated to Israel, she decided to buy furniture and looked for the cheapest options and special offers. Finally, she found a store in a suburb of Haifa far away from her house but with a Russian-speaking sales clerk.

Alexandra, 48

He pretended to be very competent, much more knowledgeable than I, for example, having arrived here only a year before. And he told me confidently: “Don’t worry. Write several checks, so that if you don’t like it (the furniture) you can cancel all of them later.” The furniture was delivered with a delay and some of the minor pieces were missing. Her repeated calls to the store had no effect. Then they flung this phrase at me: “You should be thankful you got your furniture at all. You could have paid for it but never got it”. After that I called several times more demanding they deliver the missing pieces. I even went there, which was a real problem for me then. A bus trip to Krayot was an additional expense, and on top of it I had to drag my son along and pay his fare too. It was a big problem for me. Well, once when I went there again, it must have been already my second or third visit, one of the salesmen, one of the owners, shouted, “Get out of here! Get lost and stay there!” And more in the same vein. And at that point I realized that he… Yeah, and his assistant, the Russian-speaking employee also said to me: “Calm down, go home and be thankful everything has been delivered”. Then he declared that if I went to have a cup of coffee with him – well, everyone in Israel knows what this implies – then I might still get the missing pieces (pause). That was the end of it. I realized that all of it had something to do with how they saw me. And I realized that they viewed me as a dumb, ignorant and absolutely helpless immigrant (laughs) who could say, do and ask whatever she wanted Legal Anthropology 103

but they were already sick of me and they could simply kick me out and forget about me. And then I got very angry (pause). In fact, I could live happily with that furniture for a long time, and later someone helped me and brought the missing rod for hangers, and all that. On the whole the problem with the furniture was settled. But what wasn’t settled was the way they treated me. How DARE they treat me like that? They dared shout at me, they dared suggest things I wouldn’t even think of doing. So I went to court. It was a very long process. First, I had to find out how to go about it. Although the procedure is very simple, it was necessary to know how to do it and what to do. (…) It was like having an extra job for me. (…) But I couldn’t help myself. I simply had to do it. And I went to a lot of trouble not to prove something to THEM but for my own sake, because I wanted to remain a human being and also feel like one. (...) Sure enough, my command of Hebrew was inadequate for this sort of thing, and I was unaware of how to go about this whole thing. I had to ask for help, and several times I had to pay a lawyer or professionals who knew how to compose (letters). Some others helped for free as a gesture of goodwill. Well, I was engaged in this affair for quite a few years. In the end I succeeded in filing, filing… a suit. And it really took me months and years. (…) In the end, I won… the judgment was in my favor, but nothing moved ahead. (…) Once again I had a feeling that I was being cheated. I did the whole job, I spent money but they only told me, “Yeah, you are right!” So what? Alexandra turned to the execution office, although her friends and voluntary advisors discouraged her from it. And again, I had an inner feeling that no matter how hard it is for me I simply must do it. Well, several times the employees who have to deal with such cases had to show up at that comrade’s place – I mean the guy who owed me money – and ask him to pay his debt. They paid him several visits and each time left (without achieving anything) on ridiculous excuses. Once he wasn’t home, another time he claimed the house wasn’t his. This whole machine (legal system) was running at idling speed. (...) Then I found a private detective and he did part of the job for me. I paid him a lot of money, about 500 shekels, which was a lot then. I asked him to find, to prove and to summarize everything in a document the court would accept. (…) The detective acted professionally and provided me with a recording of the guy’s telephone conversation with his family and its transcript. So I could prove that he did live in his apartment and that he did use everything in it and had to pay. At the end of this whole epic my name appeared at the very bottom of the list of his creditors; that is, at the bottom of the list of those he owed money to. And it turned out… only towards the end of my activities I found out that there had been plenty of lawsuits filed against him. So 104 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

I was told that yes, I would get the money but after everybody else. He owed 200,000 to one, 20,000 to another one. According to their computa- tions, he owed me 9,000. My name came last after all those companies, so he was to pay in installments as much as he COULD. He provided all sorts of papers after which he was obliged to pay me four shekels per month. Well, and again I perceived it as a victory, because, in fact, it was not so much a question of money. It was important that I didn’t allow them to talk to me or treat me the way they wanted. I had gone to that store as an ordinary customer, no different from any other, and I don’t want to let anybody label me (“label” was said in English) and determine my place on the (hierarchical) ladder as THEY pleased. I don’t mean to say their attitude to me matters at all, because it doesn’t. But one shouldn’t fall below certain standards. That’s why I was engaged in this business for several years and spent a lot of money. My sister is still convinced that it was all a waste, while I’m still convinced that I wouldn’t have been able to live here had I not done what I did. In the end I didn’t even get the four shekels. I stopped thinking about it, as if I had put it aside, although now I would have more opportunity to deal with it. I’ve probably achieved what was most important to me. It wasn’t the money, and even not so much a search for justice that drove me. It was an attempt to achieve… I wanted a formal, LEGAL expression of how things should have been in that situation many years ago. The first time the interviewer heard Alexandra’s story in a private conversation about difficulties confronting immigrants in making a career in the new country. The two interlocutors agreed that it required perseverance and was hardly possible unless one was a real fighter. And as an illustration of her ability to stand up for her rights Alexan- dra told the story of her early encounter with the legal system. When later asked to record it she agreed without hesitation, although she feared she would not be able to reconstruct the details. The recording took place a month later. Despite continuing difficulties in obtaining an academic position that she would consider adequate for her academic accomplishments, Alexandra has achieved recognition among her colleagues in the West. A single mother, she is financially independent and does not have to fall back on state support. Her speech and behavior reflect pride in these achievements, and it is this victorious spirit that was salient in the spontaneous story she told about the court experience. The recorded version, however, betrays a shift in mood: the narrator emphasizes the social weakness of a new immigrant and a single mother having to start her life from scratch without any supportive network. The victory Legal Anthropology 105 in court is shown as the watershed that helped her overcome the feeling of inferiority. Note that talking about language difficulties of the first period after immigration she focused on her lack of proficiency in Hebrew and did not mention her excellent command of English, which gave her an important advantage over the majority of her co-ethnics who were monolinguals then. Just like Angela, Alexandra often mentions money in her narrative. On the one hand, Alexandra was obviously hard up at the time of the described events and did her best to economize. Even bus tickets were a substantial burden on her budget. On the other hand, financial difficulties did not prevent her from paying incomparably larger sums as court expenses. She sued the owner of the furniture store for damages but it was not money that was at stake. The missing piece of the closet was neither expensive nor difficult to obtain. Alexandra’s real motive for going to court was to win punitive damages for an offense to her dignity. It is typical of the immigrants, particularly in the first stages of their life in Israel, to turn to Russian-speaking employees in stores and offices, because of the common language and also because co- ethnics tend to inspire trust. Our material shows that negligent and dishonest salespeople exploit this trust and often take advantage of it. In Alexandra’s case the shop assistant deliberately gave her misleading information that checks could easily be canceled (two other interviewees followed this advice, ran into trouble with the bank, and lost money).13 Afterwards, when the money was paid, he changed his tone to one of contempt for the customer and of sexual innuendo. Like Angela, Alexandra tried to reach an amicable settlement, but was similarly unsuccessful. Despite her lack of experience in Israel and lack of competence in legal issues she did not surrender and opted for a time-consuming and relatively expensive lawsuit. The court procedure itself is omitted in the narrative, while the ordeal preceding and succeeding it is described in detail. As a rule, narrators tend to focus on complications and leave out of their account of events those which did not cause them trouble. Like our other informants, Alexandra does not conceal her irritation at the work of the small claims court and the bureaucratic procedures involved in lawsuits: “This whole clumsy machine ran at idling speed”14. According to O’Barr and Conley, although a lay person understands the distinction between civil and criminal law and their functions, overestimation of the power and initiative of the civil court is a recurrent theme. Besides, 106 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya gathering necessary information and preparing a file seems to be too much of a burden for many litigants. Driven by a vague faith in the power of the court to go beyond its procedural limitations and to do what justice requires, litigants are often disappointed by the negligible outcome of their efforts (O’Barr & Conley 1988: 158–159). Alexandra cannot be reconciled to knowing that a person owing hundreds of thousands shekels to other people continues to live in his apartment and can ignore the court decision without being punished. Comparing Alexandra’s and Angela’s narratives we point out the difference in conclusions. Although Angela lost her case she received compensation for the court costs, but sees this as nothing but a sop. Alexandra, who won her case, has lost all hopes of recovering the money due to her yet she is triumphant. The feeling that justice was done proved much more relevant than financial considerations. She managed to show the offender that even the most inexperienced and helpless customer cannot be “just thrown out”. This moral victory gave a boost to her self-confidence and helped her ascend the social ladder15. Our next interviewee decided to go to court at a time when she had considerable experience in Israel. Unlike Alexandra, she had no problems with Hebrew; moreover, her job gives her easy access to literature on law. As an intellectually curious person she often browses through it. The narrative quoted below is an excerpt from a two-hour focus interview, which includes several stories about her own and her friends’ experience in court, as well as reflections about law and justice in Israel.

Liudmila, 50

We bought that apartment in good condition and it was very pretty. We let it to a very nice young Russian family, a mother, a father and a small child. But it turned out they were awful people… (...) Sure enough, their Jewishness was problematic. Well, the guy’s mother, his family name was P, she was Jewish. And all the rest were not. His parents were divorced and all this came to light later as we were… They didn’t pay rent for about three or four or even five months and (pause) and because they failed to pay and all that, I asked them to move out. We sent them a letter, a notice which we wrote with the help of the same lawyer who’d helped us buy the apartment. He is very good, a very decent lawyer. (...) He has a big misrad (Hebrew for “office”), a very big office. And a very decent Druze works for him and a woman who deals with inheritance issues. (...) Well, so we handed the letter to him, we Legal Anthropology 107

did everything properly. Meanwhile I was conducting my own investigation trying to figure out how I’d got into all that mess, and who that wretched P. was and where he’d been and what he’d been doing. And that’s how I got to know his previous landlady, Inna. And at that time she also had “court relations” with him. (...) Inna cooperated with me and it was she who told me what a mess I’d got myself into. Well, she had “court relations” with him and she had no idea how to find him. And I, can you imagine that I had to (find him). That was also a story in itself (laughs). (...) Well, I went to the militia, to our police station, and filed a complaint describing what he had done. And it turned out that there was yet another complaint against him. (...) So they (the police) looked for him and found him, and then they gave me his address. The policeman, in fact, he was not supposed to give me his (P’s) address, but he did. And then, in full compliance with the rules, I stuck a summons for him to appear in court to his door. I acted like Luther, you know. And then we took a picture (of the letter on the door). (...) All this stuff is explained in the books about litigation in beit mishpat le-tviet ktanot (Hebrew for “small claims court”). Since my claim was not too large, something totaling about 3.500 altogether, I fulfilled all the requirements. By that time Inna had already won her court case against him. He didn’t attend the hearing. The hearing of my case took place several months later. He didn’t show up either, but my file was very orderly and everything was done correctly, and it was sort of clear from my papers that I stood to gain and all my claims would be satisfied. So I submitted the judgment to hotsa’a le-fo’al (Hebrew for “execution office”) and they acted on it, because my file was prepared correctly. In Inna’s case things weren’t done properly. She ended up with something like a theoretical ruling, while mine was practical. They (pause) tracked his parents’ bank account. His parents seemed to have divorced; but since they were pensioners this account was in his mother’s possession and it was blocked. His father had shared the apartment with him. So the account was blocked and from that very account within half a year they paid all the money due to me. (...) The trouble is that you have no means to affect events unless you are a TRUE REVOLUTIONARY ready to come out into the open. Who is strong enough to do that? (...) I took pictures documenting what they had done with the apartment. It turned out they had also stolen something. And he (the neighbor) came (to the police) and he had to testify. And thus I got his (P’s) new address, his hiding place. It was simply a chain of (lucky) coincidences. Inna hasn’t managed to get anything out of him and never will. A good storyteller often plays with contrasting details and moods. Angela’s story about a defective sofa began with an elaborate description of its elegance and comfort. Ludmila, who had let her apartment 108 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya to a swindler, mentions her first positive impression of her new tenants (“a very nice young Russian family”). In this context “Russian” does not identify ethnicity but marks belonging to the same group as the narrator. Ethnicity, per se (“their Jewishness was problematic”), emerges in connection with the conflict. Liudmila knows the Halachic definition of Jewishness, which does not prevent her from referring to her tenant, whose mother was Jewish, as a “non-Jew”. Apparently, she expels him from her own reference group due to immoral behavior. While in the first years immigrants often complained about land- lords, today, when many own apartments themselves and let them to others while living elsewhere, stories about bad tenants have also become a frequent theme of the discourse. Liudmila had used services of a lawyer prior to the events described in her narrative. Like other Israelis, immigrants feel more secure when they can turn for help to a reliable lawyer, but not every newcomer can afford this. As in the two previous cases, the preparatory work before filing a lawsuit was not simple. Liudmila defines it as “my own investigation”. The key words of her narrative are “properly” and “as required”, which imply that she acted in compliance with regulations she had studied before going to court. Liudmila is the most competent person in legal issues among our informants. Legal competence presupposes that all people have certain rights, but that some people are more cognizant of their rights than others. “Competence” entails both awareness that one possesses these rights and readiness to invoke them in the appropriate circumstances (Engel 1998: 122). Like Angela and Alexandra, Liudmila sends letters that are written by professionals. She collects all the necessary papers meticulously and turns herself into a detective tracing her ex-tenant. When she finally gets hold of his address she photographs the letter with the summons, suspecting that he will not appear in court and proactively preparing evidence to prove that notice had been served. Liudmila emphasizes that there was a sequence of coincidences that helped her track down the perpetrator. She attributes the success of her case to these lucky chances as much as she does to her competence and diligence. Our previous research gives evidence that trust in the power of the fortunate coincidence is deeply rooted in the Russian and Soviet culture and retains its influence on the immigrants’ outlook (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 213–237.) Both Liudmila and the interviewer find it unfair that the penalty was imposed not on the persons responsible but on the tenant’s mother, who had never lived in the apartment. The reason might be that the couple separated but did Legal Anthropology 109 not divorce. Sometimes immigrants continue sharing bank accounts, in particular, if they are recipients of welfare benefits, which was the case with P’s parents. Let us comment on the method Liudmila used to trace her ex-tenant. The lawyers we consulted differ as to the legitimacy of the actions of the policeman who gave Liudmila a new address of the defaulter. On the one hand, there is a law protecting citizens’ privacy, and the policeman violated it to some extent because he could not foresee how Liudmila would use the information. On the other hand, he gave Liudmila the address only after he spoke to the litigant and apparently came to the conclusion that her request was reasonable. According to regulations, the litigant has to produce proof that summons to appear in court were delivered. This could be a delivery confirmation form for a registered letter or for a letter sent with a messenger. Liudmila’s option was legitimate too, and was not unreasonable since she had tried to get in touch with her ex-tenant but he neither answered her letters and telephone calls, nor opened the door when she rang the bell. Suspecting he would use the same strategy with a messenger, she turned to what seemed to be the last resort. Note that although Liudmila is quite competent in legal issues she coins the terms “theoretical” and “practical” ruling which are not used in legal practice16. Inna, the protagonist of the second plot of the story and P’s previous landlady, was less successful than Liudmila in getting financial compensation. Since we did not interview her or studied her file we cannot explain the reason for that. What matters is that for lay persons the practical outcome of two similar cases is different, and this breeds suspicions as to effectiveness of the system. Like Alexandra, Liudmila wonders why a person known to the law enforcement agencies as a defaulter and a defendant in several court cases manages to escape “punishment”17. She would like the civil court to resemble criminal court. The situation in which a person who is not a “true revolutionary” can exert no real effect on a delinquent makes her pessimistic. The same motif reappears but in a more pronounced way when Liudmila reflects on police inactivity in a criminal case when she was the victim of a burglary. She said, “You have either to arm yourself and fight on your own, or just give up”. The four stories that follow address labor courts and the outcomes of litigation processes. Three stories are told from the point of view of litigants and one from the point of view of a defendant. Unlike the 110 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya foregoing interviewees, our next narrator, Elena, went to court not through her own decision but under her parents’ pressure. The described events occurred in the first year of Elena’s life in Israel, when she was 18. Deliberations about the reasons for the lawsuit and its consequences are of particular importance because they triggered her alienation from the new country.

Elena, 25

You know, I went to court here. And this is when my euphoria col- lapsed completely. I won the case, but to all intents and purposes I lost it. I sued my employer. (…) His wretched little store was called “supermarket”. (…) You could buy old trash there. The foodstuffs on sale there were long overdue, thoroughly rotted, and horribly dirty. And the owner was not a realist, he was really nuts. The strange thing is that he wore a kipa (Hebrew for “skull-cap”). He was a god-damn bastard. Everyone disliked him. It was a typical Moroccan family: the husband was a tyrant, a despot, an autocrat and on top of it a halfwit who kept mumbling “smokh alai, smokh alai” (Hebrew for “Trust me”). (…) So I decided to quit. I got sick of this disgusting character. I quit, but he didn’t pay my wages. He kept saying, “Come tomorrow, come back tomorrow.” And so I keep coming for a month and he doesn’t pay, and another month and he doesn’t pay. Meanwhile my parents pressure me: “You are just a milksop. Can’t you stand up for yourself?” But what can I do alone against this guy? Then my dad and a friend of his, a real bandit, paid him a visit. They squeezed him a bit, almost broke his head with some jar, and he promised to pay. Then I go over there again and he calls the police. I quarreled with him a bit, waited for about five minutes and then I got sick of waiting and left. That was my last visit to his emporium. I filed suit against him in Haifa. He didn’t show up for the hearing so I won automatically, and for a certain fee the case was transferred to another echelon. Then they suggested I should pay an even heftier fee so that it would be transferred to the third echelon. I started asking the folks who were hanging around, “What brought you here?” The people there had come to file various appeals: “First I paid 45 (shekels) then 90, afterwards another 200, and now they are demanding more money”. And another guy told me a similar story, the same patter, you know. And so I think, “Damn it, the sum I’ll pay may not cover the compensation I’ll get”. So I decided to give up on it before they stripped me of more money. And I left the place. That’s how the case ended. Later it turned out he had been a terrible bankrupt, already for several years. He didn’t pay his employees, and a lot of people sued him. And the clerks in lishkat hata’asuka (Hebrew for “employment Legal Anthropology 111

agency”) knew that perfectly well and sent me to him just to get rid of me. They are real scummy guys there. Elena’s narrative abounds in inaccuracies. Apparently, she filed a suit in the labor court, so if her ex-employer was legally bankrupt, there would have been a receiver and Elena would have had to file her complaint with him, which is free of charge. She uses the noun “bankrupt” not as a legal term but as a language metaphor and as a strong value judgment (“terrible bankrupt”). The lack of legal competence is typical of the socio-economically weak. This often leads to failure of these people in courts and aggravates their distrust of the legal system. As a result, they may choose to try to solve conflicts resorting to force or using illegal methods (Elbashan 2003: 516–520, 533; Rattner et al. 2003: 552). Like the previous narrators, Elena marks her offender’s ethnicity. The notion of “political correctness” is unpopular among Russian- speaking Israelis and has little effect on immigrants’ public and informal discourse. “Moroccans” usually have bad press and their collective image is bad and abounds in caricature features (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 102–103, 109). In this respect the description of the employee, a Jew from Morocco, is stereotypical, and so is Elena’s surprise that a religious person could be dishonest. Despite a negative attitude to the religious sector of the society, many immigrants expect religious Jews to be highly moral and are astonished by the examples of the opposite. Like Alexandra and Liudmila, Elena does not describe the hearing itself, but hints that there were no complications. The emphasis in the narrative is on the failed attempts to settle the conflict amicably prior to the lawsuit and on equally unsuccessful attempts to receive compensation assigned in the judgment. As if following Liudmila’s appeal “to arm oneself and fight”, the girl’s father confronted the offender, but the use of force did not help settle the conflict18. Note that Elena’s employer did not call the police when he was threatened and abused by the two men, but did so when the girl came to the store alone. In the early 1990s fear of the “Russian mafia” fanned by the media stories was strong, and the shopkeeper might have been afraid to become its victim. Like Alexandra, Elena is not shy or timid, yet both of them reveal the feeling of female helplessness when confronted by a male offender. This demonstrates gender-related aspects of the interviewees’ outlook. The success of Elena’s lawsuit proved to be il- 112 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya lusory, considering that she was more interested in getting the money than in moral compensation. Taking into account Elena’s lack of legal competence and liberal use of terminology, we do not know why the litigant handled the appeal on her own instead of seeking the help of a law enforcement officer. An exchange of stories about vicissitudes of court experiences with other “successful” litigants reinforces Elena’s skepticism regarding the legal system. Here, as in the two previous narratives, the immigrant encounters a persistent defaulter let off by the authorities. Moreover, she suspects collusion between the employment exchange clerks and her employer, although she is more likely to have fallen victim to poor information exchange rather than intentional malice. The next excerpt we are quoting is from a long interview of a retired employee of the Zionist Forum19 that mostly dealt with an account of her own eight-year long litigation in which a group of immigrants sued a bank that paid the whole sum of mortgages to a contractor before a housing project was completed. The victims of this fraudulent operation were left with obligations to the bank in unfinished apartments and lost the trial. The excerpt we are quoting is not directly related to that story but served as a rare example of the effective work of the court system.

Ada, 68

It was a very simple case. Her daughter worked for a kablan (Hebrew for “contractor”) and he didn’t pay her salary for several months, and something else, pitsuim (Hebrew for “severance pay”), compensation for a leave, something. I worked for the Zionist Forum then and they turned to us for help. I asked the kablan to come to our office, and he showed up, although not everyone does when invited to such meetings. And he agreed to pay her five or six thousand, I can’t recall the exact sum now. (…) But then it sounded like a considerable sum to me. I was very pleased that we’d come across a person we could negotiate with and I advised that woman she should agree to accept that sum. He was ready to write out a check at once, write it out already then. As I know that one can win in court yet get no money at all, I wanted her very much to take that money. Well, she was there with her mother, although she was an adult and had a child herself. And the mother said, “No, he’ll return the whole sum, to the last penny.” To tell you the truth, I felt very sorry for that woman, because I had had my own experience in court and knew other people’s stories. Well, with all that knowledge… Legal Anthropology 113

but the decision was theirs, I warned them, and (pause) we parted as friends. I only asked them to inform me about the result. Several years passed, I don’t remember how many, but enough for me to forget all about that story. When you work in an office like that, you know, you hear a lot of stories of all sorts. So a woman called. She reminded me of that story and said she had got the money from the kablan. Gener- ally, when people sued kablans for non-payment of salaries or pitsuim, they always won in court, at least when we supervised their cases. But even if you win in court does not mean you will get the money. And so I felt very sorry for that young lady, well, because five or six thousand was HUGE money for us, for her and for everyone. Yet the mother said, “No, he’ll return the whole sum, to the last penny. Years passed and she called, and I have NO DOUBT that it was true. (…) She was very pleased with herself and I was so happy that I had been wrong. Unfortunately, in the eight or nine years I worked for the Forum, it was the only case that ended in such a way. I think it was thanks to the perseverance of that woman and also because she was lucky that the kablan was not the worst cheat. All of them like to delay payment, or not to pay all the sum; but he, when the court ruled he should pay, he did. Yes, apparently he wasn’t the worst cheat of them all. Unlike other informants, Ada has rich experience with the legal system in action and it taught her to be pessimistic as to the practical outcome of court decisions favorable for the socio-economically weak individuals. Her attempts to discourage her clients from lawsuits are typical of the immigrants’ discourse. Litigants’ failures are taken as proof of the rule, while their success is interpreted as an exception confirming the general tendency and attributed to a piece of good luck or extraordinary personality traits of participants. Note that it took Ada’s client several years to get full compensation20. Our observations show that financial costs, considerable investment of time and effort and vague hopes for success often make immigrants reluctant to go to court. Ada’s reflections are echoed in the next story, told by a retired researcher who holds a Ph.D. degree in engineering.

Leonid B., 66

Leonid: As I see it now, my story is quite trivial. I got a Shapiro grant21. According to the rules, the salary is paid by an employer, but my employer kept forgetting to pay me. Well, I worked for him for a year…

Interviewer: And where was it? 114 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Leonid: He is from Ashkelon, but I worked here [in Haifa]. With computer technologies space is not a problem. Well, you know, an alcoholic is wily, and so is a swindler. Finally, my patience was exhausted. After all, I had his checks, and naturally, I went to consult a lawyer. And I was told that it’s a trifling matter, and that it’s quickly settled in the labor court. But the whole affair dragged on for two years, just as my employer had warned me. He said, “You won’t live long enough to see law administered in Israel.” These were his words. And so quite naturally, I decided to consult a lawyer. It was interesting for me to see how things are done. I was a novice in this country and I had poor understanding of the procedures. Yeah. So it was a commonplace suit, with documents and copies of the checks submitted. The checks were given to the officer of the court, and the model… The procedure is really very simple. A year passed and the first hearing was held. Then another year passed, and the second hearing occurred. I understood that, indeed, I wouldn’t live long enough… Well, then my lawyer says, “We have an excellent mechanism that can be used. It’s an agreement (pause) between parties”. Now I understand that this procedure borrowed from the American legal system poses danger for justice. In fact, it has nothing to do with justice. I don’t mean what is related to my specific case – that was really a trifle. But when a bargain is struck with justice itself, it’s absurd. Either justice works or it DOESN’T. Bargains make sense to me in the market. Bargains make sense to me in business. In justice bargains DON’T make sense to me. Finally, two years passed and we signed (the agreement). I got almost everything he owed me. He paid me what the state had given me. That is, the procedure itself is a one-and-a-half- minute-long story. But first and foremost, as I have already underscored I learned from this experience that bargains with justice were incomprehensible to me. I can understand that it may save judges’ time. This would be true if judges really investigated cases thoroughly. As far as I understand a judge reads materials of the case right there, during the hearing. He doesn’t study the documents (prior to the hearing). So what looks like simplification of the procedure, in reality encourages inertia. When everything is there: the public prosecutor’s office, police, court – everything except justice.

(…)

But a judge is not an investigator, and he is not in the position of an investigator. He has to be familiar with the case; otherwise, if he just gets to know things while listening, all he does is waiting. When an hour allocated for the case passes, he says, “This party has to bring me these documents in addition, and that party has to bring me those documents”. And the case is postponed again. Legal Anthropology 115

(…)

If a judge were familiar with the case, he would notify the parties well in advance: “You have to bring these, these and those documents.” He has to hear parties while he is studying documents, but not wait for the court hearing. The court hearing should take place when things are drawing to a close. Maybe someone will say something new, or some new circumstances have been discovered. The way things are… I think this is one of the sore points.

Interviewer: Tell me, how did you feel in court? I mean the atmosphere of the court.

Leonid: Like a total idiot. First, you don’t really understand what’s happening. Rather, you understand it as a performance, but all the exchange between the parties, what is actually happening remains in the dark. Afterwards, when the judge addresses you, even though the interpreter translates for you, you (laughs), you lose all the dialogues, everything. You don’t know.

Interviewer: Did you have an interpreter?

Leonid: It was the lawyer himself. But amid all that skirmish he would forget to translate. He kept saying, “You don’t need it. Sit quietly and that’s all. Stay calm and quiet”. This was my lawyer’s advice. Note that in Elena’s, Ada’s, and Leonid’s stories, as well as in Kirill’s narrative that follows, we don’t only hear the facts, but voices of different people (“the folks” in the executor’s office, Ada’s own as a representative of the Zionist Forum, Leonid’s employer and his lawyer etc.) who influence litigants’ decisions or at least their attitudes to courts. Unlike Ada’s client, Leonid accepted the lawyer’s advice to exit an endless litigation process by signing the agreement and got a considerable part of his money. Yet his own decision to participate and submit to the unfamiliar and poorly understood process left him with great skepticism about Israeli legal system. For him, as for many Russian speakers, the word “bargain” (sdelka in Russian) is directly connected to trade, which in Russian culture is traditionally equated with cheating and disorder (Dreizin 1990: 5; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 202). The word “bargain” in this context is perceived as the antonym of justice. The last excerpt we will cite in this section is about a lawsuit of Bituah Leumi (Hebrew for “National Insurance Institute of Israel” or NII) against an immigrant who allegedly claimed benefits to which he wasn’t entitled. It is drawn from an interview with Kirill K., now a 116 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya retired captain of an ocean-going vessel. As the interview is very long and not coherent enough, the excerpt needs a short introduction. Before the lawsuit of the National Insurance of Israel against Kirill was filed he had had a conflict with one of its clerks, a former immigrant from the former USSR herself. As we have already mentioned commenting on Alexandra’s story, immigrants tend to rely on co-ethnics when they have to solve problems. In Kirill’s case the clerk did not only refuse to give him explanations in Russian but also mocked him in her conversation with a colleague. Kirill, who is rather hot-tempered, reacted rudely. Taking into account that a clerk is not obliged to use Russian with clients and that she was insulted while doing her job, she could sue him for abusing a public servant. Although she did not, Kirill attributes the NII’s lawsuit against him to her revenge.

Kirill K., 69

Kirill: Yes, it happened before I left (to work in Cyprus). I was registered as [unemployed] and I received a summons (pause) to the police. I came to the police office, and they say, “There is a letter fromBituah Leumi that you were collecting (unemployment benefits) and working, sailing on board a ship at the same time.” I say, “After I left N. (name of a company) I didn’t work anywhere on shore, I only worked at sea. There was no way I could report to the office (of National Insurance Institute) when I was at sea. If I did report, and was employed only after that, then I received money for two or three days. Moreover, I may not have known about it at all.” (…) Some time passed, and I am summoned to the police (again). And I come to this (officer), I show him that I couldn’t, I physically couldn’t (report), because I was on a boat, on a different boat, and so I couldn’t have received that, what I wasn’t entitled to. And he saw it, because the accusation was too obviously fake. Yet I left. Why should I complain about her, although he said, “Now you can file (a complaint). Then I had this job offer and I left for Cyprus. I was in Cyprus for 11 months. I worked and did things. Then I came back home. I returned home and there is a summons for me to come (pause) to the public prosecutor’s office. I go to the prosecutor’s office, and they say: “Trial.” That is, the case has passed through all these (stages), militia, prosecutor’s office, all over again. (Reliving the moments of anger and anxiety, Kirill used the word “militia” which denoted “police” in the USSR.)

Interviewer: But you explained it all then, didn’t you? Legal Anthropology 117

Kirill: Yes, I explained it, but she (the official of the National Insur- ance Institute in charge of Kirill’s file) started it all over again. I wasn’t there then, so I don’t know. Court hearing. There was one hearing, then another one and the third one. I explain the situation. But what am I? For them, for the judges, if this beast accuses me on behalf of a state institution… When it became clear to her, to the judge, who she was dealing with and what it was all about…but she couldn’t change anything then because… Well, if she had really wanted, she might have been able to (do something), but only for the last hearing did she summon that woman (the official of the National Insurance Institute). She says, “It’s the third time that I’m summoning her”, one of those from…“but they don’t show up.” I say, “You summon me and I am obliged to come, but aren’t they obliged to come when you summon them to appear? After all you are a judge! You have the right and you have the power. You can bring her here with the help of police.”

Interviewer: Handcuffed.

Kirill: And again a Russian policeman was called in, another one. And he says to me, “Listen, why are you arguing with them? Just say: I’m guilty, and that’s it” (imitates the policeman’s tone ironically). I say, “Are you nuts?” “Well, I’m just giving you advice”, he says, “I, sort of know better how things are.” I say, “You know what, it’s because of advisers like you that we are here in the position of slaves. You serve in the police, so go on serve there, if you cannot (earn a living) in a more honest way. But don’t teach me to do what I will never do. Why should I admit to what I haven’t (done), why?” And then she rules: “Pay back.” Interviewer: That you should pay the money back?

Kirill: Yes! Sure! “They paid you 2,700 extra.”

Interviewer: In what court was it?

Kirill: It was here.

Interviewer: Was it a district court, a labor court or what?

Kirill: No, just an ordinary court. You know, it’s where…

Interviewer: Was it in the city court?

Kirill: Yes, in the city court. I came home then. I was with my wife. I cannot cope without an interpreter, and she knows (Hebrew). And I asked my mother, my late mother. And she says, “Why are you so 118 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

uptight about it? Here, take it.” She gave me the money, 2,700. So we paid. But you know, after we paid it, I felt as if I had been shredded.

Interviewer: I understand.

Kirill: It was as if I had been raped. I couldn’t do anything. But the most interesting thing is that two days later the money came back to my account.

Interviewer: How come?

Kirill: I wanted to go to the judge, to go and talk to the judge. I say, “I’ll go”. But my wife didn’t let me. (I wanted) to show what justice is worth in Israel (enunciates each word carefully). And that the development of events…. There was no place to… I transferred the money, a check, to this, to their (account), and it bounced back. There was no place to hitch it to (pause). There was no place to hitch it to, and so it came back to my account. You know, I would have felt myself a winner (…) if afterwards I had gone to see the judge and resolved the issue, if I had shown her (pause) that she (pause) had resolved, how she had resolved and what her (…) resolution was worth. It wasn’t me who was abused. It was she who was abused, Israeli justice was abused as she couldn’t or didn’t want to figure out the case that wasn’t …

Interviewer: So complicated

Kirill: So complicated. That’s all. Kirill’s story shows an enormous disparity between his self-perception of a strong and competent man confirmed by his previous life and his dependent role in court. First, he does not even know that his case is to be resolved in the labor court and this fact shows his absolute ignorance in the legal issues. Second, he is entirely dependent on linguistic skills of his wife who has to escort him to the hearings. Third, he is financially dependent on his elderly mother, who gave him money to to implement the court ruling. And finally, he had to obey his young wife and his old mother and refrain from trying to talk to the judge after getting the money back. In this chapter we have already come across gender issues. Alexandra was indignant about abusive sexual hints on the part of a salesman and needed a trial in order to defend her human dignity. Elena lamented her vulnerability as a female employee against a male shop owner. In Kirill’s story, however, we clearly see gender roles reversed. He is surrounded by women – a clerk and a judge in formal settings, and his wife and mother in fam- Legal Anthropology 119 ily settings. All these women appear to be much more competent and confident than he is. As a result, he undergoes a process of psychological feminization clearly manifested in the metaphor of “rape”. Although we don’t have enough information to determine whether the judge’s decision was legally correct or not, we would like to emphasize that NII is notorious for the number of citizens’ complaints. In 2010 the Office of Citizens’ Complaints got 13,976 appeals, 28 per cent of which were accepted as justified.22 While we were writing this chapter the Russian-language newspaper Vesti published an interview with the parliamentarian Yulia Shamalova-Berkovich who has investigated the activities of the NII and considers that the law regulating activities of this institution have to undergo a fundamental reform because “this organization has turned into a state within the state: it creates its own laws and implements them. (…) A person who applies to Bituah Leumi for the first time first has to prove that he is an honest, decent and a law-abiding citizen. He is viewed as a potential swindler and he has to prove his innocence in order to get benefits he is entitled to according to the law” (Goren 2012: 12). Even our small sample contains one other story about an immigrant mistakenly sued by this organization. For six months our interviewee Leonid B. was deprived of his Social Security benefits because he allegedly failed to report that his wife, who had stayed behind, joined him in Israel. Actually, he claims that he did report her arrival, but his letter was lost. Left without any means of support, he survived thanks to financial help of his relatives. In his case the problem was gradually solved through a bureaucratic process without litigation. Numerous stories of NII’s false accusations can be found in Internet forums23. NII was also implicated in a tragedy that took place on the 14th of July 2012 when an Israeli citizen, Moshe Sil- man, set himself aflame at the demonstration for social justice in Tel Aviv. In the letter distributed before this act of despair he blamed the National Insurance Institute of Israel for ruining his life.24

How to Outsmart the System: Immigrants’ Trickster Stories

In traditional folklore the figure of the trickster appears in three main genres: trickster myths, swindler and fool’s novellas, and animal novellas (see, Aarne and Thompson 1964: AT 1675, AT 1526; AT 1-299; Jason 1975: 42, 48). The most ancient of the three is the trickster 120 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya myth, found in North and South American, African, Greek, Slavic, and Norse folktales. “Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself” (Radin 1969: ix). A trickster’s figure is polymorphic. According to Jung “He is a forerunner of the savior, and, like him, God, man, and animal at once. He is both subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being (…)” (Jung 1969: 203). Although a trickster figure can appear as different characters, ranging from Hermes to Hare or Raven, from an old soldier to a village fool he always “operates outside the fixed bounds of custom and law” (Kerényi 1969: 185). Meletinsky points out that jocular and novella-type folktales have evolved from archaic mythological tales about forefathers – culture heroes and their demonic-comic doubles, mythological tricksters. He emphasizes that along with “active” stupidity, jocular folktales portray “passive” stupidity; that is, simpletons are easy to con and cheat. They are credulous of tall stories told by any trickster or swindler. Many jocular folktales glorify tricksters and jeer at the gullible. An asymmetry, however, is evident and is closely associated with particular social connotations. In most cases smart thieves and mischievous pranksters enjoy positive evaluation, particularly, when their marks are landowners, serf owners, and priests. Notably, these tales express admiration of the trickster’s smartness, creativity, and inventiveness. The comic effect of the situation is essential, but the social status of the victim is important (Meletinsky [no year]). Social aspects of trickster tales can be found as early as ancient mythology. The hero, a human or an animal, is praised when he steals for the sake of the tribe but not when he violates rules of his own collective, attacks its members, or achieves profit at their expense (Meletinsky 2000: 223). In the Russian swindler novella, the hero invariably belongs to underprivileged classes. The social orientation of the Russian version of the swindler tale is evident when compared with similar plots in other cultures. In the Russian tale the social motifs are in the foreground while in versions known in other languages they are subdued. The hero of the Russian tale is a soldier who has served 25 years in the army, a peasant boy, a priest’s servant, and other characters juxtaposed to the tsar, the nobility, and the clergy. They are socially inferior to the “masters” but surpass them in wit. Whatever turn the plot might take, the social roles remain stable (Moldavskii 1979: 6). Legal Anthropology 121

Material for this section was drawn from two sets of interviews: 27 narratives were taken from 17 interviews, which were conducted in 1999–2003 and dedicated to various issues of migration. In 2005 we supplemented this sample with six focused interviews that yielded 17 more stories. In all we analyzed 44 narratives recorded from 23 subjects. Four plots appear twice, since we interviewed pairs of participants of the same events. Each interview was recorded separately to prevent the narrators from influencing each other’s versions. Besides interviews, we analyzed material from the Russian- language conventional and electronic press in Israel. Immigrants’ newspapers regularly publish readers’ letters seeking legal advice and lawyers’ answers to these queries. Quite often papers publish stories about cheating; in some of them immigrants feature as perpetrators, in others as victims. In addition, advertising supplements occasionally post ads which offer illegal or semi-legal services, such as signing guarantees for bank loans, helping to obtain an American “green card” or re-emigrate to Canada by circumventing legal channels, and so on. Our third source of data was the Russian-Israeli Internet site called “Klub fraerov” (patsies’ club) created by an immigrant for fellow-immigrants to share experiences and avoid becoming victims of swindling (http://frayerclub.narod.ru/index.htm, 27 May 2005). The materials of this site have a folkloric nature: anonymous contributions are welcome, and no documentary proof of the posted stories is required. The stories that we recorded are related to the pre-emigration experience in the FSU and life after immigration. Our sample includes 12 stories about violation of customs regulations on the part of both emigrants and customs officials of the FSU; three narratives tell of forging documents to conceal ethnicity, four give accounts of false testimony, and two are about obtaining permission to emigrate without the consent of close relatives, which was a violation of the Soviet law. Out of six stories about bribes four are related to customs control, and one to the bribing of a municipal official in order to accelerate marriage registration in the Soviet period. One narrative tells us about bribing instructors of an Israeli program for immigrant youth for non-reporting that a participant found a part-time job which violated the rules. Five immigrants told us how they had become victims of swindling in Is- rael. Three informants reported that in the FSU they had applied for emigration using invitations from non-existent Israeli relatives, and nine plots do not fall under the categories we have mentioned. 122 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 6. The “note under the door” on the home page of the patsies club tells visitors that its creator decided to launch the site because he was fed up seeing how inexperienced immigrants from the FSU were cheated by shameless swindlers. He was fed up with people who were building their prosperity at the expense of others. He was fed up with naivety and legal ignorance of the immigrants. The menu of the site includes the black list of dishonest businesses, a bank of stories about cheating, and other rubrics”, http://frayerclub.narod.ru/index.htm, last accessed on 28 Jan 2013.

The list of plots we have already enumerated shows that we are concerned with sensitive issues. How can researchers obtain such stories? Obviously, a great deal of trust on the part of the subjects is needed. Since we are members of the same reference group as our informants, most of the interviewees were convinced that we could understand the circumstances and motives that made them violate the law. They probably would not have opened up had they not been sure we identified with their motives for deviant behavior. The second reason is that among ex-Soviets irrespective of whether they reside in the FSU, Legal Anthropology 123

Israel, Germany, the U.S. or elsewhere, trickster stories are of high tellability25. If the audience is trusted, they are told with a lot of spicy and mischievous details.

Old Attitudes in the New Surroundings

Analyzing immigrants’ trickster stories we should bear in mind that different groups may resort to different types of tricks depending on the circumstances characterizing the group’s situation. Thus Sharon Halevi, who studied trickster stories in the American colonial South, distinguished three categories into which the narratives fell: didactic tricks, humiliating tricks, and perpetrating tricks. The latter became a means of self-preservation and protecting property (Halevi 2004). In terms of this taxonomy, all narratives in our sample belong to the perpetrator type and can be divided into the following subcategories: preservation of the self and family (forging ethnicity, emigrating without close relatives’ permission); preservation of the other (giving false evidence in court); preservation of family property and property of the other (violating the law of customs and cheating on taxes). Working on this project we did not analyze such issues as tax evasion and illegal working by welfare recipients (see Fialkova 2005). Nor did we deal with the mass violation of the precepts of Judaism prohibiting Jews to work on Sabbath and religious festivals or eating non-kosher food. All these phenomena existed in Israel before the big wave of immigration of the 1990s, but then non-kosher stores and restaurants were mostly in the Arab sector. Today, Russian non-kosher businesses successfully compete with their Arab counterparts, and in some sense challenge the Jewish nature of the state (see Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 118–121). Immigrants’ attitude to various types of law violations is different. When they recall how they cheated the customs our informants were convinced they were right and saw their own behavior as the only means available to them to protect family property from inhuman Soviet laws, and maliciousness and greed of the officials. Confessing to tax evasion and attempts to forge documents, particularly those proving ethnicity and thus entitling Soviet Jews to emigration, perpetrators are aware of wrongdoing. Yet, they justify their behavior on the grounds of intolerable financial circumstances or attempts to improve their children’s lot. Finally, secular immigrants’ attitude to 124 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya violations of the religious law is nonchalant, since this type of law is completely rejected by many ex-Soviets brought up as militant atheists. Our narrators had no qualms describing how they managed to circumvent rules and laws, and they perceived any successes in these violations as little triumphs over the subversive system rather than deviant behavior. In the literature on attitudes to law no behavior is considered per se and universally deviant (Cohen 1959: 463). The term refers to conduct that departs significantly from norms. “It cannot be described in abstract terms but must be related to the norms that are socially defined as appropriate and morally binding for people occupying various statuses” (Merton 1961: 723–724 cited from Jessor et al. 1968: 23). The common element of various definitions of deviant behavior is that deviance is not something intrinsic to the behavior itself. The socially defined criterion of evaluation is shared expectations about what behavior is appropriate and what behavior does not accord with social norms in each particular situation. (Jessor et al. 1968: 24) Even after moving to another country immigrants often perceive the law as an instrument of oppression, and its violation as a right and moral action (Markowitz 1993: 202–210). Israeli sociologists have noticed that immigrants from the FSU are more tolerant of “white collar” crimes than veteran Israelis. However, when answering structured questions or participating in sociological surveys which include questions about the subjects’ readiness to report violations of that sort, they made general statements without referring to their own experience and practices (see Al-Haj & Leshem 2000: 51–53). According to Rothman, even if respondents to structured questionnaires were asked what they would do in a hypothetical situation, one would not necessarily know what they would do if actually confronted with such situations. Choices made in hypothetical dilemmas may tell us little about respondents’ actual behavior (Rothman 1980: 107). In the interviews that we recorded, people disclosed facts of their own life, thus becoming vulnerable. As we have mentioned, such stories are usually shared with members of one’s own group, who are expected to understand that evading the law is a means of survival or a compensation for being an outcast (Tice et al. 2002: 175–187). Like the so-called “pardon tales” they turn the crime (or rather violation of the law) into a story (Davis 1987: 1–6), yet in the narratives we recorded the aim is not to plead for forgiveness but to entertain the audience. Legal Anthropology 125

Personal narrative research always deals with the exposure of the sensitive aspects of the self. The researcher becomes responsible to the subjects for not violating trust. This responsibility increases ex- ponentially when interviewees talk about the violation of the law and the moral norms prevailing in society (Miller 2000: 83). Luckily for us, the sample we collected contains no stories about crime or behavior threatening people’s lives. Had it been otherwise we would have faced a serious moral dilemma. Another ethical problem that emerged during the fieldwork was that many informants were convinced that we shared their views and sentiments entirely, including their attitude to the law. Like other immigrant researchers investigating their own group, we found ourselves in limbo between the Israeli establishment and the immigrant community. Trust and solidarity were poised ready to evaporate the moment our interviewees suspected we were serving them, the state. This suspiciousness was particularly strong among members of the older generation. Some of the narratives we analyze concern the abuse of power. But although they cannot be classified as trickster stories, they are important for us because they show how the mechanism of power works and what triggers people to cheat the system.

Single-Narrator Stories

Here is a typical story about émigrés’ cheating the Soviet customs.

Elena, 25

We had to run around a lot to obtain a permission to take out our musical instruments, and as a result we got none. Somehow we were unlucky. They (a special expert committee) didn’t allow us to take our violin and both of the pianos were also banned. We had a Czech “Petrov”, and my grandma had another make, some “Reinbach”. And so we had to arrange for an exchange of pianos. It was necessary to find somebody with a more or less good piano. Finally we exchanged gran’s piano for a Soviet one, and we left ours to our neighbor as a gift. She was the widow of a very good artist and we used to be very friendly. She gave us some of his pictures as a gift. We simply smuggled them. I packed them myself. And I did it in a very sophisticated manner. They were wrapped around an oil heater. We carried two oil heaters as hand luggage. The pictures were put inside the wrapping and from outside 126 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

they were covered with cardboard glued to them. So it was sort of a box with a double bottom. Nobody could suspect anything. As a result we went through the customs successfully, although we did violate some rules. When we were sending our luggage, everything was thoroughly searched. We had a lot of books. They looked at everything, short of opening boxes with washing powder. It is important to note that at the beginning of the emigration process Elena’s family tried to use legal ways for taking their property with them. The failure to obtain legal permissions prompted the family to resort to illegal but much more productive ways of achieving their ends. At the beginning of the 1990s when Elena was about to emigrate, the amount of currency, which a person was allowed to take abroad was limited to one hundred fifty dollars. As regards the luggage allowed to be sent abroad, the rules differed in various parts of the USSR. Moreover, the size and weight depended on the means of transportation used. But whether the luggage was sent by bus, by train, or by air, there were limitations. In other words, the property which had been accumulated by several generations of émigré families had to be abandoned. The emigrants perceived this situation as a wide disparity between law and justice. After the failure with the musical instruments Elena’s family did not even try to use legal methods of sending the pictures. Like other objects of art, pictures were to be presented to an expert committee, and if they were not deemed to be so valuable as to be proclaimed “national property” permission for sending them abroad could be obtained after paying tax. Note that the narrator was actively involved in the process of smuggling, although in 1991, when the family emigrated, she was only sixteen years old. In our sample it is not the only example of the children’s and adolescents’ involvement in cheating the state. However the parents’ attitudes were different. Elena’s parents did not only inform her about their plans to violate the rules but even accepted her help in disguising the pictures as wrapping paper. Quite different was the reaction of another informant who realized that her six-year-old son had already acquired the adults’ nonchalant attitude to breaking rules and outsmarting the system. When she witnessed his naïve ploys to get extra change from food coupons used in Odessa shops she though time had come to emigrate: “On my way home I was thinking about this incident again and again. And (pause) I was shocked. If my six year-old kid is already looking for a way to deceive the state, it means that this state is not the right place for him to live in.” Legal Anthropology 127

Among the many recorded stories about manipulations with the name, one narrative deals with getting an invitation to immigrate to Israel. In order to obtain an exit visa to emigrate to Israel, Soviet Jews had to present an official invitation from a family member, an Israeli citizen. Since few people dared maintain contacts “with relatives abroad” or simply didn’t have any, many of such invitations were signed by acquaintances or mere strangers who had never seen their “relatives” wishing to leave the USSR. Our interviewee told us that although her family knew that at least two such letters had been mailed to her family, none was received. Finally the family council decided that the reason could be the Ukrainian family name of the head of the family. Only after they asked to address the invitation to the Jewish maiden name of the narrator’s mother-in-law, did the letter arrive. Yet, upon arrival in Israel they were confronted with a new dilemma.

Liudmila, 54

We had a problem with our visa (here: invitation to Israel). Sveta, the one who lives in Jerusalem, she sent it to us twice, but neither of them arrived because of the family name Petrenko (Names ending in “ko” are recognized by Russian speakers as Ukrainian). I don’t know whether it was rabbanut (rabbinate) that created obstacles or someone else, but anyway it didn’t work out.

Interviewer: They couldn’t figure you out.

Liudmila: Finally, it (the invitation) was sent to Kagan and that time it arrived alright. And when we landed (in Israel’s airport) there was a huge crowd. Everybody looked insane, and I was running around trying to find out: “What family name should we give? What is correct to say?” I was collecting all the information available. How shall we camouflage ourselves? Is it necessary to camouflage at all? And we decided not to. Let them register us as they wish.

Interviewer: And what information did you get? Were you recommended to “camouflage” or not?

Liudmila: I don’t remember this. I remember that I was registered as Russian. And all the rest were Jews, I mean Sasha and Rosalia Abra- movna. And concerning the kids, at that time, I think, we still didn’t know that the kids are registered according to their mother’s (ethnicity). But we got all these (documents). 128 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

This excerpt clearly shows typical ignorance of a layperson in legal issues. In the beginning of the 1990s even after deciding to emigrate, the majority of Russian Jews knew next to nothing about their rights in Israel. Although Israeli policy targets preservation of the religious homogeneity of the society, non-Jewish family members of Jews are entitled to citizenship immediately after the family immigrates. In this respect Israel’s immigration law is similar to those which are implemented in the USA, Canada and West-European countries. However, if a non-Jew, a citizen of another country marries an Israeli citizen, problems may arise (Coleman & Harding 1995: 22–23). The habit “to camouflage”, whether manifested in hiding political views or actions incompatible with the official ideology, concealing details of one’s own or the family past, was part of the Soviet behavioral code. Importantly, Liudmila consulted her fellow travelers, complete strangers, whether to deceive the authorities by giving false information or not. Her absence of fear that somebody would report her to the authorities was based on the interviewee’s certainty that the others shared her tolerance of “white lies” in relations between the individual and the state. While Elena’s and Liudmila’s stories were related to first-hand experiences, the next narrative recounts what happened to the interviewee’s father. Naturally, this prevented us from asking clarifying questions. It is also clear that whether consciously or unconsciously, our informant, Dana, could change something in the story, for example, include her own evaluations. Yet we assume that Dana’s father told the story of his adventure to entertain his family, as the humorous touch is evident in Dana’s version.

Dana, 27

So he [Dana’s father] went to Uman26 to visit his mom, who remained there. And he was on his way back from (pause), he was on his way back to Israel. And at the customs a woman asked him to take her huge bag full of cigarettes and sausages. She asked him to bring all of it here (to Israel). So in order to avoid overweight he asked Hassids (pause) to take his suitcase. They travel with string bags. They come only for two days to pray and then they go back. And he (the father) came to the customs. He knows Ukrainian. He spoke with them Russian and he spoke Ukrainian. Then he saw a group of Hassids. He had been away from Israel for about a fortnight. And at that time, there were the usual, you know, like always here, there were some terrorist attacks, and something was blown up. And he was Legal Anthropology 129

very happy to see them, to speak Hebrew with them. So he is standing there and talking to them, and the people around him stare: it was clear dad was not a Hassid. How come he is with the Hassids? And then this woman (a customs officer) started frisking him (Dana uses a slang word, an old borrowing from Yiddish, “shmonat’”). Ah, yes (pause), he was also asked to smuggle antique books for my grandmother, dictionaries for my grandfather – the books that were prohibited to take out (...). And they started to search his luggage like mad. First, they (customs officers) opened his own suitcase and saw ten packs of cigarettes (pause). - Why do you need so many cigarettes? He said: - They are not mine. They belong to my Hassid friends. - They say: - What? Are they allowed to smoke? He says: - Sure. Look how many children they have. They are allowed to do anything (laughs). Then they found the sausage he was carrying for somebody else. - Why do you have so much sausage? - Why would you say such a thing? Would you like me to give all of it away now? (pause) In fact, I can’t, because the sausage is not kosher, and I can’t distribute it here. And while he is saying this he is very anxious because there are these old dictionaries at the very bottom of the suitcase. Then she (the customs officer) got to a package of magazines on movies. The woman who was searching him, she was really (pause), she was simply perplexed. - Why do you need so many magazines? Why do you need such a quantity? He says: - It’s my profession. That was all. She gave up on him, and she didn’t get to those dictionaries. And he got through together with the Hassids. People give them things (to carry across the border). It’s very convenient. People give them all sorts of things. I don’t know whether Nachman helped or whether it wasn’t Nachman. So this is the story. The events described in this story point to several law violations. First, Dana’s father violated Israeli security rules by reporting somebody else’s luggage as his own. If Dana’s father had taken the stranger’s bag before the security check, it could have endangered the flight. As this was done at the customs, i.e. after security control, his actions may seem less problematic. Yet, he definitely didn’t know what was inside the cigarettes. More than that, while taking the traveler’s luggage he had to give one of his own suitcases to a Hassid, which was 130 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya another violation of the regulations. We do not know whether the Has- sid checked the contents of the suitcase, but we suspect he didn’t if it is already known to travelers that Hassids are willing to carry other people’s luggage as their own. The claim that the cigarettes belonged to the Hassid was another problematic act, since it made the latter responsible for somebody else’s non-compliance with the rules. The question arises: why were the magazines and the dictionaries hidden under the sausage in a stranger’s bag? Did not this person carry her own suitcase? We assume that here Dana may have confused some details, although we cannot say it for sure. Still another problem was that Dana’s father sought help of an ultraorthodox Jew while having non-kosher sausage in his luggage – a sign of disrespect for Jewish dietary laws. Finally, carrying books published before 1945 violated the Ukrainian law prohibiting to take them across the border. Today, even Ukrainian customs officials feel that this law, a Soviet legacy, is problematic as criteria used to determine antiquity are too formal, as a result the law prevents people from keeping their own books, even when their value is personal rather than historical (Safonov 2009). We conducted two interviews with Dana and in both of them she referred to Tsaddik from Uman’. In the second interview Dana identified him as rabbi Nachman. The first narrative in which he features was quoted in (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 296); the one above was just mentioned there. Neither one sounded as a traditional Jewish legend. The only “miracle” Dana attributed to the rabbi’s help is the smuggling of old dictionaries under non-kosher sausage. Thus in her narration the trickster story acquires traits of the oxymoron, a blasphemy-based legend. Dana’s belief in supernatural, be it domovoi, shaman or Tsad- dik – is mixed with skepticism and self-irony, which is characteristic of our informants. Rejecting the essence of a religious worldview they are always ready to do something that they hope will coax Destiny into being favorable to them.

Twin Stories

As noted, our sample includes four plots told by different participants in the same events which we will quote and analyze in this section. We chose these narratives because they show selectivity of narrators’ memory and the first phase of the folklorization process. Legal Anthropology 131

Valeria, 70

I remember how we… In N. we had a collection of medals and we were anxious to take it out when we decided to emigrate. We could not take the medals as a whole collection. And so we sent them in postal parcels to different addresses in Israel. A kilo each, and that’s how we sent them. We had a medal dedicated to Pushkin, a medal by sculptor Skudnov, included in catalogs… Well, he is quite famous. We weren’t allowed to take that medal because it was issued to celebrate Pushkin’s centenary. But we were so eager to keep it. And so I thought, “Too bad if this medal gets lost, but the hell with it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” So I put it into a regular postal parcel and wrote in the accompanying letter: A medal: “Pushkin”. And that’s how it reached us.

Raia, 48

My second story is about taking medals out of the country. These were old medals. We had a collection. And, in fact, it is allowed to take out medals as individual pieces. But it is prohibited to take out collections. My parents sent them as if they were gifts in postal parcels; there were about 30–40 parcels, not heavier than one kilo each. They were addressed to three friends in Israel. One address was in Jerusalem, another in Tel Aviv, and the last one was in Haifa. And when we came (to Israel), we picked them up, and then it turned out that all the parcels sent to Tel Aviv and Haifa reached the addressees while hardly any of those sent to Jerusalem arrived. Then we searched for them and some were tracked somewhere near Munich. But some others were lost. Some of the medals, rare ones, were issued in the 19th century and it was forbidden to send them abroad. And so I took them out when I came to N. as a guest. I put them into a small children’s backpack carried by my daughter. I had an answer ready in case they were discovered (by the customs). I would say that I’d bought them in the market on Andreevskii descent (a street in the narrator’s home-town) and had no idea whether they were valuable or forbidden for sending abroad. This is my second story. Even in these short narratives a mother and a daughter emphasize various aspects of the events. Valeria reads numismatic catalogs and knows every piece of her family collection. She remembers the dates when each medal was issued, she knows in whose honor the medals were produced and to which memorable events they were dedicated. She singles out one of the most valuable pieces of the collection and tells the interviewer how she pretended ignorance. When filling out a 132 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya postal form she did not lie in describing the medal, because, indeed, it was dedicated to Pushkin. She did not falsify the date when it was issued; she merely omitted it. Thus a medal that had the status of an antique piece was sent as a contemporary piece. We can infer that for Valeria it was a daring act, and she drew strength by referring to folk wisdom. She invented a way to downplay the significance of the “gift” and displays satisfaction that the trick worked. The safe arrival of this particular medal seems more important to her than the loss of some others, which she does not even mention. Raia, on the other hand, does not evince familiarity with individual pieces of the family collection. Like her mother she does not doubt the wisdom of sending the collection. Her short narrative is divided into two parts: the first is told in the third person and focuses on the technicalities. She reveals how and where the medals were sent. She indicates which parcels arrived safely and which were lost and where they were found. But her real involvement in transporting the medals emerges in the second part of the story, when it was her turn to bend the law. Her strategy was similar to her mother’s: pretending ignorance. She risked more though, because having items forbidden for taking outside the country in her luggage she could betray herself by fear, and in case of failure would have faced an unpleasant scene at the customs. Note that Raia’s narrative is part of a longer interview. We recorded four of her stories, three of which dealt with customs, and one with court evidence in Israel. Raia structured each narrative as a separate story with a number in the introduction and a concluding sentence (e.g., “This is how I became a smuggler”).

Natalia, 57

It was in November 1990. Quite a few friends and relatives are leaving for America and Israel. I didn’t see off as many friends as some other people I know, but still many acquaintances from Ukraine and Georgia came to Moscow to register their (emigration) papers. And my mom and I witnessed all the dramas, and anxieties, and hurt feelings (pause). We saw all these heart attacks and tears, and a general mess. And most of the émigrés were reasonably well-to-do. I never saw off very wealthy or really rich people, but neither were the people I saw off poor. All of them had something they wanted to take out (illegally), and so they tried to cheat and sometimes they succeeded and sometimes they failed. And only twice in my life did I see off my friends…One was going to Italy. She had no property at all. She was going to join her fiancé and was Legal Anthropology 133 eight months pregnant, and they (the customs) had taken her wedding band, no, not the wedding band, but the engagement ring given by her fiancé. It was a terrible tragedy, and still today I cannot make sense of it. I couldn’t do anything then. I managed to send her that ring many years later… Oh, and one other friend, my very best, my closest friend … she didn’t have anything either. On her last day (before emigration) she bought a splendid leather jacket, the first one in her life. We carefully examined it, we checked many times whether it looked real smart, and we bought a couple of other garments too. And besides this, she had nothing else except bitter, piercing, sad and happy memories of N. and of everyone she’d left there. And finally we come for the customs examination. You know, when I saw off my relatives I knew that they had something, something that was in excess (of what was allowed by customs regulations), and something hidden, and something had probably been already sent (with other emigrants). I would be worried how they would pass (customs control), but in this particular case there was nothing to be worried about. Because she really had NOTHING. The only anxieties were related to parting. And all of a sudden a petty man, in his petty position decided to show how much power he had been given at the expense of my friend. And probably he had previously done that at the expense of many other people. And how did he search this poor girl! Inside and out, from top to bottom, over and over again. And it wouldn’t be such a big deal if it hadn’t been for the fact that the only thing that he did find was her father’s watch. Katia’s father had passed away a long time ago. He was very dear to her. As far as I remember the watch didn’t even work but the memory was powerful, not fake, and very important for the heart. The watch was confiscated. No, it wasn’t confiscated, but Katia was told to leave it behind, the watch and some other trifles. And (pause), Katia went back and gave these things to me. And there was something else, I don’t remember now, but it was really something completely unimportant, something like a sandwich or something else that couldn’t be taken across the border. And the paradox of the situation was that not a single customs officer, including this particular one, none of them was on guard to defend interests of the country. And he was not alert to prevent valuables being taken out. He was simply a petty man who felt he was big and significant carrying out his terrible mission. As soon as he did carry it out, the interests of the country no longer bothered him, and the paradox of the situation was that we were allowed to come close to each other again and say goodbye once more. We couldn’t even dream this would be possible. And when after all this horror, humiliation and pain Kat’ka realized she could come and kiss me once more, neither she nor I knew what would happen. But anger, I am not frequently possessed with anger but then it simply boiled over in me. I know there are moments in my life when 134 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

I am capable of anything! Just at that very moment, all of a sudden I remembered that I had the watch! It wasn’t important just to give it back to her but to prove something to them! And taking her hand in mine, I shoved the watch up her sleeve and whispered… I remember the first thing I said clearly, but don’t remember at all what else I said then. I said, “Hold it, Kat’ka!” And then I said something else, something angry and revengeful. Something of the sort: “Damn them all!” Something of the sort, you know, slogan-type, and revengeful. And I felt relieved. And I had the feeling that it was some kind of a plot, and there was a belief that whatever you say, they couldn’t take us with bare hands.

Ekaterina, 53

Naturally, when we decided to leave we were thinking of how to take out valuables. Well, we didn’t have real valuables, but those were objects that were dear as memories about the family and the people who had passed away. Well, besides, it was very difficult to take out old books because books published before 1945 were simply prohibited for sending them abroad. We had a big collection of books from the Academia publishers that had come out before 1945. And I remember how I gave them away to acquaintances, and I didn’t know whether I would ever be able to come (to Russia) again. And so I had to leave many of my favorite books. I remember a scene in the Public Library, where we had to bring books and photographs for inspection and a permit for taking them out. There was a woman there who was terribly upset because she wasn’t allowed to take out a photograph of her son wearing a school uniform. The old (Soviet) school uniform looked like the pre-revolutionary Russian school uniform. And the inspector, a young woman, became stubborn. She didn’t know that such a uniform had existed (in Soviet times), and refused point blank to give a permit. The most… the most honest people, who had never even dreamt of cheating, indulged in it before departure. I know someone, a person of advanced age, a Ph.D. and a professor. She took apart her pearl necklace, interspersed real pearls with fake ones and decorated her cardigan with this mixture. It was fashionable then, you know, woolen cardigans decorated with pearls were all the rage (pause). And this is what happened to me when I was crossing the border. I had gold earrings, a pendant and a gold watch. These were not antiques, but Soviet-made objects. But apparently their total value was higher than what it was allowed to take out. And the customs officer, a woman, said, “Well, you’ll have to leave something behind. Choose what”. I wanted to leave the earrings, but she said, “No-no-no! Leave the watch.” Fortunately, my friend was there to see me off. So I went back and gave it to her over the barrier, I mean the Legal Anthropology 135

watch. Then it turned out that my luggage was overweight, so I had to take out some things out of the bag. I took out a blanket, a hair-dryer, and again handed it to her over the barrier. And when I gave these things to her, she took hold of my hand and put the watch into it. And so I crossed (the border) holding this watch and violating customs rules. I experienced the exhilaration of real triumph: I managed to outsmart the system at least in something. Natalia is the only narrator in our sample who is not an emigrant and lives in Moscow. While immigrants recall the episodes of departure, her repertoire of stories linked to emigration focuses on seeing her friends and relatives off. Natalia combined two stories in her narrative, and although the first one does not have a double, we could not separate the two because structurally they form one whole united by an introduction. Furthermore, they are related to the same conflict between Soviet authorities and the individual and form a unit in the composition. Natalia juxtaposes her two friends and all the other emigrants who tried to violate customs rules. She emphasizes that both her friends were very poor and had nothing to hide from the customs. This is important for her because she wants to show how unfair it was that out of all the others it was these two who were “caught” with the one and only one valuable object each of them possessed. In both cases the value was more symbolic than monetary. This is why Natalia mentions that the watch did not work. The narrator does not conceal her acute dislike of the system. Note that she opposes herself and her friends to the invisible but malicious “them”. She is convinced that customs officers’ vigilance has nothing to do with conscientiousness but only with conceit and petty pride in their own power. Although both episodes are reminiscences of the events that took place over a decade before, Natalia is full of emotions recalling the two events which she still perceives as a “tragedy” that triggered “horror”, “pain”, “humiliation” and anger that “boils over”. In both cases she was to be the caretaker of the returned valuables and is proud to have passed them back to the owners. Ekaterina’s narrative also includes three story lines: providing books and photographs for inspection, hiding real pearls among the fake beads, and finally, the twinned story about the watch. Like Natalia, she claims that virtually no emigrant left the USSR without breaking customs rules, and emphasizes that people were particularly eager to take out objects having symbolic value. Like Natalia, Ekaterina dwells on the lack of professionalism in the actions of the officials. Her memo- 136 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya ries of the episode with the watch, however, deviate significantly from Natalia’s. First, it is the gender of the customs officer; secondly it is the reason why the two friends could come closely into contact again, and finally, it is the details of how the watch was secretly handed back to her. More importantly, Ekaterina’s perception of the events is much less emotional than Natalia’s. She doesn’t mention humiliation or anger. Nor does she confirm that her luggage was thoroughly searched. Nothing in her narrative indicates that, indeed, she was extremely poor at the time of emigration. Above all, she does not even hint that the watch belonged to her father or was a family heirloom. But both narrators are united in the feeling of triumph and revenge that they experienced when they managed to “outsmart the system”27.

Roman, 75

This is about an incident which I always recall with a smile. Someone very close to me asked to do something that seemed very simple. It was necessary to testify in the rabbinate that her friend, a Jew, was to get married to someone who was also Jewish. And I had to testify that I had been acquainted with that woman in the town where she had lived before emigration and that I knew the young man and that he had also lived in the same town. I also had to say that I knew that their parents were indeed Jewish. I went to the rabbinate and received a hearty welcome. They started talking to me, and what is interesting is that they started speaking Yiddish. And I replied in Yiddish. The rabbi obviously respected me for this, and further, well, it was simply a conversation between two men who could understand each other. That’s it.

Raia, 48

This is a story of false evidence, or to be more precise, a story of how I persuaded my own father to give false evidence. It was like this. A friend of mine from N. had to prove that she was Jewish. And Jewish she was. I knew her still in N., and I knew her rather well too. In fact, it was enough to look at her to realize she was Jewish (laughs). You would never find a more typical Jew. But something in her mother’s papers, well, her nationality wasn’t indicated. There was a period in the Soviet Union when there was no entry for nationality on the birth certificate. And she asked me to go to the rabbinate together with her to testify that she’s Jewish. I promised I would, but when the day to do it approached, she called me, confused and frustrated, and said I wasn’t right for the Legal Anthropology 137

task, because only men can testify. She was extremely upset, and all of a sudden an idea occurred to me: “Wait, I’ll ask my dad.” My dad had never met her. I went up to him and said, “Look, my friend Marina is begging to go to the rabbinate with her and testify she’s Jewish, but my testimony is no good, because they don’t allow women’s testimony. Can you do it?” And he said, “Sure”. Marina came to pick him up. He saw her for the first time in his life then. He came to the rabbinate with her and testified with a lot of confidence that she’s Jewish. Well, after all it was no lie. She IS Jewish. We asked Roman for an interview because we had heard him tell this story on various occasions among friends. Roman is a good storyteller and he relished telling of his mischief. He agreed to the interview albeit not enthusiastically. To our regret, the recorded version was stripped of juicy details and proved to be much drier and poorer in details than those we had heard before. Moreover, Roman did his best to disguise the fact of false evidence, although he hadn’t been at all ashamed of saying it at all in the absence of the tape recorder. Unlike him, the second narrator, his daughter, was frank and revealed a couple of details missing from Roman’s narrative. First, Roman failed to mention that he had become involved in problematic activities through his daughter, and our pledge of anonymity did little to reduce his vigilance. Appar- ently, he was not at all worried about himself but he wanted to protect his daughter from whatever trouble might arise and so disguised her as “someone very close to me”. Secondly, he “forgot” to mention that he had first met the girl for whom he was going to testify only on the way to the rabbinate. Thirdly, Roman’s daughter Raia, who knew the couple well, had no recollection of the necessity to testify for the girl’s fiancé. Neither could she recall that the young man had come from the same town. And finally, Roman didn’t mention that the reason for his daughter’s request was related to gender issues, namely women’s inequality in the religious court. Note that Raia says that her friend looked like a typical Jew, which is a decisive factor for her to prove the woman’s ethnicity. This is not a chance remark but a widespread stereotype that still prevails among former Soviets. Even after years spent in Israel and exposure to the Jewish tradition, the knowledge that it is not the phenotype that makes a person Jewish remains on the periphery of consciousness, and in spontaneous narration habitual attitudes dominate. Another interesting detail emerging from Roman’s story is that according to him, his credentials as a witness in the rabbinate were 138 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya proven by his ability to speak Yiddish. Since many elderly immigrants from the FSU have not managed to master Hebrew, Yiddish remains the only language in which they can communicate with members of the receiving society. We don’t know whether the rabbi chose Yiddish as the most likely means of communication or whether, indeed, it was an additional means of verifying Roman’s own Jewishness, and in effect the validity of his testimony. The second incident of false evidence is also related to ethnic issues.

Ekaterina, 53

This happened a year after I immigrated. My husband and I “acquired” a foster son. This was the son of a fellow-student of mine, we were at school together. He (the foster son) came to Israel alone. He had fallen in love with a girl and (pause) followed her when she emigrated. And we tried to help him in whatever we could, and so did the girl’s mother. He often stayed overnight at her place and sometimes at ours. His father is Jewish, but his mother is Russian. And he was afraid that he would have problems because it wasn’t clear what they would write in his teudat zeut (Hebrew for ID). One day, the girl’s mother called and said, “You know, Katia, Serezha wants to be circumcised but first he must, first someone has to confirm he is Jewish”. I said, “I will”, and we went to see the Rabbi. We told him enthusiastically that we knew Serezha’s family and that it was an excellent family! This is what we emphasized: the family was good. He (the rabbi) was watching us with curiosity, that is, how we displayed all our emotions and passions. He asked questions about the boy’s mother but we said we were not very well acquainted with the mother although knew the father very well. Some time later Serezha was circumcised and he stayed at our place after the procedure. Later, when he went to pick up his teudat zeut it turned out he was registered – after all, he was not registered as Jewish. Well, my husband said, “Do you realize that you have become a false witness? Besides, your evidence was not worth anything since you are women.” But we were convinced we were doing the right thing. The young fellow came here all alone, and things are hard for him, and one has to see to all the necessary conditions… at least there shouldn’t be any obstacles preventing him from starting a new life in Israel.

Valentina, 59

Valentina: By that time Serezha had already been circumcised, but still, he sort of wasn’t Jewish because his mother is Russian. And we Legal Anthropology 139 thought there would be complications for him because of this, although now it is clear that people live very well without it and have no complications. But then we were really scared and wanted to help him. We decided that we would testify that I, er, knew his relatives back in Leningrad, and … my mother knew… (inaudible). I remember we had invented a whole story to prove that his mother’s Jewish. And we were concerned only about one thing: we wanted it to go smoothly. Naturally, we had no qualms of consciousness because we were FURIOUS that a person was turned into an outcast, we were really furious. (inaudible) I remember that we were going to the synagogue in the state of elation, we were (inaudible) we were in a very good mood. I don’t remember at all who I spoke to, to some rabbi I guess.

Interviewer: Do you remember where it was?

Valentina: Well, it was in that big synagogue in Haifa in a beautiful place (we omit the name of the area to preserve anonymity), I liked the place very much. Well, they treated us very nicely, everything was fine, we… As far as I remember I said that the kid had come to Israel alone, that he’s such a… that it is necessary to help him because he is completely alone here (inaudible), and that I know his parents although he is not my relative, that is it’s as if …Well, it is essential that he should get help and settle down properly.

Interviewer: And what was the end of this whole story? For him, I mean.

Valentina: Well, as far as I remember it ended well. (pause) You know what… I don’t really remember. I think his Jewishness was confirmed. (Looks at the interviewer with a question in her eyes, but the interviewer shakes her head.) No? It wasn’t!? Oh, really? I thought it had been confirmed. (…) Could they have really failed to confirm Serezhka’s Jewishness? You know what, yes, I remember now, yes, he (the rabbi), said that he (Sergei) should be circumcised and then everything would be fine. Sure, you are Jewish, and that’s it! And it was sort of a confirmation that he’s Jewish. (…) But I must say it didn’t really do any harm. (…)

Interviewer: No, it didn’t.

Valentina: And he lives a normal life here and feels o.k.… I want to add something on the subject of law. Our amuta (Hebrew, voluntary organization) is the only island in the whole world of injustice. We sometimes try to…, we try to adhere to law and we try to act. Well, say, when they catch, sales people, that is, we try to catch salespeople in the act and make them do things according to the law; on the other hand on some occasions we try to bypass the law, because the law is so 140 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

idiotic, so cruel, so absurd… Even Israelis, you know, and we together with them try to circumvent the law in order to help people. (…) And there are cases, very complex cases when a person finds herself in a terrible situation, absolutely terrible and all because of the stupid law. Well, you know what I mean… Like in the previous pair of stories, here we have two versions differing in some relevant details. First, the two stories deviate in the sequence of events. Ekaterina indicates that false testimony was indispensable for circumcision, while Valentina starts her story by saying that it had happened after the circumcision. Since the career of the young man for whom our subjects gave false evidence proved to be very successful, Valentina forgot that the testimony had proven useless. When the interviewer, who had heard Ekaterina’s story first, betrayed herself by showing that Valentina’s memory might be failing her, she reconstructed the events more accurately. Valentina is open in admitting to giving false testimony. She elaborates on how the story of the relationship was invented. Ekaterina, on the other hand, does not openly divulge the fact of lying. She emphasizes her friendship with the young man’s father as if this were the proof of his wife’s Jewishness. After the two interviews we met Ekaterina again and asked without a tape recorder whether she had done it deliberately or unconsciously. She tried to analyze her own motives and admitted that she wasn’t sure. This leads us to believe that it was done semi-consciously, out of habit to conform to the norm. Contrary to three episodes in the six narratives quoted earlier, in the last one the trick failed. False evidence proved useless. But since none of the participants was punished, and since the young man’s integration was not affected, Valentina’s and Ekaterina’s narratives radiate cheerfulness and optimism. The motif that is common to the four stories about false evidence is the narrators’ conviction that their behavior was moral. They were expressing solidarity with a “friend in need”, thus proving once more that in Russian culture fairness is more important than the truth. In the first case, the participants thought that it was unfair that women’s testimony was not accepted. In the second, the subjects thought it unfair that a young man who had the courage to start a new life in Israel all alone without family support should suffer discrimination. We are not sure that these stories would meet with sympathy from veteran Israelis. Fake Jewishness of immigrants from the FSU is a sensitive issue in the formal and informal Israeli discourse. Israeli society welcomes potential immigrants but finds it hard to tolerate the Legal Anthropology 141 actual ones, especially when the latter do not meet Halachic criteria, or societal expectations, such as willingness to assimilate and readiness to mount the social ladder slowly instead of competing vigorously against veterans. For many immigrants ethnicity is a sensitive issue, because people feel they suffered discrimination in the USSR, irrespective of their being Halachically Jewish. As mentioned earlier, immigrants from the FSU are primarily secular and do not perceive religious law as real law. Rather they see the parallel between religious law and Soviet bureaucracy. Readiness to make concessions works for “good” people. If documents are forged by thieves, prostitutes, or people known to be dishonest in other ways, most immigrants are unlikely to show sympathy. So the law is not perceived as an abstract category but is highly personalized. The specific feature of immigrant groups is that they find themselves at the intersection of rules and laws: people’s mentality is dominated by the situation in the country of origin while the consequences of behavior are affected by the laws and practices of the receiving society. All the narratives quoted in this section, with the exception of Roman’s, preserve the spirit of traditional trickster stories. They are novella-like personal narratives in which narrators act as heroes showing off their mischievous experiences and daring exploits. None of them cheated individuals but all were duping the system. The analysis of “twin” stories confirms that recollections of past events are not static or fixed. As the Russian semiotician Viacheslav Ivanov points out, the real gift of human memory is not in passive memorizing but in creative reproduction (Ivanov 1999: 571). Remembering is selective, it depends on the narrator’s agenda, and on his/her role in the events. Sometimes the significance of this role is inflated, but sometimes an attempt is made to downplay it. In addition, expectations of the audience always affect the storyteller. Contemporary personal narratives with elements of trickster stories are rooted in the tradition and enrich it. The types of tricks change, but the social aspects, and the key features of the plots, remain the same.

Conclusions

Among new phenomena that FSU immigrants in Israel encounter, the realities of civil society, including relations with law-enforcement authorities, play an important part in their acculturation processes. 142 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

For the first time in their lives many newcomers must grasp the importance of legal competence, the lack of which may lead to financial losses and moral harm. In the absence of familiar alternative means of settling conflicts newcomers have to go to court, in most cases to the small claims or labor courts. Perceptions of justice, autonomy, self-reliance and tolerance often differ in diverse cultures, and immigrants have to adapt theirs to those that prevail in the host society; jurists and laypersons give different interpretation to what is just, fair and moral. Our informants express disappointment with what they see as ineffectiveness of civil courts, particularly in view of the efforts required of the litigants at all stages of the lawsuit. Many blame the legal system for being more protective of the perpetrator than of the victim. Our observations confirm Merry’s conclusions that the idea of seeking justice in court attracts and at the same time repels laypeople. Drawing on the symbolic power of the law to afford strength in conflicts, when they go to court they become vulnerable to the intervention of the rules and practices of the legal system and to the groups that generate them. People turn to the courts to win better control of their lives, but in fact often lose control of the situation by having to surrender to traditions of social relationships and to the courthouse discourse (Merry 1990: 181). Many interviews reveal that immigrants do not trust the state’s capacity and willingness to protect an individual. The skepticism and pessimism regarding law and justice that evolved in the USSR persist after immigration. In our sample this distrust was manifested acutely when we had to remove one recorded story about a failed litigation in a small claims court. The unfavorable ruling was made despite the proof provided, which was sufficient at least on the level of common sense. The narrator, a successful immigrant, fully integrated professionally was afraid of persecution on the part of the state, if it perceived this chapter as an insult to the legal system of the state of Israel and would initiate a lawsuit against this person. Our promise of anonymity of the subjects and readiness to eliminate any detail that might make the storyteller recognizable were not accepted as reliable safeguards. The traumatic experience of failed litigation, stories heard from friends, as well as newspaper publications about different legal outcomes for people from different social groups and having different social weight (see e.g., Naiman 2012; Shaus 2012; Vilenskii 2012), are engraved in this person’s mind giving rise to the feelings of vulnerability and exposure to aggression on the part of the legal system in Israel. Legal Anthropology 143

Immigration has not changed the attitude to the state that has evolved in Russian culture: our interviewees still feel it is a relationship of confrontation requiring defense on their part. As is typical of Russian folk tradition, contemporary tricksters justify their duplicitous behavior by the weakness of their own social position or of the people on whose behalf they act. Stories of this type do not trigger criticism from in-group audiences; just the opposite – listeners usually express solidarity and start telling similar stories to enjoy the status of the hero themselves. The court sagas and the tricksters’ stories are interrelated: the disenchantment with the legal system repels immigrants from conflict resolutions offered by the state and reinforces alternative survival strategies.

Notes

1 See http://ethnography.omskreg.ru/page.php?id=439, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013.

2 http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/320/320lawmo.htm, last accessed on 13 Feb 2006.

3 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/minority, http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ minority, http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/minor01.htm, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013.

4 Like any big immigrant group, ex-Soviets did not choose identical integration strategies. There are some families that consciously chose to distance themselves from the Russian roots and become indistinguishable from the majority, although in the first generation this rarely becomes a success.

5 “nash shemiakin Bagatz zavedomo opravdaet sharoshkinu kontoru”. “Sharoshkina kontora” is a jocular paraphrase of “sharashkina” or “sharazhkina kontora” – a slang name of KGB research and technical units staffed by imprisoned scientists and engineers during Stalin’s purges. Later this saying came to denote any ineffective and inefficient organization. See http://akrav.livejournal.com/2685.html, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013.

6 Bards’s songs is one of the most popular genres of contemporary Russian urban culture. They are performed on stage, in clubs and pubs and during informal gatherings of friends.

7 We are grateful to Iulii Kim for his permission to quote his song in our book. 144 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

8 We are grateful to the lawyers Tamar Berliner, Marat Dorfman and Ella Elgart for reading the draft and making valuable comments.

9 To preserve anonymity we have changed the names of the storytellers and have abbreviated the names of the agencies and stores involved in the conflicts. Hebrew insertions in the interviewees’ speech are given in italics and words emphasized by intonation are capitalized.

10 Ironically, in Middle Ages animals were, indeed, tried in courts and punished. These trials were held in Europe before royal, urban, seigneurial and ecclesiastical courts. When an animal was sentenced to capital punishment it was executed by a professional hangman (Cohen 1986: 10–11).

11 Thus, Tatiana, 33, who sued her tenant for non-payment said: “Since it was the first time we had to go to court, we (she and her husband) did not sleep the night before the hearing. We were very anxious.” Ekaterina, 53, who had to go to court after a traffic accident reported crying bitterly after losing the case, which she had had little hope to win, not because she was disappointed with the outcome but because of the tension. Raia, 48, who was sued by a neighbor recalled, “I must say that although the hearing was relatively smooth, nobody interrogated me, nobody accused me of anything and although I sort of won, or at least was not proven guilty of any “sins”, I left the courtroom shaken and with a heartache.”

12 Tatiana, 33 also expressed disappointment that the “judge had read the file very superficially” and the entire “hearing lasted no more than ten minutes”.

13 Today many immigrants discuss similar problems with the furniture shops and annulled checks in the Russian-language Internet forums devoted to legal issues. Sharing experience they try to help one another. See e.g., a discussion thread from September 2011: http://forumpravo.israelinfo.ru/ viewtopic.php?t=16300, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013.

14 Summarizing her experience with the court system that failed to enforce the judge’s decision to make the tenant pay, Tatiana, 33, remarked, “Beit mishpat (Hebrew for “court”) and this whole maarekhet (Hebrew for “system”), they don’t do anything at all”.

15 Some stories in the sample are about informants’ decision not to go to court although they suffered financial damages and were morally hurt. Raya, 48, had two experiences of this sort, and after many years she is still angry with herself for these decisions which she interprets today as weakness.

16 We note two tendencies in the interviews: some informants juggle with legal terms without being sure they use them correctly, others hesitate when they Legal Anthropology 145

have to use a legal term even in their mother tongue. Both tendencies betray legal incompetence.

17 This motif emerges in two other interviews. Tatiana’s tenant had numerous debts and had been known to the court system for habitual non-payment. See the story of the other informant, Elena, further in the text.

18 Two other informants whose stories are not cited in this chapter see the use of force as the only effective way of dealing with offenders. Tatiana, 33, is planning to get help from a private company that specializes in “knocking money out” of debtors. Svetlana, 50, tried to get rid of problematic tenants for five years. Like Tatiana, she was aware that there is a law protecting families with small children from being forced to move out if they do not have financial means to pay the rent. She thought it made no sense to try to go to court and shame prevented her from “paying some Arabs for solving my problem in ten minutes by force”. When her irresponsible tenants finally moved out, they still owed Svetlana about 20,000 shekels. This incident was so traumatic that Svetlana decided to sell her apartment. She prefers living in a rented apartment in a better neighborhood where she cannot afford to buy property. She is convinced that letting apartments is too risky a business for people with limited financial means.

19 The Zionist Forum is an NGO founded in 1988 by Russian-speaking Israelis as an umbrella organization for various immigrants’ associations. Its first leader was a politician and a well-known public figure Natan Scharansky.

20 Two other interviewees told us about lawsuits against employers who had cheated them on severance payment. As a result of a four-year long joint suit, Semion, 70, and his ex-colleagues received 85 per cent compensation. Valentina, 58 was in litigation with her ex-employer for over two years and at the time of the interview the case had not been resolved.

21 “Shapiro grants” were given to the new immigrants, researchers and engineers, authors of academic publications for a maximum of three years during the first years in Israel. The goal of the program was to facilitate professional integration of academics. Although for some immigrant researchers this was a beginning of long-term employment, the majority of the recipients of the Shapiro grants were fired when financial support of the state expired and academic and R&D institutions had to start paying immigrant researchers’ salaries from their own budgets (Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2009: 624).

22 See the official site of National Insurance Institute of Israel in Russian https://sites.google.com/site/betuahleumi/home/zaloby-na-bl, 13 Jun 2011, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013. 146 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

23 See e.g., Lapshin Alexandr 2003. Izrail. Subiektivnye zametki [Israel. Sub- jective Notes]. http://reports.travel.ru/letters/45473.html?cc=il, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013.

24 Larsson, Milene 2012. I Saw a Man Burning Alive in the Streets of Tel Aviv. http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/moshe-silman-israel-set-himself-on-fire- protests-j14-tel-aviv-video, last accessed on 13 Jan 2013.

25 In the course of fieldwork we also recorded narratives by ex-Soviets who immigrated to Germany and the U.S.A. The motifs and attitudes in these stories are similar to those analyzed in this chapter.

26 Uman’ is a city in Cherkasy region in central Ukraine. It is a place of mass pilgrimages of Hassids from all over the world to the burial place of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.

27 In a mischievous mood similar to that which permeates the narratives we quote, an Israeli Russian-language journalist Bella Kerdman, an émigré from Odessa, published a story of how she had smuggled out an antique plate from her personal collection. The fact that she was not embarrassed of this dubious fact in her biography makes it clear that she was proud of her trick (Kerdman 2012: 42). Chapter 3. Holidays as Border Crossing: The Case of Russian- Speaking Immigrants in Israel

Introduction

This chapter looks into changes in festive traditions and attitudes to various holidays, Jewish, Slavic and Soviet among Russian-speaking Israelis. It is based on focus interviews with seven informants recorded in August–November of 2011 in Haifa and Netanya (7 hours of recording). Material of the interviews was supplemented by posts devoted to holidays on Russian-language Israeli web sites and our participant observation of the lifestyle of Russian-speaking Israelis. The chapter follows up on our previous studies of everyday life of Russian-speaking Israelis. They revealed a mosaic in which Russian and Soviet practices dominated but were mixed with elements of the Jewish tradition. In biographic interviews our informants reminisced about Soviet rituals and some habits of their parents and grandparents that had puzzled them. One informant told us that she could never understand why her grandmother would soak a chicken in the water before cooking. Only later she realized that it was a home method of making chicken meat kosher. Another interviewee wondered about an old kerosene lamp that was used only three times a year. As it turned out, her grandmother lit it up on the days her two sons fell in World War II and on the Day of Atonement. Still another informant shared her memories about waiting for a happy day in autumn when her grandmother would tell her to miss classes for no particular reason. Without explaining the reason to the child, the grandmother, familiar with the Jewish tradition, tried to mark in this way the Day of the Atonement when no Jew 148 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya should work. A characteristic feature of these stories was that only in Israel where immigrants could witness the Jewish tradition practiced without disguise did “strange” behavior of the relatives begin to make sense to the narrators (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 68–87). Ten years have passed since we conducted biographic interviews, which we discussed in our previous book, and all this time we continued participant observation. Like our colleagues who investigated secondary socialization of Russian-speaking Israelis in terms of their attitude to religion (Remennick & Prashizky 2010), we see that immigrants are more involved in the Jewish life. Some have picked up knowledge about the Jewish tradition in the course of day-to-day interaction with veteran Israelis; others read books or took courses on various aspects of Judaism and Jewish history. On some occasions immigrants participate in Jewish festive rituals in public settings, for example when they attend office parties, visit their children’s schools or participate in community events in various NGOs; however, in most cases Israelis spend holidays in the family circle. While public festivities taking place on the streets and on the squares welcome anyone willing to participate, home celebrations presuppose invitation of guests and joint activities to prepare the event. When the attitude of the hosts and guests to religion differs, their habits are usually taken into account and respected. Thus, when the secular invite their religious friends they either order food in kosher restaurants, and serve it on disposable dishes, or serve drinks, ice-cream and cakes bought in kosher shops. In case guests are not religious but eat kosher, restrictions are less severe. The hostess might cook herself but will not mix meat and dairy foods. As a rule, people observing the Jewish tradition do not visit their secular friends on the days of Jewish holidays, rather they come to parties held on weekdays or after sunset on Saturday when Sabbath is over. Yet many religious people do not hesitate to invite their secular friends for a Sabbath dinner on Friday night. One of the considerations then is to try to bring the secular closer to a traditional way of life. When we were choosing informants for the focus interviews we approached those who displayed curiosity about various traditions. We were interested in narratives about festive rituals but even more so in our subjects’ reflections about the place of festive traditions in their life, and the changes in the role of holidays and attitudes to them that occurred as a result of resettling. At the time of immigration all our informants were secular and had but superficial knowledge of Holidays as Border Crossing 149 any religious traditions or rituals. One of the first changes in their lifestyle in Israel was different division of time: weekdays starting on Sunday, and a new year starting in September. This change has various implications for newcomers. One is the loss of mobility at weekends and during holidays. In all the towns of Israel, except Haifa and Upper Nazareth, public transport comes to a standstill on Friday afternoon until Saturday evening (see section “Long Distances in a Small Country” pages 70–73). The same happens on the eve of all Jewish holidays. People who have cars and those who can afford taxis can solve the problem easily if they don’t live in the areas dominated by Ultra-Orthodox Jews. It is the economically weak, including new immigrants, who are stuck at home on days off. Political aspects of the problem of transport on weekends and holidays have recently come to the fore again, when the Minister of Transport announced that night routes would be added in the localities that had suffered most severely from shelling during the military operation in Gaza in November 2012 (http://news.israelinfo.ru/tribune/43964, last accessed on 18 Jan 2013). Despite these measures, the problem remains so acute that the leader of the secularist political party “There is a future”, Yair Lapid, included the pledge to introduce full-scale operation of the public transport on holidays in his election campaign of 2012–2013. The absence of mobility alone may lead to ambivalent attitudes to the Jewish holidays. They can be perceived as intimate family events and so highly valued, or as “house arrest” imposed by the religious establishment on all the citizens, including the secular. As a result, Jewish holidays alienated many secular newcomers and triggered opposition similar to the latent protest and cynicism coloring attitudes to “the red days of the calendar” in the late Soviet period (see Dubin 2004: 242, 246–247). We could observe how the attitude of ex-Soviets to holidays gradually diverged: those who were more flexible in adapting to the new culture embraced new traditions. In this group some shed old habits, others saw no harm in preserving them despite the critical attitude of the host society. But there are also those who resisted adapting to new customs and were adamant in preserving festive traditions and rituals of the “old country”. 150 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Holidays: Time to Bind or Separate Families

Different attitudes to Jewish holidays may lead to family conflicts which were discussed in the interviews. Similar problems emerge in those families where one or several members turn to Christianity after settling in Israel. We will now quote these stories. The first one is from an interview with Veronika, who is secular but came to like Jewish festive rituals and tried to cultivate them. She found it upsetting that her efforts met with opposition on the part of her family and friends.

Veronika, 47, divorced, a Halachic Jew (her father was Russian), emigrated in 1990 from Frunze (today Bishkek), Kyrgyzstan (previously lived in Tiraspol (Moldova) and Moscow), a philologist by education, self-employed as a translator and a tourist guide. Veronika lives in Haifa.

Veronika: Everything, but everything was one big effort. That is, say, I always invite friends for Rosh ha-Shana (the Jewish New Year). But when you invite all the company to the table, nobody will even mention that the feast celebrates the New Year. (…) That is, when you find yourself among the people who openly demonstrate that they don’t give a damn, it’s very hard. So you are invited to my home on a festive occasion. A festivity is some sort of a game. That is, you come to play some merry and cheerful game, because it is an excellent event for everyone. Come on! Take part in it, it won’t hurt you if you do! But it was a matter of principle, for example for Sergei (Veronica’s ex-husband); that is, he always torpedoed my attempts as much as he could. In her work as a translator Veronika often deals with texts on religious subjects. This new knowledge and natural curiosity inspired her to adopt new habits which would make the usual gatherings of friends more cheerful thanks to the elements of play. She was hurt and of- fended that nobody in her circle shared her enthusiasm and preferred to stick to old routines. She perceived it as active opposition to the new environment and conservatism. Yet in some cases, in particular in the first years after resettlement, immigrants are so stressed by having to learn a new language, new communication patterns, and adopt new practices in their professional life that they try to protect their leisure time from the invasion of anything that is unfamiliar and may require any additional efforts or suppression of the old habits. Holidays as Border Crossing 151

The second excerpt is drawn from an interview with Rita, who immigrated to Israel as an adolescent:

Rita, 28, married to a native Hebrew-speaking Israeli, a Halachic Jew (her father, who is of partial Jewish origin, is registered as Ukrainian), emigrated in 1991 from Odessa, a biologist, employed in a communications company. Rita lives in Haifa.

Rita: Well, my mum tried, she tries to celebrate Pesakh (Passover). But she is not very successful.

Interviewer: Why?

Rita: Neither dad, nor Sasha (Rita’s brother) can live without bread (laughs). She tries very hard. She found a bakery that makes loaves using flour for matzo. But then here are these loaves and next to them is bread (both laugh).

Interviewer: Does she make a seder1?

Rita: Well, we used to do it when grandpa was still alive.

Interviewer: Oh, I see.

Rita: And afterwards…

Interviewer: No more?

Rita: And afterwards I went to the army, then Sasha went to the army, and she was left with the coalition of “I don’t want it”.

Interviewer: I see.

Rita: So now it doesn’t really work.

Interviewer: But grandpa was for it.

Rita: Grandpa was for it, and mum is for it. But she is alone against all those who are against it. Like Veronika, Rita’s mother is secular and was resourceful in trying to persuade her family to change their habits, but she was equally unsuccessful. The difference is that the relations in the family remained good, and the disagreements about observation of the tradition were 152 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya limited to mutual teasing. Elsewhere in the interview Rita remarks that for her grandfather the newly-opened possibility to observe the Jewish tradition had a nostalgic touch as it reminded him of his own childhood and family. Her mother’s attempts to keep kosher during the Passover did not stop her from eating non-kosher the rest of the year or decorating a tree for the New Year (first some branches from a forest and today a proper plastic fir-tree). Another detail worthy of attention is that the first neighbors of Rita’s family would often invite the newcomers to spend holiday evening with them. Many immigrants in the biographic interviews we had conducted for the previous projects recalled similar experience with warmth. Despite the gratitude for friendship and hospitality much needed by immigrants in the new environment, in the case of Rita’s family the relation did not last: Interviewer: Have you remained friendly with these neighbors?

Rita: No, no…my parents err… got scared because they (the neighbors) were too religious… The third excerpt comes from an interview with a student who immigrated to Israel after graduating from high school in the framework of a program that promised studies at a technological college combined with studies of Judaism. Brought up in a secular family, Yurii knew little about the Jewish tradition. Upon arrival in Israel he found out that the emphasis in the program was on religion rather than on the studies of technology. As a result, he left the program four months later, but his stay in the yeshiva2 provided him with the knowledge of the Jewish history and tradition that proved important in his further university studies and served as a source of reflections about the interaction of cultures in the life of his family and friends.

Yurii, 27, single, a Halachic Jew (his father is Ukrainian), emigrated from Gorlovka, Ukraine in 2001, an M.A. student of Political Science, lives in Haifa.

Yurii: As I’ve already told you, my brother’s wife is Russian. And her mother who still lives in Ukraine she is very… well either she poses as a deeply religious Orthodox person paying tribute to fashion, or she is, indeed, religious. And she constantly tries to influence her daughter. And so it’s very important for my sister-in-law to go to Migdal’ ha-Emec to consecrate kulichi (Russian, Easter cakes) (…) Holidays as Border Crossing 153

Interviewer: Does your brother go together with her?

Yurii: No, he doesn’t. He is against any religion. Not actively though. His attitude is reduced to ironic phrases of this sort: “What else did these traders of opium for the people teach you?”3 Since among the FSU immigrants of the 1990s there are many mixed families, the congregation of churches has increased (Remennick & Prashizky 2010: 84–98; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2011: 155–156). Since Russian Orthodox churches are relatively few, some of the believers have to travel to other towns, as is the case in the quoted excerpt. Yurii’s brother is obviously annoyed by his wife’s religious practices, yet in our ethnographic diaries there are stories told by two Christian women whose Jewish husbands willingly bring their wives to church for Easter services when there is no public transport. Family conflicts emerging due to different attitudes to holidays may be triggered by ideological preferences or stem from the reluctance of some members of the family to change habits and sacrifice their comforts. As time passes, alienation from Jewish holidays and rituals may become more acute, or conversely, disappear under the influence of the environment. This is what happened in the family of our interviewee Iosif. Coming from a secular family he became interested in Judaism at the age of 15 and until age 23 he was studying Judaism in depth and adopted an orthodox way of life.

Iosif, 25, Jewish, married to a Russian. He emigrated in 2000 from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a student of philosophy, lives in Haifa.

Iosif: My becoming religious was very… of course it was very difficult for them (Iosif’s parents) to accept. Mostly it was because of the way of life. But then I realized that it was difficult for them because they were afraid that my religiosity would distance me from the family. Because they saw other guys who had also become religious… And there are many cases when a person becomes religious, then his children are born and he doesn’t want his parents to see them (children) because they don’t keep kosher… and then they distance themselves from the family. I think this is what my parents were afraid of, and this explains their skepticism. But gradually they got used to it and even supported me in many respects. I think they did, because they wanted to reinforce their own Jewishness. There was a period when my dad wore a kipa (a skull cap). Afterwards he gave up on this, but still... My brother (pause) 154 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

observes kashrut (Jewish dietary rules). He doesn’t observe anything else, but kashrut is somehow important for him. There was a period when my mum lit candles on Shabbat but then she also gave up … And when I left [religion], first it was a great relief for them… but when I said: “I’ve met a girl and she isn’t Jewish”, they said: “We’d rather you married a religious girl, we’d rather you had gone to study at a yeshiva, and so on and so forth.” Iosif’s story is an example of dilemmas confronting families where some members start to observe the tradition, while others remain secular. The seemingly inconsistent behavior of Iosif’s parents has logic. They did not protest against their son’s religiosity and enjoyed the newly learned Jewish rituals despite anxiety about their impact on the coherence of the family. But enchantment with the rituals and willingness to perform them was short-lived and came to an end when Iosif returned to a secular way of life. Their son’s wish to marry a gentile was viewed as a bigger menace than Jewish orthodoxy. In the Soviet Union despite being wide-spread, mixed families were frowned on by Jews, and in Israel this attitude was reinforced by the dominant ideology of the Jewish state and various bureaucratic complications and moral dilemmas facing non-Jewish immigrants (Kenigshtein 2007; Moin, Krivosh & Kenigshtein 2007). Although not everyone is curious to learn about the history of Jew- ish holidays or interested in their philosophical antecedents, most immigrants have become familiar with such festivals as Rosh ha-Shana, Succoth, Chanukah and Pesakh (the Jewish New Year, the Feast of Ingathering, the Festival of Lights and the Passover) and know the attributes and elements of play related to them (cf. Nosenko [no year]). Veronika: (reflects about the Passover) So all of you have some connection to it. That is, not you as private persons who came to…no, all of you have connections to it. And add to it the festive atmosphere, because you light candles. And it’s not ordinary candles but special candles for the PASSOVER. And you read a text in Russian, or some other language, it doesn’t really matter, and you tell a story. That is, after that you feel it’s a real festival. You open matzo, then you close matzo. And then there is afikoman,4 and the children have to run around to get it. That is, well, the children are very important for the whole script. And it’s not like our usual parties: adults are in one room, and the kids are in another one. Here, everyone, the kids and the adults have to sit at the same table. In my opinion it is tremendously important. Holidays as Border Crossing 155

Unlike Veronika who finds special pleasure and value in following the ritual, our interviewee Ella feels that it is pointless to follow the ritual without thoroughly understanding its meaning:

Ella, 64, married, Jewish, emigrated in 1995 from Kaliningrad (previously lived in Kiev and Latvia), an English teacher, self-employed as a cleaning lady and a tutor, lives in Yokneam.

Ella: Well, what is tradition for us? Everyone comes. Everyone comes to our house. Well, naturally we don’t read any fairy tales. I don’t like profaning things. If we don’t know and don’t even understand what we are reading, then what’s the use? A holiday is when everyone comes together. The only thing though, which we did do on Pesakh was hiding these pieces of bread, and Aleshka… What is it called?

Interviewer: Afikoman.

Ella: Afikoman. And Aleshka, he was the youngest. He would always find it. And now Danka (Ella’s granddaughter) is growing up. Certainly, my children want her to be brought up in these traditions. And I think… yesterday we were looking at her album. They celebrate everything in her kindergarten: they celebrate Succot (Russified Hebrew, Succoth) and everything, absolutely everything. So now I have to make an effort to let her look for this piece of bread. So we’ll try to do our best. This is, indeed, interesting, but otherwise… Although Ella and her family show little interest in the history of Jew- ish rituals, they take it for granted that the young one should be well versed in them. Note the slip in her speech: talking about afikoman, she forgets that it is a piece of matzo and refers to it as “bread”, which, as all the other foods baked with leaven, should be banned from the Jewish house for the Passover.5 While Veronika and Ella describe the Passover ritual meal from the parental position, Rita recalls her childhood memories: Interviewer: Do you read agada6 for Pesakh?

Rita: In his family, yes, we do (refers to her husband’s family).

Interviewer: And when your grandfather was alive?

Rita: When grandpa was alive, we read a shortened version. 156 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Interviewer: But did you get afikoman?

Rita: Yeah, we would get afikoman, but usually it was not hidden very well, so it was very easy to find it. The motifs for involving children into ritual play differ. Some parents wish to introduce their offspring to the culture of the forefathers in a natural and non-coercive way, others feel it consolidates intergenerational family ties; still others have didactic goals in mind. Our participant observation suggests that reading of the Passover tale in turns during the meal serves as an exercise in reading out loud – an unpopular activity in the Israeli school. It is also important to note the children’s special role in making immigrant families more involved in the Jewish holidays. The need to buy or sew an attractive fancy dress for a Purim party in a kindergarten or at school, children’s requests for some sort of a tabernacle for Succoth, and expectations of gifts for all the Jewish holidays leave parents little choice but participation. We know immigrant families where children insist on following rituals for the Jewish holidays, so that they feel they are “like everybody else” and can discuss their experiences with their peers at school. Contrary to the usual intergenerational model of transferring traditions from the old to the young, in immigrant families children act as instructors and consultants to their parents. Acquisition of knowledge about Jewish holidays and their rituals is particularly important in mixed families, in which children are not Halachic Jews7. In this respect it is worth mentioning that one of the chief goals of the Association for the Protection of Mixed Families’ Rights (an NGO) is to facilitate integration of the children into society through participation in the Jewish culture and tradition. Together with Reform rabbis coordina- tors of the association organize group bar- and bat-mitzvahs8 and festive evenings for adolescents and their parents. The association also organized a children’s theater perakh bar (Hebrew, Desert Flower). Participants of the group write scripts, make dresses and stage props, and perform scenes based on biblical plots (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2011: 156–157). Holidays are associated with leisure. Whether one is involved in a festivity and identifies with it is sometimes determined by a prosaic fact: does one have a day off or not? The difference in calendars deleted the “red days” of the Soviet/Russian holidays which are workdays in Is- rael. It hurt many Russian-speaking Israelis, in particular with regard Holidays as Border Crossing 157 to such holidays as the New Year, the International Women’s Day, the 8th of March, and Victory Day, the 9th of May. From Veronika’ interview we see that in many families of secular Russian-speaking Israelis Jew- ish holidays are devoid of any ritualization. This is reminiscent of the late Soviet period when festivities in honor of the October Revolution and the Labor Day did not inspire ideological enthusiasm but were a good opportunity to party with family and friends (Baiburin & Piir 2008: 236, 244). Similarly, in Russian-speaking Israeli families Jewish holiday evenings are often devoid of rituals and lack traditional content and symbolism (cf. Veronika’s story about her guests forgetting the Jewish “New Year” and Ella’s refusal to read the Passover Haggadah). The difference in passive and active attitudes to holidays, and in effect, readiness to defend one’s lifestyle, emerges most vividly in stories about the New Year, which still remains the most popular holiday among the FSU immigrants. The newcomers’ attachment to New Year celebrations alienated the Jewish sector of the host society since Israelis identified it with Christianity (St. Sylvester’s Day) and were unaware that in the USSR it was the favorite holiday because unlike others, it was not tinged with the official ideology. Ella: Somehow, it doesn’t work for us. Rosh ha-Shana (the Jewish New Year) is different – everybody will celebrate it, while the New Year is an ordinary workday. So what? And another thing, in the past, there was a fir-tree and gifts for children. And now? Shall we just sit in front of the box the whole night? What’s the fun? So we’ll sit together a bit, drink a glass of champagne and this will be all. It was so different when the kids were small: Grandfather Frost would knock at the door and bring a whole sack of gifts. Here there is no such thing. And so without… gradually, it sort of … (…) Well, I can’t say that we don’t buy champagne, that we don’t drink, but at half past 12 we go to bed. Is this a real holiday? But we have no strength for more. And so we can’t make it into a real holiday.

Yurii: When I was in the army I moonlighted and worked as a waiter in a hotel (…) My colleagues were also Russian speakers, and so it was very difficult to get a day off on that day. And I felt as if it were a question of life and death. I felt I should NOT work on that day, and that we, all my co-workers should have a party. At that time my colleagues made my main circle of friends. And we should go and celebrate in some Russian restaurant. Now I am not at all attracted to this. I don’t really know what I will do on the New Year’s Eve. Most likely, my parents who live in Upper Nazareth will ask me to come over there. In fact, I 158 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 7. This toy Grandfather Frost made a long journey: produced in China it was on sale in an Arab-owned shop in Haifa, and finally, found its place under a plastic fir tree in a family that had emigrated from Kyiv (photograph courtesy of Lilia Dashevski).

don’t want this day to become like any other day, but at the same time I don’t make it into a big celebration. And if there is a reason and if there are friends who would like to celebrate together with me, and the atmosphere is favourable for this, then Rosh ha-Shana can be no worse than the civilian New Year. Holidays as Border Crossing 159

Figure 8. With the Israeli flag in the background, Grandfather Frost can hardly be considered an alien, and hundreds of Russian- speaking children waiting for him are the best proof of his successful integration (http://izrus.co.il/print_article.php?article=20083, posted on 31 Dec 2012, last accessed on 26 Jan 2013).

Like in the narratives of many other Russian-speaking Israelis, Ella’s and Yurii’s stories about New Year celebrations moving to the background do not reflect actual practices. During the interview Ella spoke at length about decorating the house, buying gifts for all members of the family and the joy she felt looking at the exhilaration of her little granddaughter dancing around the glittering New Year tree. To increase the festive atmosphere during the New Year celebration, Ella and her husband buy fancy-dress masks for all the members of the family, including the dog. According to the Internet-based survey commissioned by the state-run Russian-language TV channel “Israel Plus” and conducted by the sociological institute Mutagim in December 2011, 83 per cent of ex-Soviets continue to celebrate the New Year. Of those who do, 76.6 per cent were going to have feasts at home, and 15.1% chose to go out. 63 per cent of the Russian-speakers surveyed declared that they would allocate higher sums for buying food for this event than they usually do, and 60 per cent intended to buy gifts for family and friends (http://nofesh.gid.co.il/?p=6233, last accessed on 14 Jan 2013). 160 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Unlike Veronika, who perceives holidays as an opportunity to become closer to history, be it Jewish or Slavic, and is attracted to rituals by their play elements, Yurii and Iosif emphasize the atmosphere of solemnity they create. Both were introduced to the Jewish festive tradition in a religious community. Although both left religion, they have preserved tolerant attitudes to religious people and a traditional way of life and they admit that the atmosphere of the religious rituals, which they rejected, is special and elevating. Iosif: …I remember that when I was religious we began to celebrate all the religious holidays. It wasn’t easy for my parents, yet on the whole they supported me. So there was Rosh ha-Shana, and we had Seder Pesakh, and for Succot we would put up a succa (hut). And I remember that these things gave a much deeper festive feeling than the New Year. It really gave a feeling of a holiday, as we say maamad (an occasion) in Hebrew, and some special atmosphere. Then one could really feel the holiday. Even my parents admitted this, that there was a real ceremony, from the beginning to the end. There were prayers, there were special dishes. Although for the New Year (laughs), Olivie and vinegret salads are also compulsory dishes (…). Yet, on Jewish holidays… one could feel the tradition behind them. And it was beautiful. I remember there was a time when for Pesakh my father would put on a tallit (a prayer shawl) that he’d got as a gift. It was snow-white and beautiful, really very beautiful. It all looks very festive. And we would all sit around the table, and of course, there was this round Passover dish made of silver. One could feel the holiday. I don’t know, but on no secular holiday did we have such a festive atmosphere.

Yurii: You know, first I thought that I would forget it (time in the yeshiva) as you try to forget a nightmare. But even when I was in a kibbutz, that is, when I moved from one extreme to the other, I felt something was missing. I missed the Sabbath we had there, when I would put on a black suit, a white shirt and would go (pause) to the Western wall. This atmosphere, I miss it. Irrespective of their attitude to various holidays, all our subjects un- derscore the importance of a definitive script for creating festive atmosphere. Repetition of the ritual’s elements and anticipation of a familiar order in the ceremony help participants tune in to the anticipation of joy and contribute to the feeling of unity which is also embedded in the script (cf. Dubin 2004: 233). At the same time, rituals of the holiday that has not been accepted and remains poorly understood is perceived as annoying and burdensome (cf. Nikolaev 2003). Holidays as Border Crossing 161

Holidays and Ritual Foods

An important part of festive scripts is food which is described in the narratives about Jewish and non-Jewish holidays. Among the dishes associated with Soviet holidays the Olivie salad, known in many countries as “Russian”, is still the leader and triggers bursts of laughter. Its close competitor is Vinegret, a culinary composition of boiled potatoes, beets, carrots and green peas mixed with onions and pickled cucumbers. Like in Russia, food eaten on the New Year’s Eve has become ritual- ized. Although neither Olivie nor Vinegret have any sacral background, both have acquired such connotations in the mentality of ex-Soviets (cf. Kushkova 2005). Sacrality of foods does not presuppose their positive evaluation. Some women complain that these dishes are too time consuming to make and are too rich in calories. These complaints are gender-specific. Judging from our observations, ex-Soviet men are still seldom involved in preparing festive meals, and women have to do all the cooking and baking on their own. Yet, even those who are not in favor of these dishes (e.g., Veronika), admit that they are indispensable at New Year feasts. To confirm this attitude, advertisements of New Year celebrations in a big hotel chain in Eilat and on the shore of the Dead Sea promised their guests a traditional New Year menu, including “joys of Soviet times”, such as “Herring under a fur coat” and Vinegret, http://izrus.co.il/hotels_news/article/2011-12-09/16396.html, last accessed on 14 Jan 2013. Among the ritual dishes of the Jewish cuisine familiar from the pre-immigration period, most often immigrants cite gefilte fish(known to Russian speakers as “stuffed fish”) and matzo. Gefilte fish is a traditional dish of Ashkenazi Jews served for Sabbath and such holidays as Passover and the Jewish New Year. According to the contemporary recipes we found on the Internet, it presents balls or cakes of white chopped boned fish mixed with egg and matzo meal and simmered in broth. However, the traditional recipe in some regions presupposes stuffing of a whole fish. The recipe of the ritual fish dish, known to many since childhood, is considered to be authentic and much more sophisticated than what is customary in Israel, and scornfully referred to as “little fish balls”. The emphasis on the “wholeness” of the fish is emphasized in the narratives quoted below, including Yurii story in which gefilte fish is replaced by fish in aspic. Note that interviewees reflect on deviations from the Jewish Ashkenazi tradition and consider 162 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 9. A snowman made of pomegranates with a palm-tree branch instead of a broom illustrates the symbiosis of Jewish and Russian festive traditions in the life of FSU immigrants. And the Russian-Jewish ritual fish sailing to the New Year feast is distinctly different from all the other species. Drawings by Sergei Sychenko and Boris Erenburg, published in Sekret, 16 Sept 2012, p. 17.

their own practices a tradition itself. Thus in Yurii’s family ritual food for Rosh ha-Shana was a poppy-seed cake, instead of apples and honey required by the tradition. Ella: I am afraid we do everything wrongly, and the way we celebrate is also wrong. In the Soviet Union we would celebrate all the revolutionary holidays and the New Year, and we would celebrate Christmas. When we came here we celebrated both the Russian Christmas, and Rosh ha- Shana, and everything. But with us all of it is connected to some food. And for every single holiday, except Pesakh I make stuffed fish (both laugh). But not some nonsense, not some gefilten fish,you know, those minced-fish balls, but theREAL thing. We stuff a really big fish. This is how we do it. And if there is fish, this is a holiday. Yes. We invite a lot of people, yeah. And now I will make a Rosh ha-Shana party. It may be wrong and probably one has to use some other foods, but for us it’s always fish, always minced herring and herring in mustard sauce, and other stuff.

Yurii: As a rule, mum makes fish in aspic, like my grandma used to do. My grandma would always make fish in aspic forPesakh and Rosh ha-Shana, and so my mum does the same. Holidays as Border Crossing 163

Interviewer: So you don’t stuff the fish?

Yurii: Not gefilte fish. It’s fish in aspic, err, that is, it’s a whole fish. Yeah, and there is always matzo. And the bread is served too. (…) Sometimes mum consults me concerning the menu for Pesakh, she asks what it should include. I tell her what is needed... but I keep forgetting things, like that there should be a zroa (a chicken bone with meet on it), and that there should be an egg, and khazeret (horseradish), and some other things. I also remind her that for the New Year (he refers to the Jewish New Year) there should be honey and that there should be apples.

Interviewer: Are there any dishes in your family that are served on specific holidays, or is the food the same on all of them?

Rita: (pause) No, there is no dish which is always served on every holiday. What sort of food do we serve? Well, sufganiot (doughnuts) are for Hanukkah. Rosh ha-Shana is primarily associated with fish. When grandpa was alive, there was a whole fish on the table with a head (laughs). The whole (head). It used to frighten me a bit (unclear, both speak in chorus). I would turn it away, so that it wouldn’t gaze at me but at someone else. And Pesakh is associated with matzo, and not only with matzo, but also with chicken. Since one has to put on the table a chicken leg or wing, mum would cook the whole chicken for the main dish. Always two or three… and a whole chicken, and legs in some sauce. So this is what I always see for Pesakh. What else? What other holidays do we have with specific food? Oh, yes, forShavuot (the Giving of the Torah holiday), usually, say… oh, this is really funny, in my husband’s family they always do meat, for Shavuot. They make al ha-esh (roasting over live coals). Rita finds it amusing that her husband’s family ignore that feasts on the Giving of the Torah holiday should be composed of dairy dishes and roast meet – the favorite pastime of Israelis picnicking on the In- dependence Day. Despite Yurii’s experience in a Yeshiva, he observes in a matter-of-fact manner that bread is served together with matzo for the Passover. Ella, who admits her ignorance about conventions of the Jewish ritual cuisine, is convinced that “little fish balls” are inferior to the whole fish and can hardly qualify as a ritual dish. At the same time different dishes with herring have been promoted to this status in her family. While talking about ritual foods of the Jewish cuisine, our interviewees, including those who avoid code mixing (e.g., Veronika and Yurii), intersperse their speech with Hebraisms. The reason is in in- 164 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya separable associations between the recipes of festive dishes and their names acquired in the process of primary and secondary socialization. Another peculiarity of the discourse about Jewish holidays is the verb “celebrate” which some immigrants use not only when they describe such cheerful holidays as Passover or the Giving of the Torah, but also when they talk about the Day of the Atonement. Our observations show that loyalty to the familiar festive dishes is not limited to inertia and unwillingness to change habits, but often reflects nostalgia for childhood and desire to preserve family traditions. Yet many immigrants are ready to experiment with new foods and recipes, demonstrating curiosity and openness to the culture new to them. An interesting example is Veronika’s foray into the culinary art of ancient Jews. Veronika: Besides everything else, Pesakh triggers various interesting associations with culinary art. I remember that once I wanted very much to make an authentic Pesakh (feast). I didn’t want anything else, say, wise men, in the 1st, in the 2nd century AD, they would sit at the table for the Passover and eat something. It’s as clear as day that they didn’t eat tomatoes or egg plants. They didn’t eat potatoes or chocolate, they didn’t eat beans and, naturally, they didn’t eat turkey. So to make authentic Pesakh, you need to have a clear idea of what you can serve. And this is also SO interesting.

Interviewer: Did you manage?

Veronika: Only partially. Partially. Because it’s impossible not to use tomatoes (both laugh). But you can manage without potatoes; just like you can do without peppers or egg plants. A special case is how festive traditions are observed in mixed families in which one of the spouses is not of Soviet extraction. This topic remains almost completely unresearched. Touching upon it in passing, Lomsky-Feder and Leibovitz remark that conflicts emerge due to the failure of Russian-speaking partners to keep kosher or refusal to make a ritual meal for the Passover; on the other hand there are cases when partners demonstrate willingness to compromise (2010: 120–121). Our ethnographic diaries confirm this observation. Differences in the upbringing and habits are easier to overcome when the two have similar attitudes to the religion and traditions. The issue of holidays and observance of the tradition often emerges in the stage of courting and can either stimulate mutual understanding and closeness, or con- Holidays as Border Crossing 165 versely, trigger separation. The cornerstones in such cases are again New Year celebrations and a kosher Passover. Our interviewee Rita, who has recently married a native Israeli from an Ashkenazi family, told us that her fiancée was quickly involved in family celebrations, and his tolerance was tested when his future parents-in-law gave him a red cap with the inscription: “I love Snow Maiden” as a New-Year gift. This young couple would like to work out their own style by making the best of what they can learn from others: Interviewer: You have a new family. Do you think you will continue celebrating with the parents, or would you like to invite your own friends?

Rita: We will invite our own when we come to understand how we would like to mark each holiday. For the time being, we visit others and note something in each family. Then we will mix our own salad and say, “Now, this is our holiday”.

Magic Days, Simoron and Survival Strategies

While collecting material about the known religious and secular rituals we discovered a festive ceremony or rather a happening which combined features of quasi religiosity and quasi science with various elements of play. This was celebration of a mythical day – 11.11 of 2011, which we attended in the town of Netanya.9 In a two-hour long group interview which preceded the ceremony our informants touched on the meaning of the “mythical day” and its celebration only in passing, so our account is based primarily on participant observation. The organizer of the happening was our informant, Raisa.10 Once an officer in the Russian police force specializing in juvenile delinquency, in Israel she failed to find a job close to her professional qualifications and earns her living by taking care of the elderly. But what she sees as her real vocation is teaching people how to be happy and optimistic and achieve their goals by doing magic. She organizes meetings in her house which she refers to as seminars. On her business card she presents herself as a psychologist and a consultant. She is cheerful, has an endless reservoir of stories and is eager to expand the number of her disciples. When she decided to organize celebration of the “magic day” she called her numerous acquaintances inviting them to participate well 166 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya in advance. To her chagrin it was impossible to fix the time of the happening at the hour consistent with the mythology – at 11:11:11. Most of the people she tried to involve, including her, worked in the morning, so it was decided to meet at 5 p.m. Raisa allocated a small sum from her modest family budget to buy balloons, paper and pencils. Posters calling on passers-by to love and embrace each other were written in Hebrew. They were meant to attract members of the majority group, because everyone invited by the organizer of the event spoke Russian. Raisa was deeply disappointed to see that her expectations that “half of Netanya’s residents” would show up didn’t materialize. Only 12 people came to the meeting point on a city square at the seaside.11 According to one of the participants, Hebrew-speaking residents of the town had celebrated in the morning, at the “right time”; however, when later we looked for an announcement or a report about it on the Internet, we failed to find any. The posters prepared by Raisa did not help to attract Hebrew speakers. What she did not take into account fixing the time of the happening was that 5 p.m. on Friday is a “dead hour”, when a lot of Israelis, including the secular, are preparing for a Sabbath meal. Only three Russian-speaking girls perching on a gar- den bench joined wish-making. Wishes were written on narrow paper strips and inserted into the balloons which were blown up then. Some of the balloons burst and had to be replaced by new ones, which did not disconcert the participants; on the contrary it was interpreted as a good sign. The participants, primarily women, were cheerful and had a lot of fun trying to cope with their balloons. When the balloons were ready and a lot of photographs were taken to document the event, it was already dark. A small procession started walking along the embank- ment towards an observation tower. The balloons were to be set free from the top floor. The sea is a sacral locus (cf. with a natural mikve, a ritual bath in the Jewish tradition), so the choice of the launching place was not accidental. The balloons with wishes were tied together with two bigger ones filled with helium. The whole bunch rose up, but the wind was unfavourable for the event and blew the balloons in the direction of the road, instead of the sea. But this final failure of the original plan did not upset the participants at all. The whole ceremony was conceived of as a promise to bring good fortune, so whatever deviations from the initial plan, it was interpreted as a contribution to the overall success of the Magic Day, but not as a bad omen. Holidays as Border Crossing 167

All the participants of the ceremony belong to the socio-economically weak layer of Israeli society. They have to work hard, primarily doing unqualified jobs in order to make a living and survive in a new country. Apparently, the main attraction of the event for them was an opportunity for a get-together that broke the monotony of their everyday routine. Moreover, the festive atmosphere of an anticipated miracle cultivated by Raisa, who emanated vivacity and good will, created an illusion that everyone could be in control of her life and destiny. In a religious ritual believers know that God is capable of blessing and awarding but also of punishing. Raisa and the members of her circle were addressing their requests and wishes to simoron, or Simoron Stepanovich. Like Grandfather Frost, simoron does not demand any sacrifice, but guarantees wish fulfilment. The notes with wishes inserted in the balloons (in other cases put into bottles, jars and other containers) transform the tradition of written requests addressed to God and saints which exists both in the Jewish and Christian traditions (Bessonov 2012). This brings the addressee, simoron, close to contemporary quasi saints (cf. Moroz 2011). Raisa and her friend Maria began what they call simoroning back in Russia after they read books by Dolokhov and Gurangov (also known to their followers as “Papa” and “Beard”). The Russian search engine Yandex yielded 583,000 web pages for the key word “simoron”. On the first 20 sites selected by relevance we found articles explaining the principles of this new school of magic founded by Petr and Petra Burlanov. Like books one can buy in airports and train stations, the simoron school of magic promises its followers success in everything, from love to career, from financial gains to things as mundane as catching a taxi when needed. All these wonders are claimed to come to those who can learn to look at life positively. As stated in the article posted on many simoronist sites, while other schools of magic are serious and pompous simoron is the magic of humor, positive thinking and funny absurdities (Anastasia Volkova, http://www.magicwish.ru/publ/simoron_magija_povsednevnoj_ zhizni/2-1-0-329, last accessed on 17 Jan 2013). After the publication of Dolokhov and Gurangov’s first “Texbook on Magic” in 1988, the founders and their disciples have published a considerable number of books that are advertised on the Internet. The Burlanovs opened a school in Kiev which seems to be a successful commercial enterprise with courses, festivals, training sessions and happenings running on 168 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya a large scale (http://simoron.kiev.ua/content.html, last accessed on 17 Jan 2013). Courses teaching simoron methods and rituals function in other towns of the FSU, e.g., in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Minsk, Ufa, as well as in big Russian-speaking enclaves such as Canada, Germany, Italy, Israel and the U.S.A. When Raisa and Maria immigrated to Israel they immediately started searching for local Simoronists, which reminds one of religious people looking for the suitable congregation in a new place. It didn’t take our interviewees long to find the simoron followers and both women became active participants of their meetings and ceremonies. On the basis of the group interview and the study of Internet sites we could conclude that besides group festivities, simoronists practice regular performance of rituals rationalized as quasi science and alternative psychology (cf. with observations about the quasi scientific discourse among the religious in Akhmetova 2008). Raisa’s speech is permeated with the terms: seminar, lecture, training, consultant, tutorial and others. She willingly demonstrates the classics of the movement – the books “A Handbook for a Beginning Wizard. The textbook of Good Luck” and “Technology of Success: A Handbook of Good Luck” authored by Gurangov and Dolokhov.12 Raisa had attended training courses for simoronists before emigration and proudly demonstrated to us one of the certificates she had received. She tries to conduct training courses for beginners in order to improve her socioeconomic status but with little success. The rituals which she and her friends perform are either borrowed from the books we mentioned and Internet sites, or invented by them in the process of magic-doing. These rituals are accompanied by rhymed texts, functionally similar to charms. Raisa doesn’t use this term, instead she prefers a pun playing with the endearing form of her own name: Simo-Raiushki. This pun is widely used in her circle. Many of Raisa’s texts abound in obscene words, and the rituals described have various features of a carnival. For example, when one needs money badly and wants “to attract” it, one has to tie a besom to the morning gown, and walk with this “tail” while doing domestic chores, repeating all the time: If you need a lot of money, tie a besom to your fanny.13 Raisa claims that she used to practice this ritual. Curiously enough, it doesn’t evoke in her associations with a witch flying a broom.14 The rhymes disseminated by Raisa are learned by heart by her fiends, and are recited when they wish “to do magic” in order to find a suitable Holidays as Border Crossing 169 apartment, a boyfriend, or money for some project. Raisa’s and Maria’s speech, and their Simo-Raiushki in particular, are full of paronymy and puns (e.g. primanivat’ zhenikhoiv mankoi (to entice fiancées with semolina), Glazhu belie naglazhivaiu/ Dorogu v Netanyu navorazhi- vaiu/Dorogu gladkuiu nalazhennuiu/Vokrug sadami zasazhennuiu (I’m ironing my laundry, I’m making it smooth / I am bewitching the road to Netanya / I’m making it simple and smooth / with gardens planted along the way). In the narratives about wish-fulfilment with the help of Simoron Stepanovich one can easily notice genre features of a memorate and with time they are most likely to evolve into legends. As an illustration we would like to cite a story told by Raisa and her friend Maria about their requests to simoron to help Maria emigrate and then move to Netanya. Raisa, 53, Jewish, married, emigrated from Vladivostok in 2006, before emigration served in the police (resigned in the rank of a captain), in Israel is employed as a nurse taking care of the elderly, lives in Netanya.

Maria (diminutive Masha), approximately 60, a Halachic Jew, lives with her invalid mother, emigrated from Vladivostok in 2006; before emigration worked as a choir master, in Israel is employed as a nurse taking care of the elderly, lives in Netanya.

Raisa: Masha couldn’t find time to come to our meetings, because she had her work, her choir and her mother. And so she says to me: “Teach me something, something which is not difficult, something that doesn’t take too much time, so that I could do it while I’m busy with something else.” And the first thing that came to my mind was “fanny” – a magic word in simoron. Fanny swings, fanny turns Masha’ll get what she wants. And she says: “This is good for me”. And this is how she started.

Maria: Well, it’s really so. It’s my thing. It suits my nature. I am nim- ble on my feet and very energetic, so it caught on IMMEDIATELY. This was the period when we were planning to come here (immigrate to Israel), and there were some problems with the papers, and things dragged on, and everything was a mess. And I began to live with this rhyme. I would get up and recite it; I would go to bed and recite it; I would run to work and recite it. And about a week later things started moving, they got moving, moving, everything really went swimmingly. And I still live with this rhyme. When I have some, when I am in a very bad mood I immediately say to myself (recites with feeling) 170 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Fanny swings, fanny turns Masha’ll get what she wants. Things began to happen. That was it. Then when we moved here (to Israel), first we lived in Bnei Brak. We rented an apartment there. Then I came here (to Netanya) to a birthday party and I liked the town so much. So I decided to move here. I came here once, and there were some apartments, but everything went wrong. And then again I said to myself…

Raisa: Come, tell them what we did!

Maria: And what did we do?

Raisa: (in a disappointed tone) You don’t remember! How come? There are these four guys here, iron guys, you know. Concrete guys on the kikar (square). When we go to the square you’ll see them. One, first, there were two.

Maria: That happened later, when I moved here.

Raisa: (ironically) Did it really?

Maria: No?

Raisa: No. (…) And so we went there. Luckily, it was a day off. Oth- erwise, we may have not, we may have not dared, although we might have still dared. So we danced with these iron guys. One of them had a sweet wrapper (in its hand). I took it out and put in a good and tasty sweet instead. And only a short time after this event Masha finds this apartment.

Maria: And this is what I wrote for myself then: Simoroning-simoroning, I’m simoroned all over When I get to Netanya my sufferings will be over Please help me, simoron, oh, how Netanya lures me And (…) Raiska is attrac…enticing it in unison with me. In response I’ll send you gifts, I’ll open my soul I’ll give you beauties of the world and joy to make you glow. Among the rituals described in the interview we would like to note one presenting a series of transformations. A strip of paper with a wish written on it is put into a bottle filled with water. The bottle is then placed into a freezer. When the water turns into ice, the bottle is taken out of the freezer to melt. The ritual is concluded by ceremonious emptying the bottle into a lavatory pan. These manipulations with the Holidays as Border Crossing 171 bottle are reminiscent of the contemporary practices of reciting charms against anguish as described by Adonieva. In both cases it is the running water that has magic powers, be it water in a river, in radiators of central heating systems or poured into a lavatory pan (Adonieva 2011: 73). We view this as inversion of the ritual with the balloons. In both cases wishes are sent off to “another world”, be it the sacral world above us or the chtonic underworld. Turning to the sacral and the profane, like the combination of the elevated and obscene words, simoronists seek to break the borders between real and symbolic spaces in order to “perform magic”. Simoron rituals similar in the goal and spirit to those described by Raisa can be found on numerous web sites. Here is one example: when one needs to pay back a bank loan, the sum of the loan has to be written on a slip of paper which is put into a jar with carbonate soda. After that water is added to the soda, the jar is closed and the fitting rhyme is recited: I am paying back this credit / I am no longer a bandit (in Russian kredit is rhymed with bandit). Judging from the number of sites describing this ritual, it is in great demand. One of the sites advertises it as “The most reliable method of paying loans. We pay back bank loans!” http://attractmoneyrituals.blogspot.co.il/2010/04/ blog-post.html, last accessed on 17 Jan 2013. Simoron is one of numerous New Age trends in Russia and in the near and far-abroad where Russian-speakers reside. Although the groups and their worldview vary, some typical features, common to many of them can be specified. One tendency is that secular and even atheist members of post-Soviet intelligentsia have found themselves in the niche of ideological emptiness and become some kind of gurus or shamans, although not in the strict terminological sense of these words (Zhukovskaia 2012: 335–347). Another feature is a combination of magical practices with elements of psychology and the aspiration to break the border between science and the occult. As distinguished from the scientific approach which requires questioning everything, pop-psychologists prefer another one: “anything goes”. The third feature is the union between various New Age groups and popular culture, especially when group leaders fail to enter mainstream institutions. Numerous seminars are taught selling people all kinds of techniques, and various entertainments are offered (Falikov 2012: 380). While both science and religion are associated with the establishment and alienate laypersons these popular seminars and happenings are perceived 172 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya as trustworthy. However, “blending with the folk” shows a tendency to commercialization, the success of which clearly depends on the entrepreneurial abilities of a guru (shaman, alternative psychologist etc.). Even when it does not bring financial rewards as in the case of our interviewee, it elevates the social status of a guru among his/her followers. Whether simoron ideas and rituals are referred to as “psycho- training”, “spiritual practices” or “games”, the secret of its success may be in the illusion of empowerment that it lends to its fans and followers. It became popular in the FSU in the period of geopolitical changes when millions felt they had lost their bearings and control of their lives. Simoron methods gave them an illusion that by relying on the “limitless” potential of the self they could regain that control without the help of any institutions. Moreover, the mixing of everyday practices with play, participation in ritual performances, as well as recital of funny or absurd rhymes contributes to the festivalization of everyday life, particularly valued by people having limited resources.

Holidays as Arena of Ideological Strife and Consumer Bonanza

In various confrontations of majority and minority cultures the intolerance of the holidays and rituals of the other is a well-known phenomenon. In the early and mid-1990s native Israelis were surprised and amused when they saw Russian-speaking men rushing to buy flowers on the 8th of March, and old men marching along the streets in their best clothes decorated with orders and medals on the 9th of May. As mentioned earlier, what did not amuse the mainstream society was the habit of celebrating the New Year. In fact, emotional attachment to Victory Day and the New Year proved to be crucial for the Russian- speaking community in preserving its group identity. The indifference of Israeli society to the contribution of Jews in fighting against Nazism and the absence of a holiday marking the victory, spurred World War II veterans, immigrant media and Russian-language politicians to change the attitude of the host society and honor not only victims of the Holocaust but also fighters. Thanks to these efforts Victory Day became an official Israeli holiday in 2005, although it remains a work day. It is still celebrated primarily by members of the community, but is no longer ignored by the state. The creation of several memorials, including the monument to the Red Army soldiers in Netanya, socio- Holidays as Border Crossing 173

Figure 10. The annual World War II veterans’ march along the streets of Jerusalem and Haifa on Victory Day has become a familiar sight for veteran Israelis.

Figure 11. Victory Day in Haifa. When speeches are over, merrymaking starts, reminding old soldiers of the joy of May 1945, and their descendents of the old Soviet movies. 174 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya economic help to war veterans and changes in school history books, which no longer silence the role of the Soviet Union in the war – all of these are signs that the war narrative of the Russian-speaking community has been at least partially integrated into the master narrative of the society as a whole (Yelenevskaya 2009a). The ideological battle around the New Year proved to be more lasting, sharpened the opposition between the religious and the secular, and turned into a test of the society’s tolerance. In December 2012 a real scandal broke out in Haifa which has the reputation of the bulwark of tolerance in Israel. The city rabbinate warned hotel and restaurant owners that they would lose their kashrut certificates15 if they held New Year parties with elements of “alien” traditions such as decorated fir trees.16 Business owners protested, the mayor of Haifa interfered, and the threat was withdrawn. The Russian-language Internet was full of angry comments repeating the arguments that can be heard every year in December: the New Year is not a religious holiday and there should not be any sanctions against the people celebrating it. The dictate of the rabbinate backfired, irritating not only the secular but also religious Jews. A secular Hebrew-speaking student of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology told us about his conversation with his fellow-student. Coming from a secular Russian-speaking family she became religious in Israel and stopped celebrating the New Year. The demarche of the rabbinate infuriated her and for the first time in eight years she decided to put up a fir tree in her home. When she failed to find one in her storage room she asked her mother to buy a new one for her. The mother was happy: she took it as a sign that her daughter was “returning home”. Although similar threats have been voiced earlier and scandals emerge almost every year, the tradition of New Year celebrations does not show any signs of disappearance. On the contrary, in the last two decades it has become more common among Hebrew-speaking youth to go to New Year parties. Young Russian speakers who immigrated to Israel as children and have inherited the tradition from their parents are now passing it on to their own offspring. As the journalist Lutskii writes The crooked unity of ex-Soviets won’t be straightened even in the grave17. Because we have infected our children with our main holiday. Despite stubborn opposition of the furious people around us we introduced some changes into our genetic code (Lutskii 2013). Holidays as Border Crossing 175

According to entertainers organizing festivities in homes and community centers, today New Year performances are as much in demand as ever. Although some of the little spectators have never seen snow, real fir-trees, skates or sledges, their parents are eager to make them familiar with the New Year tradition as an essential component of Russian culture. Moreover, some young parents try to take their little children for a vacation in Europe to enjoy snow and festive atmosphere of the winter holidays (Kogan & Gantman 2012). Accepting or rejecting the New Year as a holiday legitimate for Jews to celebrate has become a test for Israeli politicians, in particular before elections. They send greetings to members of the Russian- speaking community, appear on the Russian channel of the Israeli TV (Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2005, Vol. 2: 78) and visit “Russian” New Year parties. One recent example is Tsipi Livni, the head of a newly formed party. As part of her election campaign she was trying to attract “Russian” votes on the eve of the New Year. This is how it was reported in the electronic press: They say: As you celebrate the New Year, so will you spend it. Tsipi Livni, the head of the party ha-Tnua decided to celebrate the New Year with the Russian-speaking citizens of the state of Israel. On the eve of the New Year she met Russian-speaking voters on several occasions: she “won” the elections (mock elections held in several Israeli schools during election campaigns) in the Zhabotinsky school, where over 70% of the students are children of immigrants from the FSU. She gave a speech at the presentation of a book by Lily Galili (see the bibliography) and met the staff of Channel 9 and radio 1 (broadcasting in Russian). Moreover, she decided to attend the New Year Party in Leonard City Tower attended by more than 600 Russian-speaking citizens of the country (http://news.israelinfo.ru/tribune/44026, posted on 1 Jan 2013, last accessed on 19 Jan 2013). The attitude to the New Year is also used by image makers. Thus a popular blogger David Eidelman, who had served as a consultant to Israeli, Ukrainian and South African politicians, wrote an article headlined “The New-Year Mystique of Israeli politics”. Giving tribute to the tradition, he opens the article by explaining the secular and non-ideological nature of the New Year clearing it of any connections to St. Sylvester’s Day. But the main theme of his article is the fir tree which has “some symbolic meaning in Israeli politics. A mystic meaning! In particular, because since the beginning of the third millennium elections are held during the first months of a new year”. In the rest of 176 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 12. A ten-meter plastic fir-tree was first installed in Ben Gurion Avenue in Haifa in December 2010. A curiosity for Israel, it immediately attracted children and adults who came to look at its glittering lights in the evening. Russian speakers dubbed it “the main fir tree of the country”, a cliché associated with the gigantic tree traditionally installed in the Kremlin (photograph courtesy of Janos Makowsky). Holidays as Border Crossing 177 the article Eidelman tells the reader that those politicians who were not afraid to be photographed and filmed next to the decorated fir tree subsequently won the elections; those who refused or even demanded that the “impious” tree should be taken out of the room were defeated. He concludes his story: “Do you think all these incidents were a mere coincidence? But aren’t they too many? I don’t know whether there is something mystic about the New Year tree, but it is clear that Israeli politicians shouldn’t offend it” (Eidelman 2013). An experienced image- maker, Eidelman uses the script of Jewish Hasidic legends about punishment which awaits the persecutors of Jews and desecrators of Jewish Holy places, for example, cemeteries. These legends crossed ethnic boundaries and became part of Slavic folklore (Belova 2005: 144–146; Cała 1995: 133–134; Fialkova 2007: 95–97). Several weeks before the publication of Eidelman’s article, many Russian Israelis, including us, got a forwarded viral email which contained three stories ascribed to anonymous rabbi from Netanya. The first one tells a story of an American ambassador in Great Britain who did not only refuse to give American visas to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, but also reported them to the American authorities as illegal immigrants. As a result they were sent back to Europe and perished. The ambassador and his family were cursed by a Jewish rabbi. The name of the diplomat was Kennedy. The second story narrates about a Japanese ambassador in Lithuania helping Jews to escape. He was reported to the German authorities and lost his position, but was blessed by the Jews. In order to earn his living he opened a small garage for automo- biles. His name was Mitsubishi. And the last story is about Bogdan Khmelnitsky, whose most devastating anti-Jewish pogrom took place in the town of Chernobyl. The text which we got through our network of friends is also available on the Internet where it was posted on 7 Dec 2012 http://maxpark.com/community/4391/content/1696706, last accessed on 19 Jan 2013. The wide circulation of this text may have triggered Eidelman to use a popular script as a means of political propaganda called “political technology” in contemporary Russia. This is a clear example of applied folklore (cf. Fialkova 2010a: 154–157). Ironically, the Jewish script is used to defend a holiday dear to Russian Jews, or “Russians”, but which is scorned by the Israeli establishment. As a result, there is a reversal of roles, as “Russians” are placed in the position of “real Jews” while the Israeli establishment occupies a place traditionally reserved for aggressive gentiles. 178 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

The sheer abundance of articles devoted to the stubborn loyalty of Russian speakers to this holiday in the Hebrew- and Russian-language media testifies that it still remains a point of contention in the society. But while politicians are bickering, businessmen obedient to the market demand use the New Year as a great business opportunity. While in the early 1990s those who wanted to buy plastic fir trees and New Year paraphernalia had to go to Christian Arab quarters, today one can find them in Jewish quarters too. New Year bazaars are held by Russian book stores. Many non-kosher “Russian” food stores are decorated with fir-trees and sales people wear Santa caps. These caps are also worn by girls smiling at customers from posters advertising goods of many big chains in December. Aware that Russian-speaking Israelis are fans of Chinese horoscopes and are familiar with animal patrons of the Chinese calendar, owners of souvenir shops order figu- rines, badges and cups representing these animals. In 2012, an Israeli air-company El-Al advertised discounts for December flights to the FSU enticing customers to celebrate the New Year “among friends and family”, and the state radio channel Reka in the programs broadcast in Russian kept playing the paraphrased song from the popular movie “I step through Moscow”: A ia idu shagaiu po Moskve Za etu tsenu ia smogu Siuda s El’Alem priletet’ Na prazdnik ves’v snegu.

I step through Moscow For this price I can afford To come here with El-Al For the holiday full of snow.

Another invitation to enjoy the festive New Year atmosphere came from the cell-phone giant “Orange”. It invited Russian speakers to join festivities in Nazareth, one of the centers of Christian culture in Israel. Finally, the cable TV company HOT was offering the Russian- speaking Israelis a New Year “gift” – a deal including a multitude of TV channels in Russian. To increase persuasiveness of the message, the Internet version of this advertising was supported by the paraphrase of one of the most often quoted Soviet posters “Have you signed up as a volunteer?” (the original authored by Dmitrii Moor). Interestingly, the same Soviet poster was used in contemporary Latvia urging the people shopping for Christmas, which attests for persistence of Soviet images (Pakalns 2012: 120). Holidays as Border Crossing 179

Now that in every big company there are Russian-speaking employees, we can see that more and more businesses use Russian cultural codes in their advertising campaigns. Despite the growing acceptance of “Russian” holidays by members of the host society, immigrants still feel they have to explain and even defend them in private conversations and in public discourse. A case in point is the advertising of a New Year party that was posted on the website of the online Booking Office “Bravo”: Who said that the New Year is only the holiday of our neighbors- Christians? Who said that they celebrate the birthday of some ancient pope known as Sylvester? May their hideous tongues be cut out. What nonsense people may invent…

(…)

The New Year has always been beyond any religious tradition – it is not Jewish or Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, nor is it Muslim. This is a holiday when all the people can have fun irrespective of their “national identity”. This is our holiday! http://kassa.bravo.co.il, last accessed on 3 Jan 2013.

Conclusions

Our analysis of the interviews combined with many years of participant observation enable us to view the attitude to holidays and festive rituals in the context of integration and ghettoization processes in the immigrant community. Inertia in accepting new festive rituals “because everyone does it” and fear of criticism for preserving one’s old customs and habits often come together with simulative identities. On the other hand, when immigrants accept innovations sincerely, they internalize festive rituals, separating them from the dictate of the majority. In such cases they are motivated by curiosity, desire to better understand the culture of their ancestors, break the monotony of everyday routine by “performing” rituals and creating the atmosphere of festivity and elation. Different attitudes to the acceptance of new traditions, or their rejection is a conflict-generating issue within a family, a circle of friends and society as a whole. The attitude to traditions is also influenced by a pragmatic factor – whether the state or the employer grants days off to the minorities for their holidays. As 180 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya time goes on, alienation from the festive days of the Russian-speaking Israelis gives way to greater tolerance on the part of the host society. Israelis got used to the abundance of flowers on the th8 of March, as well as to the parades of war veterans decorated with Soviet orders and medals on the 9th of May. Even plastic fir-trees sold in abundance at the end of December no longer create panic. Immigrants on their part make festive meals on the eve of the Jewish New Year and Passover, although they are often non-kosher and may not include the dishes required by the ritual. Children and holidays is a special theme – in the same family, parents will decorate a fir tree, buy Santa Claus hats for the New Year, and two months later make carnival dresses for their children’s Purim parties. The reason for this mix is the desire of the immigrants to transfer their culture to the young generation, yet not to make them outcasts in the new society. Another important theme is the gastronomic component of the holidays, most obvious in female narratives. They speak primarily about those dishes which make an essential part of the ritual. Olivie and vinegret salads are considered to be ritual New Year dishes and cause a lot of amusement. Stories about Jewish dishes often have a trickster touch, and include narratives about sandwiches composed of matso with pork and bread eaten during the Passover. Interest in the history of one’s people can be manifested in the desire of some immigrants to recreate authentic dishes of the forefathers. One example is making a Passover meal using only those foods that were available to ancient Hebrews in the time of exodus. Finally, we’d like to note the divergence of the narratives in the interviews from practices. Declarations about indifference to the New Year, for example, come together with buying gifts for family members, decoration of the house with garlands and blinking lights, and cooking a festive meal. According to the Internet survey conducted in 2011, 83% of the FSU immigrants continue celebrating the New Year, whether it’s a day off or a week day. The use of New Year symbols as applied folklore by businessmen and image makers is an important sign of festive traditions as identity markers. Holidays as Border Crossing 181

Notes

1 Seder is a ritual meal which marks the beginning of a week long Jewish holiday of the Passover.

2 Yeshiva is an Orthodox Jewish school that focuses on the study of religious texts.

3 These ironic words allude to the Soviet anti-religious propaganda.

4 Afikomanis a piece of matzo set aside at the beginning of the Passover meal to be eaten for dessert. In the modern tradition, it is hidden, and the children have to find it. The elder member of the family then gives a gift to the one who finds it or to all the children who participated in the search.

5 The tradition to eat matzo instead of bread during the Passover is motivated by the desire to preserve memory of the years spent by ancient Hebrews in the desert after exodus from Egypt. According to the Bible, the only bread they had then was unleavened.

6 The Haggadah is a text narrating the story of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus. Reading Haggadah during the Seder Passover meal sets the order of the meal and is an important part of the ritual.

7 According to Halacha, a child born to a Jewish mother or an adult who has voluntarily converted to Judaism is considered to be Jewish.

8 Jewish boys become responsible for observing commandments at the age of 13 and girls at the age of 12. The coming of age ceremonies bar-mitzvah for boys and bat mitzvah for girls are held in synagogues and are common practice not only among the religious but also among the secular, although bat mitzvah are held only in Conservative and Reform Synagogues. In Ort- hodox families only ceremonies for boys are conducted.

9 In December 2011 before and after the “magic day” one of us received several viral e-mail messages explaining that the whole of the year abounded in unusual combinations of digits. Besides the crowding of ones, there were also five Saturdays, five Sundays and five Mondays in October. All of this allegedly made the Chinese call such a year “a bag full of money”. As is customary for this type of letters, the recipient was promised wealth but only if the message were passed on to others.

10 She is the only interviewee whose name we have not changed because pun- ning with it is a distinctive feature of her speech portrait. 182 Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya

11 After the “magic day” another viral message received by e-mail read: “Dear friends, the SHTF planned for 11/11/11 11:11:11 has been put off until 12/12/12 12:12:12”.

12 See http://bookap.info/popular/gurangov/, http://www.koob.ru/gurangov_ doloxov/wizard_course, last accessed on 17 Jan 2013. Both books are advertised on the Internet in the rubric “Popular Psychology”.

13 After the manuscript of this book had been already submitted we came across an announcement glued to a lamp post in Balfur street in Haifa. The tourist agency “The Promised Land” invited Russian-speaking residents to join a special tour entitled “The Rain of Money” to Miron Mountain in Galilee. Prospective customers were enticed by “the opening of channels of luck and financial wellbeing” and the blessing of a rabbi. The date of the tour (25/04/2013) was carefully chosen to be close to the Jewish Holiday of Lag BaOmer, which fell on April 28 in 2013. But although the promotion of the tour emphasized its relation to Judaism, the tourists were also promised the company of Alona, a clairvoyant. The implied help from a rabbi and a clairvoyant and a combination of a religious holiday and “The Rain of Money” were in complete symbiosis in the advertised excursion.

14 While recording this episode we were unaware of its similarity to contemporary denezhnaia magia (magic for money) popular in present-day Russia (see Arkhipova & Fruchtmann 2013).

15 A document issued by local rabbinates to certify that a business does not violate laws of Judaism. The loss of such document repels clients and may result in bankruptcy.

16 Not all the rabbis are as conservative. The more flexible ones try to “absorb” this holiday emphasizing its meaning as a private family event (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2011: 154).

17 This is an allusion to the Russian saying “Gorbatogo mogila ispravit” which literally means: Only the grave will straighten a hunchback. Part 2

Chapter 4. Immigrant Literature about the Fourth Wave of Russian Emigration: The Case of Germany

Larisa Fialkova

Material and Framework

“Russians” leaving the former Soviet Union in the fourth emigration wave1 usually chose their destination on the basis of the so-called “ethnic ticket”: Soviet Greeks went to Greece, Soviet Finns to Finland, and Soviet Germans to Germany. The Jews, however, had two alternatives: Israel or Germany. A third option – the United States, and in fact the most preferred – ceased to exist during the 1990s, at least for people without close relatives there. This emigration wave has been researched by sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, linguists and folklorists in each destination country; a comparative approach has been taken as well (Dietz 2000; Dietz et al. 2002; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007; Kaurinkoski 2003; Jasinskaja-Lahti et al. 2003; Remennick 2007; Yelenevskaya 2005; etc.). These studies conclude that the FSU immigrants differ considerably from newcomers from other countries, and display the same patterns of adaptation and acculturation in all their destination countries. They also experience similar social problems wherever they settle. In general, FSU immigrants of diverse ethnic origin do not fit behavioral models typical of Finns, Greeks, Jews and Germans, and the natives of all the receiving societies see them as Russians. Among the most important features of the former Soviets I would list affinity with the Russian culture, a high percentage of mixed marriages 186 Larisa Fialkova and one-parent families, dependence on the state for problem-solving and readiness to deceive the state, xenophobic prejudices and an elitist attitude to the receiving society. Russian enclaves with their services and culture, including newspapers, theatres, schools – and literature, sprang up in all the destination countries and have attracted research. Yet despite the existence of important publications on the literature of the fourth wave of Russian emigration (e.g. Bugaeva 2006; Kaurinkoski 2010; Krutikov 2000; Madden 2008; Weiskopf 2001; etc.), this feature remains under-researched. Estimates of the numbers of Russian Germans and Russian Jews who arrived in Germany with the fourth wave diverge significantly in the various sources. Nevertheless, at the very least a million and a half Russian Germans and 170,000 Russian Jews reside in Germany today (Baerwolf 2006: 173; Darieva 2011: 234; Dietz 2000; Remen- nick 2007: 317). Many contemporary writers living in Germany have emerged from these two groups. In 1998 Vladimir Batshev, a former Soviet dissident who immigrated to Germany (Frankfurt am Maine) in 1995, formed the Union of Russian Writers in Germany. Using membership fees for financial support, that year Batshev launched a Russian-language journal Literaturnyi evropeets (Literary European) which is still active. In 2004 he founded another similar journal, Mosty (Bridges). In 2005 this union had 70 members, which does not include all writers. Indeed, many writers retain their membership of the Russian Writer’s Union and of the writers’ unions of the former Soviet republics; some have been accepted by the Union of German Writers. Russian books are published in Germany in two main publishing houses: one founded by Batshev, the other by Alexander Barsukov, who has lived in Germany since 1994. Barsukov founded a literary association, Edita Gelsen, which engages in publishing. He also edits two almanacs, Vek XXI (21st century), launched in 2000, and Portfolio (I could not find the date of its first publication). There are/were other journals and almanacs as well. One of them, Rodnaia rech’ (Native speech), initiated by Olga Beschenkovskaia, was published in Hanover from 1998 to 2000. The “native speech” in its title was Russian, not German or Yiddish. Russian writers now living in Germany publish their fiction in other countries as well, e.g. Russia, Kazakhstan, Israel and the USA, and in fact their chances of publishing in Russia are greater than in Germany (Madden 2008: 329; Ryshkova 2008). The works of some authors, such as Oleg Jurjew, are readily available, while in other cases they can be found in various Russian-language Internet sites. Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 187

Figure 13. The site “The New Literary Map of Russia” provides information about 31 countries. Visitors can learn about Russian-language writers outside Russia and their new publications. They can read blogs and see recordings of Russian literary events taking place in countries as different as Greece and Estonia, Japan and Germany. http://www.litkarta.ru/world/, last accessed on 28 Jan 2013.

The definition of the material researched in this chapter is flexible. At first I intended to title it “Russian literature in Germany and Austria”, but I did not do so for several reasons. First, the writers considered here emigrated during the fourth wave of Russian emigration from different republics of the former Soviet Union (FSU), or even from different countries of the CIS, and may regard not Russia but Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc., as their motherland. Or they may be perceived by others as affiliated with different CIS countries. Yet their publications are accessible on the Internet contributing to the “New Literary Map of Russia”2 and are intended for various Russian readers, inside Germany but also outside. Some of the authors (e.g. I. Hergenroether, O. Jurjew, A. Khurgin, Ju. Kissina, Iu. Maletskii, O. Martynova, 188 Larisa Fialkova

W. Weber) are listed in the Encyclopedia of the contemporary Russian literature (Chuprinin 2012). Second, the fourth wave is “Russian” less in actual ethnic composition than in the cultural sense. All the authors covered here are Jews or Germans, and although I consider them Russian writers this is not the only approach possible. Other scholars research them separately as Russian-Jewish authors (Krutikov 2000) or Russian-German authors (Zeifert 2009). Third, although the focus of my research is Russian-language literature, I decided to include one author who writes in German, namely Wladimir Kaminer (Germany). The boundary situation of the immigrant authors manifests itself in various respects, including linguistic. This is especially evident regarding the various way-stations on the linguistic scale from German to Russian and vice versa. Some of the writers have entered German- language literature, for example, ethnic Germans Lorena Dottai, Elvira Schik, and Anton Mitliader, and ethnic Jews Wladimir Kaminer and Lena Gorelik. Can the writing of all or at least some of them be treated as Russian immigrant literature? This question is often discussed in respect of Kaminer, who emigrated from Moscow at age 22 and learned German in his new homeland. In his interviews Kaminer perceives himself, perhaps with some irony, as a Russian-speaking German writer of Soviet cultural background, whose choice of writing in Ger- man is market-driven rather than identity-driven (Kucherskaia 2004). Although I agree with Tikhomirova that interviews may be a dubious source, intended to satisfy the interviewer (Tikhomirova 2000), I think that they still reflect the immigrant discourse and should not be wholly ignored. Kaminer writes about ex-Soviet emigrants from the insider’s perspective and must certainly have read the Russian translation of his “Russendisco” (Kaminer 2003). His writing is discussed in different categories. For Mittelman he is a Jewish-German writer (Mittelmann 2010), but other scholars, myself included, stress the Russian-German boundary (Madden3 2008: 331) or the Russian-Jewish-German character of his writings (Rindinsbakher 2006; Wanner 2005; Wanner 2011: 51–71).4 Eva Hausbacher also places Kaminer in Russian literature, albeit with some reservations (Hausbacher 2009: 247–280).5 As stated above, some writers of diverse ethnic origin write solely or predominantly in Russian, for example, the ethnic Germans Igor Hergenroether and Vladimir Shtele, and the ethnic Jews Boris Rublov (pen-name of Boris Rubenchik), Juri Kudlatsch, Alexander Khurgin, Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 189

Oleg Jurjew, and more. But the ethnic Germans Viktor Eduard Prieb and Waldemar Weber write in German and in Russian, which signals their attachment to both literatures. The poet and writer Olga Beschen- kovskaia (1947–2006), a Jew, wrote and published in both these languages (Dvoretskii 2004). Oleg Jurjew, also a Jew, occasionally writes in German rather than Russian, although the lower artistic level of his writing in the former language is clearly evident to him (Jurjew & Shubinskii 2004). The German influence is clear even in the spelling of the names of the FSU writers, which follows the German rules and not Russian transliteration (Beschenkovskaia instead of Beshenkovs- kaia, Jurjew instead of Iuriev, Juri Kudlatsch instead of Iurii Kudlach, Wladimir Kaminer instead of Vladimir6 Kaminer). Some writers in Russian protect the purity of the language, but many immigrants’ writings about immigrant life contain German words which signify local life. Their explanations are given in the text itself or in notes for the benefit of Russian readers who do not know German. According to Madden, some authors (e.g. Iurii Maletskii) even toy with bilingualism and/or multilingualism (Madden 2008: 328).7 This “Germanized Russian” resembles the Hebraized Russian in Israel (Naiditch 2000; Naiditch 2004) with its various cognomens: HebRush (Remennick 2007: 98–101), izrusskii (Gutina 2011), and russit (Dida Sasha 2006). Olga Beschenkovskaia scornfully dubbed the Russian language as spoken in Germany kontingetno-bezhenskii dialect (contingent-refugee’s dialect: Beschenkovskaia 1998), and communication among speakers of different emergent variants of Russian (e.g. Germanized and Americanized) tarabarshchina – gibberish (Beschenkovskaia 2008), which does not mean that such communication is not possible. In my opinion, in the case of immigrant writers the different frameworks are not mutually exclusive. Any boundary phenomenon can be defined narrowly or broadly, and examined from either side; conclusions should be reached according to the context. If I research the writers’ poetics, in Kaminer’s case the language barrier will be crucial. But my research agenda is more anthropological than aesthetic. I am interested in the representation of the FSU emigrants of the fourth wave by the emigrant writers in that wave. This anthropological angle calls for information about me in relation to the researched group. I am a Russian-speaking secular Jew and a former Soviet citizen from Kiev (Ukraine); I have lived in Israel since 1991. I do not know German nor have I ever visited Germany. Although starting my career as a scholar of Russian literature, I moved to folklore studies after 190 Larisa Fialkova emigration with the focus on the personal narratives of the FSU immigrants in Israel (Fialkova 2007; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007). I am particularly interested in the reflection of oral immigrant discourse in fiction. The choice of Russian literature in Germany rather than in Israel as the material for this chapter was triggered by the wish for estrangement (Shklovsky 1983: 15). According to Madden, who analyzed questionnaires completed by Russian writers in Germany, they perceive estrangement also as a major asset of their immigration (Madden 2008: 327). Thus I am a partial in-group member: I belong to the fourth wave of Russian emigration, I am a former Soviet person residing outside the CIS, and in some respects even a zemliachka. Zemliaki (plural; singular zemliak, masculine, zemliachka, feminine) are compatriots, people who come from the same place, which is also a typical form of identification in Russian culture (cf. note 1 on page 80). A former Kievian, I lived in the same city as a Russian writer, Boris Rublov (Rubenchik) – a Jew, and a Russian bard, Vadim Kuzema – a German; both now reside in Germany. But I am out-group in terms of German experience. I teach in Hebrew and write this paper in English, while my native language is Russian, which is followed by Ukrainian as regards emotional attachment. For a few years I was even a member of the Ukrainian section of the Israeli Writers’ Union. With the same level of accuracy I can be called “a Russian immigrant scientist”, “an Israeli scholar” and “a Kiev-born Western scholar of Ukrainian folklore”. To my mind, my boundary position suits the boundary character of immigrant literature, which is intended for various Russian readers, inside Germany but also outside.

Identity Issues in Immigrant Literature

Identity questions are addressed by immigrant writers, in their interviews and their fiction alike, from several interrelated angles. First among them is ethnic origin (natsional’nost’8) – the writers’ and their characters’, mostly German, Jewish or Russian, with various “deviations from the norm”, be they mixed ancestry, “improper” religious affiliation, ignorance of the language and culture, and/or perception by outsiders. Next is a connection between the victimized ethnic identity and a Soviet identity, which is directly linked to the Great Patriotic War.9 The third angle concerns the Jews alone; it is the moral dilemma of the choice between Germany and Israel as the destination. Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 191

Ethnic Identity

The centrality of ethnic origin in immigrant discourse lies in the “ethnic ticket”, the notion explained at the beginning of this chapter. In this case Hall’s (1996) philosophical question “Who needs identity?” has practical answers. The ethnic identity of potential immigrants is required by the officials who issue visas and by the receiving society’s taxpayers, who do not want to feed an abundance of newcomers who do not belong. It is needed by the fellow immigrants, who stress their legality by repeating that they were invited to come. These immigrants are at the same time reluctant to share their meager “slice of the pie” with those who are not entitled to it, and are ready to blame outsiders in their ranks for their own poor image in the eyes of the receiving society. Ethnic identity is constantly used by literary critics as a criterion for scholarly definitions. According to Madden, German literary critics tend to accept Russian Germans who write in German as German writers proper, while Kaminer is perceived as Russian (Madden 2008: 331; see also Wanner 2005). Prieb likewise belittled Kaminer with the epithet “a Moscow Jew” (Prieb 2006: 144–145). I agree with Hall that race, which in this context is similar to ethnicity, is a discursive not a biological category … it is the organizing category of those ways of speaking, systems of representation, and social practices (discourses) which utilize a loose, often unspecified set of differences in physical characteristics – skin, colour, hair texture, physical and bodily features etc. – as symbolic markers in order to differentiate one group socially from another. (Hall 1992: 298)10 Ephemeral and profoundly criticized (e.g. Patai & Patai 1989), the racial (and, I would add, ethnic – natsiona’nyi) criterion is still widely assumed to be reliable as a primordial determination of subjective cultural identity. The profound interest in writers’ ethnicity and cultural identity abundant in Russian-language interviews clearly shows that Barthes’s premise about the death of the author (Barthes 1977) is pre- mature – quite the reverse. Personal information, real or mythologized, is in demand as an author, as well as a publisher, is still perceived as “an unseen companion” of the texts (Lotman 1992: 369). This interest also sparks the popularity of autobiographical novels with blurred lines between the author and the protagonist. I agree with Wanner that “an autobiographical stance is also a typical feature of immigrant fiction” (Wanner 2011: 10; cf. Hausbacher 2009: 145–147). 192 Larisa Fialkova

I would like to illustrate this point with several quotations from the interviews. The first is from an interview with the publisher Alexander Barsu- kov: “Alexander, please tell me about your ethnic origin – about your parents…” I am a Jew on my father’s side, if one can express it like that.11 Real Jews here have a different opinion on this point. (Zeifert 2005)12 The second is from an interview with the literature scholar and poet Elena Zeifert: “How did your interest in the literature of Russian Germans arise? Is there anything personal about it?” As I am a Russian German, it is especially important for me to study the literature of my ethnos. Perhaps every person has his ethnic mission (…) Critics and literary scholars who write about Russian-German literature may be divided along ethnic lines: they are Russian Germans (…) German Germans (…) and representatives of other ethnicities (…). In the Leninka13 everything Russian awoke in me even though I have not a single drop of Russian blood in me: three quarters of it is German and a quarter Jewish…. (Paul’zen 2007) The third excerpt is from an interview with Olga Beschenkovskaia: “Can you be called a ‘German-Russian’ poet?” I’d prefer to steer clear of juggling with the “national adjectives”. I have Jewish blood, and in the 1970s, when it was not fashionable and even not permitted, many of my poems touched on Jewish topics. Yet they were written in Russian, which means by a Russian poet. (…) Let’s agree. When Jews are oppressed I am a Jewish poet. And if Germans are oppressed, consider me a German poet! (Dvoretskii 2004) In all the foregoing fragments the notion of blood has a clearly symbolic meaning, connected to admission to / exclusion from a group, and to knowledge about different expectations from its bearer. However, Beschenkovskaia and Zeifert differ in their willingness to satisfy these expectations. Another interesting point is Zeifert’s distinction between Russian Germans and German Germans: the former are perceived as a different ethnic group, or in her terminology a different ethnos. This division makes blood, though mandatory, insufficient for unity. Blood indeed unites the two groups, but they are cleft by mentality and language use, which are derivatives of concrete historical and cultural circumstances. Such a discourse about Russian Jews as a cultural and linguistic minority different from veteran Israelis is typical for Israel. Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 193

The discussions specifying the blood composition, the “parity of mixes” and their implications are abundant in fiction. Jewish authors (e.g. Rublov, Khurgin, Maletskii) often describe Russian Germans as Kazakhs or Kazakh-Deutsch, and/or as having slanting eyes. The first two definitions may be just of geographic character indicating those who came from Kazakhstan, but they can have an additional derogatory meaning of “uncivilized Oriental people”. Both definitions may also be related to the third, which has an evident racial (albeit not always pejorative) meaning, indicating the progeny of mixed marriages, in this case Germans and Kazakhs. I was brought here [to the hospital]. A Russian nurse of the Kazakh- stan Germans has been invited. The girl by the way is super! She has slanting eyes.14 You’ll see her. (Rublov 2003: 106)15 A special bitterness is needed for a character’s maternal and paternal sides to be perceived as mutually exclusive – for example, one is Jew- ish and the other Ukrainian as in the case of the protagonist of Boris Rublov’s novel. Another is one parent Jewish and the other German, as in the case of Rudolf Germannovich Lannert, protagonist of Juri Kudlatch’s novel. Rublov’s novel is stylized as an autobiography. Two characters, the protagonist and his Ukrainian friend Liuba (diminutive of Liubomir), are talking in Kiev when the protagonist is on a visit from Germany to his hometown: Liuba didn’t want to stop. “Still, speaking honestly, which genes are more precious to you: the Ukrainian or the Jewish?” Here I felt I was starting to boil, but I restrained myself and asked: “Tell me, Liuba, what would you call someone who asks a child whom he loves more – his mom or his dad?” “An idiot!” “That’s right!” (Rublov 2003: 174) The second quotation is from Kudlatch’s novel The Alms-house. The conversation between half-Jewish Lannert and his Jewish neighbor Semien Iakovlevich takes place in Haim, a German hostel for immigrants, which in the novel is called the “alms-house”. Both are sunbathing. “By the way, Rudik, how did you come by such a romantic first name and patronymic - Rudolf Germannovich? Is your father really Germann? “Sure!” 194 Larisa Fialkova

“Confess,” said Semien Iakovlevich, (....), “speaking in confidence, you aren’t Jewish.” “What if I’m not?” Lannert grinned uneasily. “What would it matter to you? Would you stop sunbathing with me? Would you want to move to another room, farther away from mine? Would you?” “Rudik, how can you say that? What do you feel about me?!” “I feel that you’re an ordinary and normal person. Let me put your mind at rest at once – but only fifty percent: my mom was Jewish.” “And what about your dad, if you’re being so honest?” “I’m afraid you wouldn’t like to hear about him. My dad was pure German.” “Sorry, so what are you on your passport?” “Needless to say, I’m Jewish. I mean, now I’m Jewish. And before that I was German. I can assure you that it’s no better at all. It required running around and wheedling. And I had to give bribes, damn it! I’m ashamed even thinking about it.” (Kudlatch 2002)16 Some fictional characters created by Russian German writers also live in mixed marriages and/or are the offspring of such a union. Thus Viacheslav Slotov, journalist, writer and KGB agent, a character in Igor Hergenroether’s novel, makes a deliberate effort to emigrate. He succeeds by marrying Martha, a German woman, after failing in his attempt to emigrate with a Jewish girl. To paraphrase a well known Soviet joke, his German wife “was not a luxury but a means of transportation” (Hergenroether 2006; cf. Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 269). A protagonist of Victor Eduard Prieb’s novel, addressed by the nicknames Kid (Malysh in Russian) and later Father, was the child of a German colonist and a Russian woman from Smolensk. When Kid grew up he married a Russian (or Byelorussian?) woman. Interestingly, Prieb specified that Kid was registered as German in his Soviet documents but said nothing about his daughters’ ethnicity (natsional’nost’). In the novel’s closing pages the entire family immigrates to Germany as German repatriates (Prieb 2006). Writers are interested in the condition of mixed ethnicity because of its great importance for many emigrants from the USSR. The notions of “pure-blood” people and “halves” or “half-bloods” are deeply ingrained in the mentality of the former Soviets and have no correspondence with religious or ethnic traditions. Being Jewish, Russian, Tatar, German or whatever else was a fact of birth, of biological descent, not of religious or cultural identity. Ethnicity, or nationality (natsional’nost’), as it was called in Soviet usage, was registered in the notorious “fifth paragraph”. This paragraph, which was innocuous for Russians, Ukrainians or Moldavians, could prove ominous for members of minorities. Germans, Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 195

Tatars or Chechens, for example, were deported; others, such as Jews, suffered other forms of discrimination. This is reflected in the use of the idea of the “fifth paragraph” and in the jocular expression “invalid of the fifth group”17 (e.g. Beschenkovskaia 1998; Fialkova & Yelenevs- kaya 2007: 269–270). Prieb reflects on the implications of ethnicity for Kid [who at that point in the plot becomes Father]: “He has known all his life that he has no right to cross the borders of the Soviet Empire. His German nationality [natsional’nost’], which was entered forever in the fifth paragraph of his internal passport – notorious throughout the land – saw to that” (Prieb 2006: 23). Rublov ponders the influence of the same fifth paragraph entry on the life of one of his characters, the Jew Mikhail Leonchik: “Although he had absolute pitch, was very gifted and had secondary musical education, he was not admitted to the Kishinev conservatory because of the ‘fifth paragraph’” (Rublov 2003: 79). This entry was indeed indelible and could never be changed even in the event of religious conversion. However, the progeny of mixed families, whose forebears belonged to different “nationalities”, were given the privilege to choose the “better” of the two at the age of sixteen. It is known that some 90–95% of children of mixed Jewish/ non-Jewish origin preferred to be registered as non-Jews (Dymerskaia- Tsigelman 2000: 39). Researchers of the Department of Ethnography at the University of Omsk (Russia) have shown that in the Soviet era most children of mixed German/non-German families likewise opted out of the minority by registering as non-Germans; this situation has meanwhile changed because of the possibility of emigration to Ger- many (Anonymous author 2002). So Kid’s registration as German, not Russian, seems somewhat exceptional18. Lannert’s situation is more understandable: either option, the German or the Jewish, was pretty bad, and feelings about which was perhaps less harmful could vary in different historical periods. A parallel to Lannert’s choice albeit from different reasons can be found in the interview with a half-German and half-Jewish young immigrant Lida, who prefers to be a Jew. In the context of other interviews with young Russian speakers of German and Jewish origin her choice reflects the fact that Russian Germans perceive the Russian Jewish community in Germany as more successful than their own (Baerwolf 2006: 180–181). The identity of people of mixed origin was flexible; it could change over time depending on the context of their family life and circle of friends. In any event, it was independent on the mere fact of maternal or paternal ancestry. For example, the character in Rublov’s novel whose 196 Larisa Fialkova conversation with his friend Liubomir I quoted on page 193 is the son of a Jewish father, but he was raised by his Ukrainian mother as all trace of his Jewish father was lost in the battles of the Great Patriotic War. Still, everybody took him as a Jew. Needless to say, in the eyes of the German-Jewish community, as well as according to Israeli law, he is not Jewish at all. The condition of “Halachic and non-Halachic halves” is constantly discussed in scholarly publications, in the Ger- man and Israeli press, and in oral immigrant discourse (Dietz et al. 2002: 37–38; Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 51–68; Remennick 2007: 59–65, 317–326). Often the “halves” are registered differently before and after emigration. This change may be intended to help immigrants with their integration, but it can stem from religious law and block immigrants’ opportunities by marginalizing them. Thus both “Halachic and non-Halachic halves” were registered in the USSR as non-Jews. Yet children of Jewish mothers, who suffered less in the old country due to non-Jewish patronymics and family names, became Jews in Israel and Germany, managing to enjoy the better option in both situations. On the other hand, children of Jewish fathers who could suffer in the USSR on account of easily recognizable Jewish patronymics and family names became goyim19 in the destination countries. Ironically, this circumstance confirms the relevance of the Soviet notion of “invalids of the fifth paragraph” and its derivatives, e.g. “people of wrong nationalities” and so on, even after emigration. Differently from the USSR, elsewhere conversion to Judaism for the “non-Halachic halves” is perceived as a legitimate ticket to “the right ethnicity”; but most immigrants, who are secular, are not willing to change their way of life drastically, as required by the Orthodox Jewish conversion. Sensitivity to the “wrong paragraph” is clear in the song of the Russian German chansonnier Vadim Kuzema, The Fourth Paragraph, which bemoans the new bureaucratic divisions of immigrants: in the old country they were equal, but in Germany they are separated by ethnicity. Russian Germans are registered in the fourth paragraph, ethnic Russians in the eighth (Kuzema [no year c]). Although this song presents an ex- cessively idyllic picture of the Soviet national equality, it nevertheless highlights the amazement at the new discrimination, a feeling typical of many immigrants in Germany, and, I may add, in Israel, at least in the initial period. The artificial and utopian notion of the “Soviet people” has despite all left its nostalgic imprint on many immigrant stories. Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 197

The case of the half-German Lannert, the protagonist of Kudlatch’s novel, is most intriguing. The choice between being Jewish or German in the USSR was not easy, nor was the choice between being “a Kike snout” or a “damned fascist”. The latter had been Lannert’s experience in full, but his emigration was triggered not by the attitude of the Soviets to ethnic Germans. It happened after the dissolution of the USSR and was motivated by the attitude of ethnic Kazakhs to Russian speakers as a whole, be they ethnic Germans, Jews or Greeks. In this context the logical step for Lannert would be to repatriate to Germany on the German “ticket” and escape being the “other”. However, Lannert preferred to bribe officials and emigrate as a Jew. This course of action seemed to run counter to everything I knew about managing one’s ethnicity as I could not grasp its practicality. So I wrote to Juri Kudlatch to ask him about it. The answer came back quickly and was clear. The emigration procedure is much easier for Jews than for Germans, who must complete a lengthy tortuous questionnaire, devised by the German authorities in quest of enough evidence of the applicants’ German way of life in their country of origin. This highly complex process was devised as German society reacted to the and unexpected “Russianness” of the German repatriates. Lan- nert’s prototype, whom Kudlatch met in person, was a half-German from Tashkent. He preferred to forgo the lifetime pension paid by Germany to ethnic German repatriates, and to enter on the Jewish ticket. The situation becomes even stranger considering that his wife was German. For Kudlatch’s literary hero, this choice resulted in his being the recipient of an anti-Jewish leaflet in Germany, demanding that immigrant Jews (Kike snouts) leave the country. He who had been taunted for being “a damned fascist” in the USSR has now become the target of neo-fascist activity in Germany.

Religious Identity

Among typical features of Russian immigrant literature in Germany is the reflection on “inappropriate” religious affiliation of writers and their fictional characters alike. The term “inappropriate” in this context may have different meanings. It may refer to atheism, which was prescribed in the USSR but is perceived as problematic for the local religious communities: 198 Larisa Fialkova

No, the rumors which spread are not pointless. According to them, a synagogue is trembling, horrified in face of the Jews who have come from the former USSR. They are arrant atheists and disbelievers (although I wouldn’t refer to myself as to disbeliever) (…). Returning to the synagogue: of course, it is not the edifice that is trembling. The building is strong and grey; it resembles the KGB (…). The back hairs stand on end on the heads of national functionaries – in the first place the rabbi’s.... (Beschenkovskaia 1998) …he [the average German] would like to know what all these strange bundles of middle-aged people are doing here. They entered the country through the Jewish quota with families and they have professions, which imply high professional status; yet they do not go to the synagogue. (Maletskii 1999) The word “inappropriate” also applies to the disparity regarding strict religious laws. Russian Jews eat pork (Kaminer 2005: 107–108)20 and an orthodox Jew from the USSR may have not been circumcised (Rublov 2003: 95–97). The adjective may also refer to the “wrong” language of prayers [Russian instead of German]. Other “inappropriate” deviations from the norm are Russian Germans who are Russian Orthodox [instead of Lutheran], Jews who are Orthodox Christians instead of followers of Judaism, and more. Thus the dramatic persona of Shtele’s poem “prays in a Russian church and in the Russian language to his [non-Russian] gods (Shtele 1978–1998). Weber describes his protagonist’s baptism during the war. The Russian German baby was baptized by a Russian Orthodox priest as no Lutheran priest could be found in the village. The protective effect of baptism is more important for his mother and grandparents than the differences between the denomi- nations (Weber 2011). Especially important in this context are Jews of Christian faith, treated by Maletskii and Beschenkovskaia.21 This excerpt from Maletskii’s novel is part of a conversation between the protagonist and another former Moscow Jew, Lenia Reznik, who helps him to fill out the documents: “Well, naturally in the paragraph on denomination we’ll write ‘Ortho- dox Jew’, won’t we? What do you mean by Orthodox Christian? Here it is called ‘Russian Orthodox’. But then, what have you lost in the synagogue? It means that when it refers to your faith, you are Russian Orthodox, while when you need the entry permit and the money, you are Jewish, aren’t you? You have fixed it fine…”

“Sorry, why are you talking like that? It is not you who let us in, but the Germans. They exterminated the Jews, including my grandfather, Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 199

according to ethnic criteria, not religious. And in this same way they let us in, which is perfectly logical…”

“(…) Well, let’s stop waffling. I’m doing your documents not as a Jew for an apostate but as one former Muscovite for another.22 But I ask you as a compatriot not to wave your cross around among the Russian- speaking residents of the town”. (Maletskii 1998) The Jew whom Beschenkovskaia most appreciated of all her Jewish acquaintances was “the one nailed to the cross by children of different nations; some did it with a hammer, others with words” (Beschenkovs- kaia 1998). A baptized Jew, Iakov Markovich Permanent, also appears in Oleg Jurjew’s novels. Being a Leningrader in the Zhidiatin Peninsula, in New Golem, he is already an immigrant to Germany and resides in the fictional town of Iudenshliukht (Jurjew 2000; 2004).23 But unlike the previous examples, Jurjew’s depiction of Russian Orthodox Jews is ironic. The spread of Russian Orthodoxy among Soviet and post-Soviet Jews is not an exclusively German phenomenon. Starting in Russia in the last years of Soviet rule, it crossed the borders to Germany, the U.S.A., and even Israel, although in the latter case in secret: the Law of Return prohibits repatriation of converts. Unlike conversion in earlier historical periods, baptism today is not perceived by those who choose it as a way to escape from the Jewish people. In most cases Jews come to Christianity not through conversion from Juda- ism but from atheism to faith. As a result no psychological betrayal is experienced, and Christianity is perceived by many of them as an alternative Jewish identity (Deutsch Kornblatt 2004; Nosenko-Stein 2010; Ulitskaia 2011). In general, an “inappropriate” religious affiliation signifies divergence from the traditional “primordial” ties between ethnicity and religion. According to this approach, ethnicity does not determine religion, which can be chosen, like political and/or philosophical ideas, in accordance with one’s personal views. Although more popular among people of mixed origin, it is accepted by many descendents of mono- ethnic families as well. In my opinion, the separation of religion and ethnicity in the USSR, as well as the impossibility of escape through apostasy during Stalin’s purges and the Nazi occupation, conditioned this changed attitude. 200 Larisa Fialkova

Identity and the Great Patriotic War

Although Russian Jews and Russian Germans suffered on account of Soviet national policy, their situations differed. Playing down the Holocaust as well as the contribution of Jews who fought in the Great Patriotic War was typical official Soviet policy, which nurtured the widespread anti-Semitic practice of blaming them for “holing up” in Tashkent. Yet their participation in the war as Soviet soldiers and officers was not denied altogether. Stalin’s death rescued the Jews from the planned deportation, saving them from the “criminal nations of the Soviet State” (Prieb 2006: 8). Although discriminated against, the Jews were allowed to be part of the Soviet national narrative of the Great Patriotic War, which became the cornerstone of the notion of Soviet and post-Soviet identity (Gudkov 2005). Virtually every Jew- ish family had a member who perished in the battles or returned as a decorated war hero. Reading books and watching the films about the war, Jews, together with other peoples of the USSR could identify, at least partially, with the representation of history provided in them. Jewish youngsters played the popular game “In the Great Patriotic War” and/or tremulously touched their father’s and grandfather’s medals (e.g. Beschenkovskaia 1998). The collective “we” of the Soviet Jews incorporated not just Babi Yar, Salaspils and the ghettoes, but the battles of Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin as well. The importance of this heroic identity persists after emigration. In Israel, for example, former Soviet Jews succeeded in instituting a celebration of Victory Day on 9 May, propagating the self-image of victors rather than victims (see pages 172–174 in this book). Clubs of veterans of the Great Patriotic War were also quick to emerge in Germany, and Soviet songs about the war are sung there as well (Bodemann 2001: 360; Yelenevs- kaya 2005). Such self-perception as victors, typical for Russian Jews contradicts the tendency to accept them as a community of victims, which was typical for the receiving society (Becker & Körber 2004: 10). In Germany there is an official People’s Day of Mourning which takes place on Sunday between 13th and 19th of November. It com- memorates all those who perished during World War II, slaughtered Jews, Wehrmacht and Waffen SS troops alike (Margalit 2010: 146) as a part of a reconciliation narrative. In 1995 according to polls, 17% of West Germans and 34% of East Germans saw the 8th of May in terms of defeat and not liberation (Morina 2011: 256). Public celebration of the Victory Day on the 9th of May restores the notion of the Great Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 201

Patriotic War rather than World War II, questions the reconciliation memory and activates alternative memory. Persistent demonstration in Germany of their heroic past by the elderly Jewish immigrants is reflected in immigrant fiction as something strange or even inappropriate; here is an example: “Are you going to join the tour to Munich tomorrow?” “No, tomorrow is the 9th of May.” “So what?” “What do you mean? It’s Victory Day.” “So what?” “Our hometown association (zemliachestvo) appealed to the re- girung fon Shvaben24 to provide us with the auditorium for tomorrow evening for the celebration of our Victory Day over fascist Germany.” (Maletskii 1998)

The only Jew in a big family from Dnepropetrovsk was a ninety-year-old grandfather, who used to walk in the street always wearing a jacket with a ribbon-bar… (Khurgin 2007)

A noise came from the room next door. Two attendants tried to take out an old man. His black jacket was decorated with the Soviet orders and other insignia. (…) He tried to prove heatedly that he had to have a discount as he was coming to the exhibition for the third time. (Rublov 2003: 229) Still, Soviet military awards are respected by the writers, especially when they are not used to win undeserved privileges. The case in point is Solomon Rabinovich in Rublov’s novel: He had seven injures, three contusions, and two stars on his shoulder straps, that is, he was a lieutenant, and he had six governmental awards, among which were such orders as the Order of the Great Patriotic War and the Third Degree order of Glory. (Rublov 2003: 53) Russian Germans were not only denied the right to defend the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, but were collectively punished by the Soviet state as alleged traitors. Their ethnicity (natsional’nost) made them “guilty” merely by being co-ethnics of the Nazis. While the suffering of Jews was radically downplayed, the suffering of Russian Germans was muted, and they were excluded from an important part of the Soviet national narrative (Krieger 2007). According to Prieb, popular films about the war gave rise to vicious attacks by Russian children on their German peers. Kid, the protagonist of Prieb’s novel, born six years after the end of the war in a small pig-breeding settlement 202 Larisa Fialkova whither the family had been deported, lost an eye in one such “battle” (Prieb 2006: 31). Clubs showing numerous films about the war appear also in Vladimir Shtele’s poem with the oxymoronic title The Foreign Motherland, referring to Russia. The dramatic speaker of this poem recollects his childhood spent in Siberian barracks. Such film clubs constituted the main leisure activity there. In these films “ours” were invincible. Importantly, the author sets the word “ours” in quote marks to signify severe problems of self-identification. Russian German kids had to identify with the Soviets, despite being continuously harassed by Russian neighbors for no reason. Nevertheless, it was their childhood and Russia was their motherland (Shtele 2010). On the individual level, belonging to different discriminated minorities may bring about mutual sympathy, but not necessarily. Beschenkovskaia stressed that unlike Hitler, who created Auschwitz for the peoples of the other, namely Slavs and Jews, Stalin created his GULAG [which is thus equated to Auschwitz] for his own people [Soviets]. These camps were for Slavs and Jews too, and for Germans. But they were not for “Germany’s Germans, but for our own, for ‘ours’, and first of all for his own party comrades” (Beschenkovskaia 1998). Clearly, by “our own” Germans she meant Russian Germans. Kudlatch sympathizes with Lannert over his undeserved suffering when called “a damned fascist”. Rublov’s half-Jewish/half-Ukrainian protagonist remembers an unfortunate family of Russian Germans, refugees from the town of Engels, who were caught by the Soviet militia (Rublov 2003: 9). But antagonism is also abundant. Depicting the slave labor of Rus- sian German women in the so called trudarmia [labor army], Weber, a German repatriate of the fourth wave, creates a repulsive image of Major Semien Mel’dison, whose first and second name are clearly Jew- ish [marking a Jewish character by a recognizable name is a typical Soviet practice, as explained above concerning non-Halachic halves]: Mom’s battalion was commanded by Major Semien Mel’dison. He would remind them every day that the Germans could expunge their guilt only through zealous work. Tiny, dumpy and duck-legged, Mel’dison had a foible: he liked big women. He didn’t spare any of them his attention. A tall, plump immigrant woman related laughingly to her girl workmates, in her working-class Berlin accent, that he used to climb up her [lazil po nei] like a cat climbs up a tree. Mel’dison would scream at those who failed to meet the quota: “You bitches, you’re waiting for the Germans – no hope. And you won’t get a fascist’s dick either! I’ll have you tried as saboteurs.” Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 203

Another character, who according to her patronymic is also Jewish, seems to be the rescuer of the protagonist’s mother: Help came unexpectedly. The mother was accepted as an assistant by Maria Moiseevna Shatkhina, the physician at the camp’s first-aid post and the elderly wife of one of local commanders. (Weber 2011) The GULAG hell in Prieb’s version is manned by “small, tacky Red Army soldiers, who for various reasons were unsuited for or not admitted to military service as combatants; most of them due to the black irony of fate were Soviet Jews…” (Prieb 2006: 124). Indicating the majority status of Jewish guards, Prieb makes them responsible for the suffering of peaceful Russian Germans, and reinforces the anti-Semitic myth of Jewish non-participation in the battles. In contrast to authors who focus only on peaceful Russian Germans, Prieb also defends those who, like Kid’s father, decided to go to Germany during the war and were forcibly conscripted into the SS. For Prieb in accordance with the reconciliation narrative, these SS soldiers were guilty only of having “good height” and were unjustly betrayed both by American allies and later by postwar Germany (Prieb 2006: 120). Short fat Jews are thus contrasted to tall handsome SS soldiers. Although Prieb does not openly support the Nazi regime, he justifies it obliquely, equating it to Leninist-Jewish-Communist-Stalinist chauvinism (Prieb 2006: 123). Had he not included the adjective “Jewish” I would have agreed with him. This likening of Hitler’s and Stalin’s regimes is well founded, and not at all new to Russian literature; it was deeply analyzed many years ago by Vassilii Grossman, and again more recently by Olga Beschen- kovskaia. Prieb, however, designates it also as Jewish. Importantly, Prieb is selectively “blind” to the presence of any Jewish prisoners in the camps. As a result, Jewish guards become a logical continuation of the “Jewish oppressive regime”. This formula helps him to deny that Jews were victims of Stalin and the Holocaust and transforms them into culprits guilty of Russian Germans’ distress. The crisis of identity in the transition from Soviet citizens and Nazi victims/victors to loyal German citizens is a typical trait of Russian literature created by ethnic Jews. It was also articulated by Russian Ger- man chansonnier Vadim Kuzema in his song Reichstag. As we know, most Russian Germans, including Soviet officers, were collectively withdrawn from the Soviet Army by the notorious directive N35105c of 8 September 1941, irrespectively of their personal views (Shulga 2008: 131).25 In Kuzema’s song the dramatic speaker is an ethnically unspeci- 204 Larisa Fialkova fied immigrant from Russia. He is repairing the Reichstag, trying to efface traces of the shells fired from his grandfather’s artillery piece during the war. This work of the repairer provokes his grandfather’s reproach. The inner conflict is resolved in two different ways. First, the boss has ordered the holes not to be filled but left as the marks of history. Second, the fact that the people who are inside the building now do not want a new war is highlighted. The hero overcomes his identity crisis and ends the song envisioning his own son in the uniform of a Bundeswehr officer. This song, written in 199926, reflects the narrative of reconciliation and envisions a similar event which took place a year later. On the 55th anniversary of the bombing of Drezden the British Drezden Trust presented the Church of our Lady with a new cross. The cross was done by Alan Smith whose father participated in the bombing in which the original cross was destroyed (Margalit 2010: 164). And the hostile graffiti left on Reichstag by Russian soldiers were recently re-defined as art by the designer Norman Foster. According to Darieva, “the public display of previously sacrilegious symbols in the political heart of contemporary Germany and their “showcasting” as tourist attractions may signal trivialization of recent history, but at the same time it highlights seminal changes in the perception on everything “Russian” as common and unthreatening” (2007: 38). Like their characters, most of the authors were children at the time of the Great Patriotic War or belong to the postwar generation. Some of them personally survived evacuation, devastation and war-imposed orphanage. The younger ones got an idea of the war indirectly through family stories, nightmares, books and films (Dubin 2011). The words “Nazis” and “Germans” in these contexts were routinely interchange- able, and the German language itself acquired hostile connotations. Considering that adaptation to any foreign language is troublesome for adult immigrants (cf. adaptation to Hebrew in immigrants’ stories: Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2003), the traumatic effect of German becomes clear. Some typical examples follow. The first refers to Haim, a German hostel, once the starting point for all the new immigrants. “Akhtung! Akhtung!” My dear brothers, friends, fathers and teachers. Could I ever have thought that the classics were forever alive and I would hear this legendary command at my own address? This word resounded through the building at 5 a.m. sharp. The barking voice, painfully familiar from hundreds of films, was broadcasting the names of the families who had to move with their belongings to the exit, without delaying the others. Bus after bus carried used and worn out human fates to the surrendered and doomed Bavarian towns. (Maletskii 1999) Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 205

This excerpt is about the sorting of immigrants to board buses which will take them to places in Germany where they are allowed to settle. But linguistically this peacetime situation brings to mind two different wartime ones. The first is another type of sorting, more familiar, namely selection for life or death in the concentration camps;27 the second recalls the slogan “The Russians are coming!” [Russkie idut!],28 and in consequence the German capitulation. The second excerpt, from Beschenkovskaia’s essay, tells of an unexpected meeting in the park: So we were strolling in the park, my husband and I, and suddenly we saw helmets, which pierced our eyes like steel blades. These were not good-natured Soviet helmets (…) but those very helmets… These were those very … One… Three… Five… It was an entire division… And there were voices… My God, why do I hear “Akhtung! Akhtung!” and soldiers’ boots which strike precisely: ain-tsvai, ain-tsvai? The terrifying military image proved entirely peaceful as the imagined soldiers were apparently just firemen. Yet this perception, both acoustic and visual, is highly typical for the Jewish immigrants, even though many of them, like Beschenkovskaia herself, had seen “German fascists only at the cinema” (Beschenkovskaia 1998). The problem is that through these films they could visualize the true stories of their grandmothers and cousins who were burned in the flesh, with no firemen anywhere to save them. The title of Rublov’s novel is And Here I Heard German Spoken, itself intimating the uneasy feeling caused by this mere fact. The protagonist, whose Jewish father had vanished at the front, heard German in his childhood’s nightmares: In a dream I saw my dad sitting on the slope in his civilian clothes and in his constant leather cap. The Germans are slowly creeping up on him. I’m yelling, “Dad, look out!” But he doesn’t hear me. And the Germans are shouting: “Kheende khokh!” and pointing their machine- gun at him. At that moment I wake up shouting, “Dad’s been captured!” (Rublov 2003: 8) Understandably, the deepest identity crisis is experienced by elderly Jewish immigrants, who personally experienced the war. One of Rublov’s characters, whom I mentioned earlier, is a pious Jew, Solo- mon Rabinovich from Kiev. He is a lonely old man who has not fully recovered from the tragedy of the war: while he, then a seventeen-year- old soldier, was heroically fighting in the front, his parents and little sisters were shot at Babi Yar. Solomon has immigrated to Germany, 206 Larisa Fialkova following a similar move by a distant relative from Berdichev. Yet at some point he considers the possibility of a second immigration, this time from Germany to Israel. Fearing loneliness, he seeks out some relatives there, as he intends to start with a trial visit, not full commitment. A relative is indeed found. His letter, which is full of disdain both for Solomon’s being in Germany and for hesitations concerning repatriation to Israel, intensifies Solomon’s mental crisis and results in nightmares about Babi Yar. Unable to control them, Solomon com- mits suicide. The theme of the Nazi past reemerges not only in the memories of the war or in the activities of contemporary neo-fascists, but even in various humorous misunderstandings, typical anywhere for most of the immigrants whose knowledge of the new language is still sparse. These situations are so characteristic that they merit a special type in the well known index Types of Folktales, edited by Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. This is no. 1699: Misunderstanding because of the ignorance of the foreign language (Aarne & Thompson 1964; cf. Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 259–266; Yelenevskaya 2008a). In Germany, however, these slips can lose their funny side. For example, Boriska, a character in Alexander Khurgin’s novel Those Who Kiss the Doll, makes a mistake. Looking for the clinic of a Russian-speaking dentist, Dr. Emma Braun, on Gustav-Adolf Street, he approaches people and asks for Eva Braun on Adolf-Hitler Street. Naturally, the passerby whom he has accosted is deeply embarrassed. In this case the discom- fiture was unintentional, although Russian literature in Germany also reflects immigrants’ entirely deliberate abuse of the host population. Thus Boriska addresses a German clerk with a typical but adversely symbolic name [at least for the Russians], Frau Führer, who was not responsive enough to his needs, with the exclamation: “Unfortunately there is no Hitler upon you!” He thereby paraphrases the typical Rus- sian exclamation “Unfortunately there is no Stalin upon you!” meaning the threat of severe punishment. Still more gruesome is Boriska’s hobby “to beat the fascists”, namely to attack the Germans together with a group of frequenters of a Russian discotheque.29 This occasionally aggressive behavior towards the receiving society, verbal or physical, is a continuation of the Soviet experience in different circumstances. An example of the indiscriminate use of words “Nazis” and “Germans” is given by Prieb in the episode depicting a Soviet gathering dedicated to Victory Day. His protagonist, called Father [the adult Kid], defiantly Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 207 walks out when an old war veteran calls the entire German people “a wolf in the sheep’s clothing” (Prieb 2006: 146–147). Immigration to Germany requires coming to terms with the past. Three authors, Beschenkovskaia, Kaminer and Prieb, two Jews and a German, connect their own or their protagonists’ move to the anniversary of the beginning or of the end of the Great Patriotic War. The autobiographic hero of Kaminer’s “Militärmusik” boards the train for Germany on 22 June 1990; Father (Kid) in Prieb’s novel obtains his entry visa at the last minute before the German embassy closes on the eve of the 45th anniversary of Victory Day.30 But Father, who has two daughters, waits for the end of the school year so the family leaves the USSR on 19 June. In fact, Kaminer’s and Prieb’s protagonists immigrated in the same year and the same month, with three days’ difference. This timing depended on getting the visa, hence is purely accidental; nevertheless, it acquires a symbolic dimension. For Father it means the end of the humiliation that he as a Russian German feels when Soviet festive ceremonies are held;31 for the young man of Kaminer’s novel it objectively means indifference to the past (Wanner 2005: 592) or reconciliation with it. In any case he is already familiar with the facts of the war kept secret, and therefore is free of official Soviet mythology32 (Kaminer 2005: 69, 130; Prieb 2006: 146). Beschenkovskaia wrote an essay, not a novel and it is overtly personal. She left the USSR on the 10 May, a day after Victory Day and the 10th anniversary of her father’s death, which occurred at the meeting with his fellow veterans. He had gone to Berlin as a soldier; she goes to Ger- many as an immigrant. The situation causes her suffering, although it leads to reconciliation in the end. This is evident in the essay, but even more in Beschenkovskaia’s poems. One of them starts with “Dad saw Berlin in 1945” and ends with an appeal to a German: “My German brother, let’s drink to our fathers / And to their obelisks, which cool the blood” (Beschenkovskaia 2005). The appeal was heard and when Igor Hergenroether wrote about the late Olga Beschenkovskaia, he chose to quote these very lines at the end of his essay (Hergenroether 2010). While I accept Wanner’s premise about Kaminer’s relative indifference to the Holocaust, I cannot agree that it is inherent in the consciousness of most Russian Jewish immigrants in Germany (Wanner 2005: 592). Neither immigrants’ narratives nor immigrants’ literature provide enough evidence of this idea. Memories of the Holocaust, combined with current immigrants’ experiences, disturb them, kin- dling complex feelings about Germany’s Germans, from outrage to 208 Larisa Fialkova gratitude. Nor can I accept Krutikov’s conclusion that the only way open to former Soviet Jewry in Germany is self-hatred (Krutikov 2000: 230–234). Bitter criticism of provincial fellow Jews, which he finds in Beschenkovskaia’s essay, is not exclusive to immigrants to Germany. It is a result of the blurring of ethnic and class boundaries experienced by Jewish immigrants in other countries as well, including Israel (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 96–128). Wanner indicates them in Boris Saidman’s novel, written in Hebrew in Israel (Wanner 2011: 91). Unlike the connections in somewhat limited circles of friends with a common cultural background, as was typical in the USSR, immigration inevitably joined people to sundry others, necessitating communication across secular/religious, central/peripheral, urban/rural, and educated/ non-educated axes. The very existence of such axes proved a cultural shock for many Jews. Yet a similar shock was experienced by many Germans, above all by “Germany’s Germans”, on encountering their co-ethnics from Russia – many of whom came “from the settlements, which were God-forsaken”, as Kuzema sings in the Fourth Paragraph (Kuzema [no year c]; see also Darieva 2011: 235–236). Russian Jews in Germany have developed several principal strategies for reconciliation. First, following German reconciliation narrative they emphasize the suffering of German women and children under the Soviet and Allied occupation of Germany (cf. Margalit 2010: 46–57); next they stress the rapid physical disappearance of the guilty elders, and the innocence of the postwar generations of Germans. Thirdly they express gratitude to the country that provides immigrants with financial support and its distinction from the USSR and the CIS – cruel or at best indifferent to their citizens. Lastly they metaphorically replace immigration to Germany by “immigration to Europe”33.

Conclusions

Immigrant literatures are “cultures in between” and employ a so-called “hybrid discourse” (Bhabha 1996: 58). Paraphrasing Hall’s terminology, I may define their role as “narrating the minority”,34 which in this case consists of Russian speakers of diverse ethnic origin who immigrated to Germany from the former USSR on the eve of its disintegration or thereafter. Literary texts reflect grassroots practices and resist the institutional as well as the lay public’s expectations of identities as fixed constructs based on primordial unity within an ethnic group. Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 209

Identity, according to Hall, is “a concept operating ‘under erasure’ in the interval between reversal and emergence”; by contrast, the concept of identifications is “drawing meanings from both discursive and psychological repertoire without being limited to either (…) and arise from the “narrativization of the self” (Hall 1996: 2, 4). It is never completed and is inherent in personal narratives and literary works alike. The process of immigration of the last Soviet generation (Yurchak 2005) turns identities into commodities (entry permit and financial support are granted for specific ethnic identity) and intensifies the identification discourse, leading both to divergence as well as convergence of groups and individuals. In the case of Russian Germans and Russian Jews the traumatic past can produce the dynamic of both types. If perceived as conflicting agents (Jewish guards in the GULAG supervising arrested Russian Germans; Russian Germans sympathetic to the Nazis), they lead to alienation. Yet they can be united on the premise of the “fifth paragraph”, which caused suffering to both groups. Immigrants can be separated by different immigration rules (by new paragraphing), by place of origin (Kazakh villages versus Ukrainian provincial towns or various Soviet capitals, from Moscow and Leningrad to those of republics) and by education (village school versus prestigious university). They can also be separated by religion (Lutheran, Christian Orthodox, Judaism, as well as atheism) or by contrast united by it, often independent of ethnic origin, which itself is frequently mixed. Immigrants have common nodes: they meet at the same clinics of “Russian” doctors, be they German or Jewish, dance at the same discotheques, use the Runet (Russian language internet) and laugh at the same jokes. The most important thing, clearly seen in the immigrant literature, is that these identifications are situational and without fixed causation. Both the “Kazakh-Deutsch” who bursts out laughing on hearing a joke and the Jew who tells it become Russian. The same may happen when they sing or hear such songs as Russian Weddings in Germany or Charter to Hannover (Kuzema [no year a]). However, the two can be Russian only outside Russia. To be precise, in that case they still belong to “the Soviet people”. Russian literature in Germany reflects these attractions and divergences. Immigrant literature is multivalent. It is a part of the literary scene of Germany as well as that of Russia and of the Russian diaspora (cf. other diaspora literatures in Kandiyoti 2009). It can be perceived as German, Jewish or Russian, or a combination of these. Different 210 Larisa Fialkova frameworks imply different power relations. Perceived as a part of present-day German literature written in Russian, it is consigned to minority status with all its pitfalls (cf. minority discourse of Chinese literature in the USA in Chow 1993: 99–107), but traces the writers’ personal integration. On the other hand, if understood as Russian and diasporic, it is directly connected to Russian literature per se, which is reinforced by its virtual presence there through publications and by the possibility of physical return (Wakamura 2009). But it prevents authors from feeling at home in Germany. While in the Soviet Union a “national frontier became a fact of literary process” (Chudakova 2007: 207) contemporary immigrant literature is not ostracized and is characterized both by centripetal and centrifugal tendencies. To my mind the former meanwhile dominates. The centers are multiple and also include various branches of the incipient Russian diaspora (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2005; Remennick 2002). To paraphrase the title of Olga Martynova’s paper “Posthumous victory of the social realism” (Martynova 2009)35 contemporary Russian literature can be defined as a “posthumous global victory of multiethnic Soviet literature” in the imagined global Russian community (Anderson 1991). However this victory does not presuppose immigrant authors’ identifications with Russian Federation. The notion of Motherland can be altered and this change depends not on ethnic origin of a writer but rather on the level of his/her personal integration. Thus, Oleg Jurjew in his short poem O chiem, o rodine? [About what, about a Motherland?] writes about two unspecified motherlands, whereas the former can be easily identified as Russia and the latter as Germany: “…. Ob etoi / Pechal’noi rodine, l’dom oblachnym sogretoi? Ia bol’she ne o nei – ty znaesh’ pochemu: / Inuiu rodinu voz’mu s soboi vo t’mu… / … O kom, o rodine?” […about this / Sad motherland which is warmed up by the nebulous ice? / I don’t [sing? speak?] about it anymore – and you know why: / I’ll take another motherland with me into the dark… / … About whom, about a motherland?”] (Jurjew 2011). In visual terms, I would liken these identifications to the festive garland of lights on the New Year tree. The colors on it vary – they may shine in succession and be only blue or green or yellow or red. Yet all these lights are there together, as becomes clear when all of them are shining. But unlike the lights, diverse identifications, some despised by creators of this or that imagined national community (Anderson 1991), cannot be separated; they can only be muted by force at official representations, including scholarly reports as well as in the nation- Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 211 alistic discourse of the lay public. In this context literary texts, viewed as fictional narratives about daily practices and daily discourses, form an important supplementary source of anthropological and sociological studies. In this situation the artistic quality of the literary texts is subordinate. Literature enjoys several advantages over traditional qualitative research, which is based on various methods of interviewing. First, literature does not depend on direct communication with the interviewer, hence on an unavoidable power effect. Clearly, interviewers’ questions prompt specific topics, and unfortunately may influence the answers. Although various interviewing techniques are aimed to minimize these effects, they cannot entirely block them (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 22–36). Immigrants’ literature, on the other hand, addresses the questions chosen by the authors themselves out of their reflection on their own and other immigrants’ daily life as well as their discourse. Secondly, in contrast to researchers, writers and poets are not influenced by any theoretical framework, which may give rise to selectivity. As a result they provide readers, including scholars, with their own sometimes conflicting frameworks, which can be used for both formulating questions and comparing with the outcome of the interview.

Notes

1 On the waves of Russian emigration see Zemskaia 2001: 35–49. Some researchers do not distinguish the fourth wave from the third (Bugaeva 2006: 58), which started in the 1970s; thus they disregard the profound differences caused by the disintegration of the USSR.

2 The goal of the project “New Literary Map of Russia” is to rebuild united Russian literary space (see http://www.litkarta.ru/about/, last accessed on 8 Aug 2012). According to Weiskopf and Kissau, only 20.4% of Russian immigrants in Germany visit predominantly German websites, while 49.2% visit only Russian-language Internet websites and 27.1% visit both Russian and German websites. Among those who define their knowledge of German as “very good” and “good” one third still prefers to use mainly Russian-language websites in the countries of origin and residence. Russian language Internet has immense communicational importance for unifying the Former Soviets all over the world (Weiskopf & Kissau 2008: 103–104, 106–108; cf. Fialkova 2005; Elias & Shorer-Zeltser 2006). 212 Larisa Fialkova

3 Madden is the pen-name of Elena Tikhomirova.

4 After considerable hesitation I excluded an Austrian writer, Vladimir Vertlib, from the authors treated here, and thus limited this study to Ger- many alone. Vertlib, like Kaminer, writes in German and his writing is also discussed variously as Jewish-German (Matveev 2011), Russian-German or Russian-Jewish-German (Bugaeva 2006: 69; Fundaminskaia 2001). How- ever, although bilingual and in the same age group as Kaminer, Vertlib moved to the West with his parents during the previous (third) wave of Russian emigration. Unlike all writers discussed in this paper, he was born in the USSR but not raised there. His novel, which has been translated into Russian, is autobiographical and is about the emigrants of the third wave (Vertlib 2009).

5 Kaminer is the only writer who is addressed both by Hausbacher and by myself in this paper. Otherwise our samples differ.

6 Interestingly, Vertlib’s first name Vladimir is spelled according to the Rus- sian rules of transliteration.

7 Language play is typical also for “translingual writers” (Wanner’s term), including Kaminer. Although they do not write in their native language they tend to include “insider jokes” – obviously understandable only to those who know Russian as well (Wanner 2011: 12–13).

8 Ethnic origin was registered in the Soviet documents under the paragraph natsional’nost’ – nationality. This word is used abundantly in both oral narratives and fiction.

9 I prefer this name instead of the neutral the Second World War as it played an important role in the formation of Soviet identity (cf. Dubin 2011: 145).

10 Italics are in the original.

11 Cf. Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 59–61.

12 All translations from Russian are mine.

13 Colloquial form for the State Library named after V.I. Lenin in Moscow.

14 All underlining and comments in square brackets are mine. The comments in round brackets () are part of quotations.

15 The word “Russian” incorporates the other into the in-group. However, “slanting” eyes may have overtly negative connotations as well, e.g. in Be- schenkovskaia’s essay when describing a clerk of Vietnamese origin working in Haim as “raskosaia devka” [slanty wench] (Beschenkovskaia 1998). Russian Immigrant Literature in Germany 213

16 Where passages are cited from the Internet, page numbers sometimes cannot be provided.

17 Invalids with various health problems were divided into three groups: the first group consisted of people whose physical or mental deprivation was harshest. The joke plays on the equation of ethnicity with health deprivation.

18 Cf. it with Robert Leinonen’s personal narrative. This immigrant writer of half-Finnish and half-German origin after serious hesitations registered as German still in the USSR (Zeifert 2009: 58–59).

19 A pejorative Hebrew word for non-Jews – L.F.

20 As this novel by Kaminer was not translated into Russian I read it in Hebrew translation. Similarly, Wanner, whose Hebrew proficiency does not allow him to read Boris Saidman’s novel in the Hebrew original, read it in German (Wanner 2011: 16, 217).

21 Maletskii himself is a Jew and an Orthodox Christian. I do not know whether Beschenkovskaia was baptized or not, but Christian motifs abound in her poetry too.

22 Here is a clear example of the zemliaki’s identity, discussed above.

23 Jurjew’s novels are characterized by sophisticated poetics which resists anthropological analysis. That is why I refer to him only once.

24 In the original texts in all the quoted excerpts the German words are written in Cyrillic transliteration. For that reason I decided to use Latin transliteration of the Russian instead of German.

25 This directive could not be implemented immediately because of the military situation. Its enforcement lasted several months – until spring 1942, so that some Russian Germans continued to fight the Nazis (Shulga 2008: 137). In any event, they could not participate in the battle for Berlin.

26 I asked Vadim Kuzema about the date and he responded to me by e-mail. The website contains no date (Kuzema [no year a]).

27 The association of this sorting in Haim with that in the concentration camps is also reflected in Beschenkovskaia’s essay (Beschenkovskaia 1998).

28 One of Kuzema’s songs about the Russian nouveaux riches who “buy up the world” is entitled “The Russians Are Coming” (Russkie idut) (Kuzema [no year b]). 214 Larisa Fialkova

29 Is this not the same discotheque as that described by Wladimir Kaminer in his “Russendisco”?

30 Father’s [Kid’s] story of unexpected help in obtaining the visa belongs to typical stories of lucky coincidences, popular among emigrants from the USSR. In our work on immigrants’ narratives we defined a special type for them as an addition to Aarne and Thompson’s Types of Folktales: 947C*–*B (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 211–237).

31 Alienation from Soviet festivities in general is also mentioned by Olga Be- schenkovskaia, although in her case it was influenced by her Jewish ethnicity [natsional’nost’] (Beschenkovskaia 1998).

32 While writing this chapter I recorded an interview with a Russian Israeli student, who has absolutely no interest in the Victory Day, which he perceives not as a commemoration day of his forefathers’ glory but as a celebration of militarism.

33 Cf. with an excerpt from the interview with Iurii Kudlach: “I understood that we had to immigrate. But to immigrate where? I didn’t want to go to Israel (…) We, my late wife, who was also a pianist, and I used to dream sitting in the kitchen. “How great it would be to immigrate to Germany.” And not just to see the country which gave the world such geniuses [Beethoven, Schuman, Brahms, Hugo Wolf], but also to live there to join this great culture. But in those distant eighties nobody could see even in a most fantastic dream that Germany would accept immigrants. Nobody even thought about this. No to say that for most of the Soviet people who were parched by the war Germany was associated only with hysteric screams: “Khende khokh!”and such words as “fascist”, “SS man” and “Gestapo”. This ignoble war absolutely washed out from our consciousness the fact that Germany is a cradle of European culture. That phenomenon which is now called European music practically originated in three countries – in Italy, Germany and Austria. And for me it was most important. This became the main reason for my immigration to Germany” (Tsipris 2008).

34 Hall speaks about national cultures, whose concern is “narrating the nations” (Hall 1992: 292).

35 Originally written in German for Neue Zuercher Zeitung, this paper was translated into Russian in a piratical way and caused fervent polemics. As a result Olga Martynova had to retell it herself for Russian readers and to respond to critics. Differently from Olga Martynova, whose evaluation of the literature discussed is negative, I use this term neutrally. Chapter 5. Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web: Representation of the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Humor of Russian-Speaking Israelis

Maria Yelenevskaya

Introduction

As an opening to this chapter I’d like to give an excerpt from a comic list circulating on Ru.net, the Russian-language section of the Internet1: A true Israeli is he who • never misses a news program • considers the word “politics” to be an insult • freezes each time he hears on the radio “ZAHAL2 press attaché reports…” • likes to tell a story of a miracle: once a terrorist attack occurred just three meters away from him or only three minutes after he passed the site • is a taxi driver if he knows how to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Russian-language Israeli forum Besedka, posted on 31 May, 20113 (http://besedka.co.il/index.php?showtopic=9156&pid=1002739&st= 1560&#entry1002739), last accessed on 25 Nov 2012) For many people in the world Israel of today is primarily associated with the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is also the hottest theme of the formal and informal discourse in the country, and there is no national consensus as to how the conflict can be resolved. When people need to relieve tension and pain, give vent to anger and reinforce the bounda- 216 Maria Yelenevskaya ries between in- and out-group members, they often resort to humor and ridicule. Confrontation with the neighbours is a pervasive theme of Israeli humor and satire. It is well known that in order to fully appreciate the meaning and significance of political humor one has to be familiar with the relevant political culture, the nature of disagreements and conflicts that are derided or condemned, and the goals of competing and struggling political forces (Mulkay 1988: 201). In many cases only the second- or third-generation immigrants become actively involved in political life of the receiving society and creative activities that reflect their group’s shared attitudes and values. This might be the reason why immigrants’ contribution is seldom considered in studies of political humor. To-date immigrants’ humor has been primarily researched as a coping strategy which allows people to make light of the hardships of border crossing, loss of home and difficulties of integration into a host society (Dégh 1972; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1983; Salamon 2010; Shifman and Katz 2005; Zilberg 1995). It has also been investigated as a mechanism boosting in-group solidarity and mobilizing resistance against marginalization that confronts newcomers (Apte 1985: 134–135; Ben-Amos 1973; Vaid 2006). Russian-Israeli humor covers a variety of political issues ranging from party politics and the influence of the religious sector on various aspects of domestic affairs to interethnic clashes and corruption scandals in the upper echelons of power. Yet, it is the conflict with Arab neighbors that has proven to be its most salient and stable theme. Moreover, since attitudes to this conflict may affect a person’s choice of a social circle and cause alienation from friends and families, making sense of it became an important part of the process of renegotiating immigrants’ identities and shaping group allegiances.

Channels of Humor Dissemination

Channels of humor dissemination in the Russian-speaking community are varied and have evolved gradually. Oral dissemination, i.e., exchange of jokes, comic rhymes and toasts4 is an indispensable part of all informal gatherings and parties and family festivities. The second, and probably, the most important channel for the first 10 years after the beginning of the big immigration wave from the USSR in 1989, was the Russian-language mass media. In Israel, the Russian-language press had emerged long before the 1990s, but the 1990s saw its unprecedented Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 217 growth. At the turn of the millennium, Russian-speaking Israelis had a choice of 100 newspapers and magazines, programs of the state- sponsored radio station REKA (broadcasting 10–16 hours per day), private radio stations, the Russian-language TV channel Israel plus, and Internet news portals (Caspi et al. 2002; Elias 2006; Epstein 2006: 241–250). Humor supplements or joke columns appeared in virtually every newspaper. The Russian-language state-owned TV channel Israel plus popularizes immigrants’ humor by inviting comedians and writers who were famous still before emigration and continue publishing after moving to Israel. With the increased use of Ru.net the popularity of conventional press dropped and many readers chose Russian-speaking Internet portals favoring them for speedy update on the current events and interactivity. Many of the big portals, such as www.souz.co.il, www.israelinfo.ru, www.zahav.ru have forums and chat rooms, and humor threads are found on all of them, some lasting for years and numbering hundreds of posts and thousands of viewings5. They feature most popular genres of contemporary Russian humor: jokes (anekdoty), personal experience jokes (baiki), anti-proverbs, comic rhymes, comic lists, cartoons, manipulated images and multimedia ensembles. Finally, comic and satirical texts dealing with immigrant experiences are created for the student cabaret KVN (the Club of the Merry and Resourceful) which runs on the competitive basis in many enclaves of the Russophone world, including Israel. The most popular pieces from KVN contests are reproduced orally and in the media. The Open League of KVN in Israel has its own web site on which it records history of the cabaret in Israel, posts the schedules of upcoming “games”, excerpts of the skits performed in past seasons, and reviews and photo-galleries of the performances (see http://kvnisrael.co.il/, last accessed on 15 Dec 2012). Russian-speaking comedians and writers give concerts, publish their texts in Israel, the FSU and in Russian enclaves of Europe and North America. They post their works in Russian electronic libraries, such as Zagranitsa (Russian for “abroad”), the repository devoted to creative writing about life outside Russia (http://world.lib.ru/, last accessed on 15 Dec 2012). The favorites among all these texts and multimedia ensembles are copied and re-posted on humor hubs, in forums and blogs and circulate as viral e-mail messages. Gradually they lose signature and become part of contemporary folklore. Importantly, thanks to the Internet, émigré humor has become transnational and circulates among Russophones residing in various countries of the world (Yelenevskaya 2009b: 268–269). 218 Maria Yelenevskaya

Demand for Political Humor

In the last three decades, communication analysts, popular culture and humor researchers have often noted the blurring of boundaries between conventional political discourse and entertainment (see e.g., Baym 2005; Billig 2005; Delli Carpini & Williams 2001; Jones 2005). Politicians try to boost their image by showing off their sense of humor when they meet their electorate or deliver speeches. Moreover, they use jokes as a strategy aiming to embarrass their opponents in the eyes of other politicians (see Billig’s analysis of Berlousconi’s joking in the European Parliament, 2005: 177–184). They joke to avoid discussion of pressing issues or make light of their own deficiencies (see Lewis about Reagan’s and Bush Junior’s humor, 2006: 169–171). Moreover, humor serves as a powerful instrument of pre-election campaigns (see Alekseevskii’s analysis of Ziuganov’s jokes, 2010). TV and Internet have made major contributions to the overlapping of politics and entertainment. Late-night TV shows in which anchorpersons and their guests crack jokes about current political events, puppet shows parodying national politicians and enacting scenarios which satirize political affairs, ironic and derisive depiction and interpretation of everything political on the web and in YouTube – these are just a few examples of erosion of distinction between discourses aimed to inform and those meant to entertain citizens. Among the reasons for the breakdown of this distinction researchers mention the proliferation of information technologies which have dramatically increased the amount and range of information readily available, the speed at which it becomes available, and the opportunities for interactive mass communication (Delli Carpini & Williams 2001: 166). Another reason has been formulated by Fiske, who points out that news reporting has a social responsibility. It is required to disseminate knowledge that people may not want to acquire and may find little pleasure or relevance in having (2011: 121). But even if citizens are interested or concerned, conventional information formats do not have equal appeal to various social and age groups, and many seem to be more responsive to the so called “soft news” or “infotainment” (Baym 2005; Jones 2006; van Zoonen 2005). Infotainment does not only make its content available to wider audiences than the authoritative news reporting and analysis; its advantage is in creating a wider range of relevancies requiring connections between the text and the social experience of the audiences Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 219

(Fiske 2011: 152). In the case of Russian-speaking Israelis experience acquired in the country of origin taught ex-Soviets to distrust the state and the state-owned media viewed as an instrument of suppressing and manipulating the individual (see chapter 2 pp. 88–95). Moreover, they were highly skeptical about politicians’ ability and desire to seek the good of the population. Back in the “old country” open expression of discontent with state policies was associated with dangers to wellbeing and to life itself. Even in the post-Stalin period people avoided expressing their opinion in public discussion and would open up only in the company of close and trusted friends and family. And it is in this environment that the most favorite genre of urban folk culture, political joke, flourished. Not a weapon capable of changing the regime, joke exchange was a barometer of attitudes to the system, communication charged with meaning and one of the ways to liberate the self from the cruelty and stupidity of the system (Benton 1988; Davies 2011; Krikmann 2009; Sheygal-Placzek 2009.) Although in the first stage of adaptation to the new environment immigrants are known to be preoccupied with integration problems, ex-Soviets who immigrated to Israel in the 1990s became involved in political life very soon after arrival. On the one hand, major Israeli parties were interested in attracting the new electorate and courted it by trying to involve prominent members of the community, including journalists, in election campaigns; on the other hand the newcomers themselves created several political parties which pledged to advance their co-ethnics’ interests and needs. But despite these new opportunities, immigrants of the 1990s did not give up the familiar habit of judging politics and politicians, sorting out relations with various others seen as rivals or enemies, and critically evaluating the status of their in-group with the help of humor and satire. In many cases parties and politicians were evaluated through the prism of their attitudes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But while in the Soviet Union it was impossible to criticize the national policies or politicians in the media, in Israel conventional and electronic press, and to a smaller extent radio and TV, became platforms for political humor and satire. The Arab-Israeli conflict was a distinct theme of the Soviet jokelore that emerged after Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967. Al- though Soviet authorities responded to it with an anti-Israeli campaign and intensified covert discrimination against Jews, the jokes of the period reflected mobilization of the group’s ethnic pride. As Draitser 220 Maria Yelenevskaya convincingly showed in his book about ethnic humor in the USSR, these jokes reinforced the group’s boundaries, boosted its morale and rejuvenated the theme of emigration (Draitser 1998: 132–152). After Israel’s military success, numerous jokes about victorious Israelis circulated in the USSR. While the official propaganda invariably presented Israelis as aggressors, jokes portrayed them as skillful warriors capable of defeating the enemy thanks to wit and ingenuity. They outsmarted the outnumbering but “naïve” and “stupid” Arabs, achieving victory by swift action. This complimentary portrayal was in sharp contrast with the Diaspora image of a timid and humiliated Jew, and even the pervasive epithet the “Israeli aggressor” was perceived as a triumph over the prejudiced Soviet lore which presented Jews as cowards who had evaded conscription and spent World War II in the rear. The common slur of the war period was that Jews were fighting in Tashkent (see Draitser 1994: 259; Yelenevskaya 2009a; Fialkova in this book: 203). Besides showing pride in the accomplishments of Israelis, many of the jokes about the Arab-Israeli conflict exposed Soviet policies in the Middle East. Soviet help to Arabs emerged as clumsy and ambivalent, causing more harm than good (see jokes with these motifs in Shturman & Tiktin, 1987: 528–538). Although interethnic intolerance and humor targeting another group are not likely to emerge if the two groups have no extensive cultural contact (Apte 1985: 133), ex-Soviet Jews had formed negative stereotypes of Arabs long before meeting them in everyday life. Upon arrival in Israel, this negative attitude was reinforced by the Gulf War and frequent terrorist attacks that plagued Israel during both Intifadas6. The percentage of FSU immigrants among the victims of terrorism is relatively high because many of them live in settlements where the probability of terrorist attacks is higher than in Israel proper and secondly, because due to a low socio-economic status many have to use public transport, which is a factor of increased risk (Epstein et al. 2004). In addition, immigrants found that they had to compete with Israeli Arabs for resources, primarily, for jobs and social benefits. As a result, without making a distinction between Palestinians living beyond the Green Line and Arab citizens of Israel, FSU immigrants came to perceive Arabs as the ultimate other (Yelenevskaya & Fialkova 2004). Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 221

The Role of Precedent Texts in the Framing of the Conflict

The early and mid-1990s was the period of shaping collective attitudes to the conflict based on the new “insider” knowledge and experience. When immigrants familiarize themselves with realities of the host society in order to interpret them and work out individual and shared attitudes they rely on the experience acquired in the country of origin and on the knowledge of “precedent texts”. This term was introduced by the Russian sociolinguist Yu. Karaulov who defined it as “texts that are significant for an individual’s cognition and emotions and have a supra-personal nature; i.e., they are well known to the linguo- cultural group the individual belongs to, including his/her predecessors and contemporaries. These texts are systematically reproduced or alluded to in the discourse of the individual” (Karaulov 1986: 215). The folklorist K. Bogdanov adds that precedent texts serve as the basis of the collective discourse, since the knowledge of these texts is a criterion of social identification and a prerequisite for mutual understanding in the establishment of an ideological position (Bogdanov http:// www.ruthenia.ru/folklore/bogdanov1.htm, last accessed on 3 March 2011). Precedent texts are a rich reservoir of symbols that are widely used by members of a lingua-cultural group, in particular in creative discourse. And since humor is a type of creative discourse based on the carnivalesque distortion of concepts and norms (Karasik 2007: 358), allusions to Russian and Soviet history, literature and folklore were among the main techniques of immigrants’ humor of the 1990s, including texts and images devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Allusions create additional associations and project the meanings of the source text on the target text.7 Their rhetorical power depends on the familiarity of the source by the addressees, so the most effective of them make use of precedent texts. Let me illustrate it with examples. Already in the early 1990s when Israeli government under Itzhak Rabin started peace talks with Palestinians, which eventually led to Oslo Accords, new immigrants from the FSU showed skepticism as to the success of peaceful initiatives. This attitude was expressed in the pejorative name invented for the Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestinians. Using the interlingual paronymy Oslo – osiol (donkey) Russian speakers came to refer to it as oslinyi mir (assy peace). 222 Maria Yelenevskaya

In the period of heated discussions about the wisdom of Oslo Accords immigrants coined an anti-proverb quoted in verses and frequently used in oral communication still today. Protiv shaloma net priema (‘No trick works against peace’) This is a paraphrase of the Russian anti-proverb coined in the Soviet times: Protiv loma net priema (‘No trick works against a crow-bar’, equivalent to the English saying ‘There is no arguing with a large fist’). The difference between the source and the target texts is minimal: loma – shaloma (crow-bar – peace), which intensifies the semantic difference between the paronyms and turns the notion of ‘peace’ into a menace imposed on the people by coercion. Another allusion, frequently coming up in the immigrants’ discourse about Israeli politics, is based on the source text that dates back to the late 1980s. One of the favorite sayings of M. Gorbachev, connoting the irreversible changes in Soviet society triggered by perestroika was “The process has set off” (in the original Protsess poshel). Like many statements of the Soviet and post-Soviet leaders, it became a humorous cliché8 implying with a tinge of irony that some phenomenon is out of control (Mokienko & Nikitina 2001: 487). Russian-speaking journalists in Israel are well aware of the semiotic potential of this saying and it frequently appears in ironic headlines: “Where did the process go?” (Dvoretskii 2007 about state budget problems); “Has the process set off? Or do they still mill the wind in meetings?” (an online article about ineffective work of a utility company http://www.grand- prc.ru/jomsocial/zapisi/2011-03-02-00-43-35.html, posted on 1 March 2011, last accessed on 29 Dec 2012). Humorists also make use of this saying. One example is from a Russian-Israeli humor weekly Beseder? Dlia tekh komu esche smeshno9 (O.k.? For those who are still in the mood to laugh). In response to unrest on the border with Lebanon in the North of Israel, it published a mock analysis of the current affairs deriding alleged confusion among the officers, the government’s loss of control over the situation and the stalling of the peace process. The text was headlined Kuda poidet protsess – bol’shoi sekret (Where the process will go is a big secret) (Beseder? 30 Jul 1993: 1). Besides alluding to Gorbachev’s saying, this short sentence brings to memory Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 223

Winnie-the-Pooh’s song from a Soviet cartoon by Feodor Khitruk. The cartoon adaptation of A. Milne’s book “The World of Winnie-the- Pooh” was extremely popular in the Soviet Union. Winnie became the protagonist of jokes, and Winnie’s songs translated by Boris Zahoder were known by heart by children and adults. Linking political irony and a lighthearted song of a funny awkward bear downgrades the peace process to children’s play where nobody is responsible for the results. Ironic allusions to Gorbachev’s saying can be found in blogs and discussion forums when the Arab-Israeli conflict is discussed. Whether quoted or paraphrased it usually appears in the strong positions of the text, primarily in the titles of posts. One example dates back to the political crisis that occurred in Israel when under the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon the government decided to dismantle several settlements beyond the Green Line. One of the articles in a popular discussion forum was entitled: “The Process has set off. How will it all end?” The general feeling of the participants was that the damage done by this step was irreversible (http://besedka.co.il/index.php?showtopic=1548&st=20, posted on 28 Jun 2004, last accessed on 29 Dec 2012). Another example is very recent. The Israeli blogger Lilofeia used Gorbachev’s saying without any innovations in her report about the beginning of the military operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza in November 2012. The post addressed readers inside and outside Israel. It summarized information of press releases interspersing it with emotional statements, slang expressions and idioms demonstrating the author’s ironic attitude to Palestinians and whole-hearted support of the operation. Unlike the previous examples which paraphrased or changed the modality of the original saying, the blogger’s post did not add any innovations relying on the readers’ knowledge of the source text. The value of political humor is in its immediate response to events. Sheygal-Placzek believes that political humor can be regarded as secondary texts in relation to the primary political text which it interprets and evaluates. Conceptual and information structure of a secondary text is more complex than of a primary one (Sheygal-Placzek 2009: 236). This can be further complicated by the combination of text and image. Cartoons commenting on peace initiatives of the 1990s serve to illustrate this view. 224 Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 14. A. Dubovskii”, “Peace talks resumed”, published in Beseder?, 27 Nov 1992, p. 1.

This cartoon appeared in 1993 in response to one of the numerous attempts to resume peace talks, which are conceptualized not as a give-and-take process but as an act of violence. The winning “partner of the negotiations” is wearing a uniform of the Red Army soldier, but instead of the red star, he carries the Jewish symbol, the star of David, on his helmet. The defeated Arab partner is dressed in civilian clothes, and the juxtaposition of a military uniform and the robe of a Muslim suggests the opposition of strength and weakness. The mili- tancy of the Russian-Israeli also stems from his words “All the power to the olim” (Russian for “immigrants”). This is a paraphrase of the Bolshevik slogan “All the power to the Soviets” – the slogan that was quoted and alluded to throughout the Soviet era. Like in many other cartoons and humorous texts, the view of the conflict comes together with furthering the group’s main agenda of securing a better position vis-a-vis the host society. In serious discourse and in humor ex-Soviets promote the idea that the experience acquired in the Soviet Union makes them more sober in evaluating the political situation in Israel and more firm in defending the country’s interests. Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 225

Figure 15. A. Daniel, “He is so experienced!” published in Beseder?, 16 Jul 1993, p. 1.

This cartoon features two central figures of Middle-Eastern peace efforts of the 1990s – Israel’s Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin and the first Head of the Palestinian Autonomy (PA), Yasser Arafat. The charismatic and emotional Palestinian leader was the protagonist of many jokes and rhymes, and some have outlived him. While in the Hebrew-language satire the image of Arafat almost overnight changed from a villain to a comic hero combining both positive and negative traits and becoming a statesman and an Israeli partner in peace efforts (Shifman 2012: 98–99), in the Russian-language humor and satire his image of a terrorist remained dominant. In the cartoon on fig. 15 the representation of the two politicians is based on Soviet iconography. Rabin’s open trench coat and a Russian cap with ear-flaps fluttering in the air are reminiscent of a comic portrayal of the Soviet soldier of the World War II period. Arafat is wearing a Keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress that became an inseparable part of his image, and came to be known as “arafatka” to Russian speakers during the first Intifada. But the rest of his appearance – a characteristic posture with the right hand in the pocket, a sly smile on the face, a suit with a vest and a compulsory cap on the head leave no doubt about the figure’s similarity to Lenin. The blend of the two images seeks to intensify ridicule of the two politicians and negative attitudes to peaceful initiatives. 226 Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 16. Anonymous, “PLO is closed. Everyone has gone to Intifada”, Beseder?, 30 Jul 1993, p. 1.

A snapshot representing a shabby wooden house locked up and carrying a sign “The party committee is closed. Everyone has gone to the front” became widely known in the Soviet Union after it had been included in a school history book. The original image appeared in the documentary “Happiness Hard Won” which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Komsomol10 (The movie was created by Ya. Posel’sky, N. Wendger and F. Kiselev in 1938). The image and the text were so frequently reproduced in narratives about hero- ism of young Bolsheviks that many came to believe it was an actual photograph of the period, while in reality the scene was designed for the movie (Serov 2003). Pervasiveness of the Soviet propaganda triggered humorous attitudes to this text and turned it into a cliché used to refer to any public organization that was not working or serving clients as it should. The cartoon with the text “PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) is closed. Everyone has gone to the Intifada” served as an illustration for a satirical poem and both were published in Beseder? on 30 Jul 1993. The publication was a response to the information in the Israeli press about members of the Israeli Parliament who intended to visit the headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization but were not received by its head Yasser Arafat. The text of the poem is a pastiche of Nikolai Nekrasov’s poem “Reflections at the Gala Entrance”. The source text expresses the poet’s anger at Russian aristocracy degenerating in hedonism and indifferent to the plight of the poor and destitute. It also renders Nekrasov’s bitterness at passivity and submissiveness of the Russian peasants incapable of shaking off the inner slavery that eroded the spirit of the nation. The title of the pastiche is “Reflections at the ill-starred entrance”. The text is signed by N. Dakrasov – an obvious hint at the source of Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 227 the pastiche. Its structure replicates the source text. The part of the haughty aristocrat who chooses to give or not to give favors to the people asking for them is given to Yasser Arafat; the city residents displaying slave-like reverence of the aristocrat are transformed into Middle East leaders visiting the headquarters of the PLO out of tribal solidarity; and humble peasants not allowed to present their requests to the aristocrat are replaced by Israeli parliamentarians. Reversing the roles of the actors – in reality Arafat had to ask Middle-Eastern leaders for patronage in relations with its powerful neighbor, Israel, – the author presents attempts to make peace as “undermining of the foundations of terror”. To increase the absurdity of the situation the parliamentarians pray looking at the mosque, and murmur “May Allah judge you” (in the source text the peasants turn their eyes to church while praying). The change of religion is often perceived as the worst type of treachery, in particular, when it is the religion of the enemy, and this is what is implied by the triple repetition of words associated with Islam when describing the behavior of the parliamentarians. The text clashes Russian idioms with Middle-Eastern realities not only to amuse the reader but to intensify the perception of the situation as surreal and absurd. Like the source text, in the end the pastiche addresses a rhetorical question to the people, slightly paraphrasing the original: “Will you ever wake up full of strength? Or do you obey the laws of the forefathers and have already accomplished everything you were capable of?” But the very end of the source and the target texts differ significantly. Nekrasov’s sounds sad and pathetic: “…or have you created a song akin to a groan, and your spirit is gone forever?” By contrast, the target text is cynical and derides the rank-and-file Israeli: “If so, pay arnona [land tax] regularly, eat falafel [Middle-Eastern fast food], take pride in Einstein and Agnon, and to satisfy the needs of your soul watch Zeu ze [a Hebrew-language entertainment TV show].” This textual-visual ensemble derides the enemy and domestic politicians, as well as the host society as a whole, relying on the cultural codes well familiar to the target audience. Its purpose is not only to amuse but also to form the attitude of the readers to political events. Like other pastiches published in the Russian-Israeli press in the 1990s, it mobilizes the meanings of the source texts intended by the authors, but also those that were added in the process of multiple reproductions, innovations and folklorization. As time went on, humor of the Russian-speaking Israelis became less dependent on the Soviet symbols and images and more firmly 228 Maria Yelenevskaya grounded in Israeli realities. Immigrants learned to use bilingual humor in a more sophisticated way and allusions to Jewish history and culture became more frequent. The repertoire of precedent texts was also gradually changing, reflecting the bi-lingual and bi-cultural present of the Russian-speaking community in Israel.

Confronting Terror with Mockery

One of the first issues determining the group’s attitude to the conflict is security. And this is why in the debate about giving up territories and returning to the borders of 1967, Russian-speaking Israelis are adamantly against giving up land as part of the agreement with Palestinians. While veteran Israelis lovingly call Israel, artseinu ha- ktantonet (our tiny little country), Russian-speakers are still nostalgic for the vast expanses of the “old country”. This attitude is manifested in numerous jokes and rhymes: - Why do drivers in such a small country as Israel face such huge problems? - Because speeding results in the violation of the state border. (KVN, Israel’s national team, 26 Sep 1992)

- Why does everyone refer to Israel as an aggressor? - Because the country is so small that when you put its name down on the map you inevitably get onto someone’s territory even against your own will. (http://forum.souz.co.il/viewtopic.php?t=55607, posted on 7 Sep 2006, last accessed on 25 Dec 2011)

This is the University of Haifa - Is it true that when the weather is good, one can see the border with Lebanon? - Yeah, but don’t worry, soon you will be able to see it even when the weather is bad. (KVN, Tel-Aviv team Train Station) Claustrophobia and fear of small space is a recurrent theme of informal discourse of Russian speakers and was documented in the study of personal narratives (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 164–167). It came up again in 2010, when Israeli media discussed Bill Clinton’s remark that peace in the Middle East was stalled by settlers and “Russian” immigrants. Clinton allegedly cited Natan Sharansky’s11 words that Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 229 as a “Russian” coming from one of the biggest countries in the world to one of the smallest states, he was not prepared to give away half of the territory, http://www.newsru.co.il/israel/23sep2010/bibi_bill_104. html, last accessed on 12 Dec 2012. Clinton’s remarks were severely criticized by Hebrew- and Russian-speaking Israeli politicians. The angry comments of the latter did not leave doubt that, indeed, the fear of small space was not overcome even 20 years after immigration. The beginning of the second Intifada made peace even more illusory than in the 1990s and triggered proliferation of disaster humor among Russian-speaking Israelis. While politicians of all stripes and colors were still severely criticized and derided the main attention was given to the pervasiveness of terrorism. There are many examples revealing that gallows humor is in demand in the periods of natural, social and technological disasters, as well as during and after wars. In Britain, e.g., there was a renaissance of ruthless rhymes during World War II (Gruner 1997: 50–53). Waves of sick humor were caused by the Cher- nobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine (Fialkova 2001); by the Gulf War in Israel (Nevo & Levine 1994); by September 11 in the U.S.A. (Ellis 2002) and in the Muslim world (Diamond 2002). Scenes of violence and death have become an inseparable part of the entertainment industry. Movies in the genre of “action” and thrill- ers demonstrating bloody murders, as well as TV broadcasts from the battlefield and from the sites of terrorist attacks have become part and parcel of contemporary life. Yet violence and death still remain tabooed topics of humor in public discourse. Censorship that used to keep such humor restricted to oral dissemination no longer works due to the pervasiveness of electronic media. Researchers investigating gallows humor tend to agree that it enables people to release tension, fear and anxiety. When targeting members of an ethnic or national group perceived as hostile, such jokes may offer a socially sanctioned outlet for the expression of aggression towards that group (Dundes & Hauschild 1988: 56). Moreover, gallows humor is viewed by some individuals as an apt expression of patriotic feelings and thus contributes to the delegitimization of the target group. As a result, while in some cases humor lessens the severity of violence it also lowers our inhibitions, and we are more apt to be violent if we are less inhibited (Nielsen 1997: 478). In the humorous texts exposing terrorism, death and violence are presented as routine facts of life that don’t really bother people confronting them. On the contrary, peaceful life is viewed as an anomaly. 230 Maria Yelenevskaya

Thus in 2001, the residential neighborhood Gilo in the southern part of Jerusalem was the target of massive shooting from the territory of PA. This is how Beseder? reacted to it: Veterans of World War II, apartments for you! The last 30 apartments are available in Gilo for those who wish to recall days of their youth. (Beseder? 11 Jan 2001: 3) The mentioning of World War II veterans is not accidental. Before the 1990s, the role of the Soviet Union in winning the war against the Nazis had been virtually unknown to the wide public in Israel before the 1990s. Thanks to the activities of the Association of World War Veterans, Russian-speaking politicians and the Russian-language media Victory Day became a state holiday in Israel, and several museums and memorials dedicated to Jews fighting in the ranks of the Red Army were opened (see chapter 3, pp. 172–174). Among the often repeated arguments in support of the hard-line position in the Arab-Israeli conflict is a claim that ex-Soviets, whose fathers and grandfathers liberated Europe from the “Nazi plague” have a better understanding of the Middle-Eastern conflict than other sectors of Israeli society (Gu- tina 2011: 156–158). Allusions to World War II in the interpretation of the conflict is a recurrent theme both in the serious and humorous discourse of Russian-speaking Israelis (Yelenevskaya 2009a). Another source of gallows humor is the southern town of Sderot which has been the target of Kassam missiles and later more powerful weapons sent from the Gaza strip for at least 10 years. As the range of the missiles and shells shot by Palestinians increased, other Southern towns of Israel, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beer Sheva and several smaller localities became targets as well. Each time there is an escalation of the conflict and residents of the South are forced to spend a considerable amount of time in shelters, there are numerous discussions in the media questioning the policies of restraint which perpetuate sufferings of peaceful citizens who always have to be on the alert for a new attack. Folk wit responded to the painful situation with a chastushka which circulated orally and by e-mail: Vzgliad moi rvetsia v nebesa Zvuk sireny tonok Poliubila ia kassam Gde ty, moi milionok? Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 231

My eyes are glued to the heavens And ears are deafened by alarm I fell in love with you, Kassam Where are you, my sweet devil?! Traditional chastushkas are often performed as a dialogue between groups of young girls and boys poking fun at each other. This one was hardly written with the hope for a response. While residents of Sderot were exposed to Kassams, the government had to withstand the barrage of criticism for its failure to protect civilians, in particular children. And Russian-language humorists also had their say in this chorus:

Associated Stress

Sderot: The government has decreed to give local schoolchildren note- books made of concrete which can be used as a cover during missile attacks. (Beseder? 23 Nov 2006) The role of the children is a distinctive theme in the discourse on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli media often release information about Pal- estinian adolescents throwing stones at soldiers and civilians. A matter of concern coming up in formal and informal discourse is anti-Israeli propaganda in textbooks used in Palestinian schools and educating the young generation in the spirit of hatred against the neighbor. At the same time, Israelis are aware that Palestinian children often become victims of the armed clashes. During military operations Israeli media report that terrorists use hospitals and schools for hiding weapons and launching missiles, thus turning their own civilian population into hostages. Naturally, this knowledge triggers ambiguous attitudes, giving vent to narratives in which sympathy takes the upper hand over fear and hatred. The poem quoted below is another pastiche, paraphrasing a children’s song “Tired toys are asleep”, music by A. Ostrovskii, lyrics by Z. Petrova. The song entered every Soviet house in which there was a TV set, because every night it closed the immensely popular program for children “Good night, kids” broadcast on the central TV. But while in the source text children are promised dreams in which they can fly to the moon, ride along a rainbow, make friends with an elephant and get a firebird’s feather, only cannons and explosions are awaiting their Palestinian peers in dreams and in reality: 232 Maria Yelenevskaya

Palestinskaia kolybel’naia

Spiat ustalye igrushki, krepko spiat. Avtomaty, miny, pushki zhdut rebiat Za god vse ustali ochen’ Ot strel’by i dniom i nochiu. Glazki zakryvai – baiu-bai. Baiu-bai dolzhny shakhidy krepko spat’ Baiu-bai – zavtra budet chto vzryvat’. Za god vse ustali ochen’ Ot strel’by i dniom i nochiu. Glazki zakryvai – baiu-bai.

Palestinian lullaby

Tired toys are sound asleep Dilli-dong, sleeping tight Guns, mines and cannons Are waiting for the kids Little kids, dilli-dids The year was hard, the race was tight All are worn out shooting day and night Close your eyes, dear, and good night Our little shahids should sleep tight, Tomorrow there will be another site To blow up, so that’s all right. Close your eyes, dear, and good night.

(Boris Kinzburskii, 7–40, No. 36, Feb 2002: 11) The Soviet writer and translator Kornei Chukovskii made children’s observations, unintended puns and aphorisms, coined in the process of native language acquisition, a genre of literature when he published his diaries documenting children’s talk. This book entitled “From Two to Five” (Chukovskii 2001) inspired many parents and grandparents to record the gems of their offspring’s verbal creativity. Russian-speaking Israeli parents have not abandoned this tradition, all the more so that bilingual children are especially ingenious in their language use. Some of these observations reflect the impact of the Arab-Israeli conflict on children’s everyday life and mentality. Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 233

Infants’ babble

Grandmother walking with little Natalie: - Don’t pick up this candy from the ground! Natalie: - I know. There is a bomb in it! (L. Nadel’ & O. Ogonovskaya, 7-40, No. 28, Jun 2001) Those who grew up in the Soviet Union remember parents’ admoni- tions not to pick up candies outside home. Obsessed with hygiene, parents were afraid of infection, but to make the prohibition stronger some would say that sweets found on the ground could be poisonous. In Israel any object found in a public space without an owner arouses suspicions that it is a bomb. In such cases police clear the place of bystanders and activate a robot to pick up the suspicious object. Child- ren grow up with the awareness that any object that does not have an owner may be dangerous and take it for granted that even a small candy can be deadly.

Scenes from our life: Children play “Azaka”

My sister lives in Ashdod. Her granddaughters – the elder one is not yet six, the junior one is less than three years old – are bored of house arrest. On a big balcony equipped with a swing, artificial grass and a toy-house they enact “azaka” [a sound alarm notifying citizens of an approaching missile]. They play some game, then the elder one moves aside and screams imitating the emergency alarm signal. The younger one shouts: “Azaka, come quick, let’s get into the house. After they hide in their little house the elder one says: Let’s count “booms”.

Posted by Appolinaria, 12 March 2012, http://forum.israelinfo.ru/ viewtopic.php?t=43629&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60, last accessed on 15 Oct 2012. Children always play wars. In the Soviet Union groups of adolescents would divide into teams in which “Cossacks” would play against “bandits”, the “Reds” against the “Whites”, or against “fascists” (cf. Fialkova in this book, pp. 200–201). Boys were more inclined to such games, but missiles targeting towns made gender irrelevant for the children enacting their experience in play. Similar games played by the girls were described during the military operation “Pillar of Defence” (November 2012) which was accompanied by massive shelling of the South of Israel (Shuster 2012: 10). Residents of the areas targeted by 234 Maria Yelenevskaya shelling got into a habit of counting explosions or “booms”. The international onomatopoetic word is used both in Russian and in Hebrew, but its use in the plural form in Russian shows interference with Hebrew and evolved as a result of local experience. While some Israelis are full of anxiety counting explosions and trying to figure out how far they are from the missiles that reached the target and whether the missiles were grounded by an anti-missile system (see the section “City Threats: Between missiles and delinquents” in chapter 1, pp. 63–69), others report “counting booms” as a risky experience bordering on the comic and absurd. I called a friend in Ashdod: They have a new-old attraction for children and adults: everyone comes to the balcony, looks at the Iron Dome and counts missiles that it shoots down.

http://zanuda.offtopic.su/viewtopic.php?id=9666&p=3, posted by Esfir’ Ierusalimovna on 15 Nov 2012, last accessed on 24 Nov 2012. War perceived as a spectacle and a show allows one to distance oneself from the horrifying reality. In this particular case curiosity was mixed with the feeling of triumph at the sight of the Israeli anti-missile systems’ success. Moving between crises Israeli society never lets relations with the neighbors out of focus. Besides news and analytical articles, Israeli press often publishes surveys of the Arab media, while the Arab newspapers cite the Israeli press. Both parties usually have one purpose in common: to present the neighbor in the most unappealing light. Here are three texts that parody such surveys: Arrested in Khartoum: A resident of Palestinian Autonomy was arrested for trying to smuggle out 5kg of heroine masterfully hidden in an ordinary belt with explosives.

(Mig, 18 Dec 2003: 34)

Following the prevention of a massive terrorist attack in Haifa, a three- day mourning was announced in the PA. Palestinian police are investigating an outrageous case of fraud. A ninety-year old lady from Schem12 had been saving money all her life to sponsor a terrorist attack in the center of the country. Her dreams went to rack and ruin when goons from the Tanzim13 group commissioned to carry out the operation took all her savings but failed to carry out the attack. (Beseder? 13 Feb 2003: 2) Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 235

These texts have no puns or hyperboles, there is no play with paronymy or homonymy, neither do they clash different meanings of polysemantic words. They imitate the dry language of news reports devoid of imagery. The incongruity typical of humor is manifested in the clash between the world as we know it and the world of the text. Drug trafficking and non-compliance with the terms of the business agreement are presented as more severe cases of criminal behavior than plotting and carrying out terrorist attacks. Prevention of an attack which saves lives does not come out as a triumph but as a defeat and a cause for mourning. Metamorphoses of the good and the evil in the absurd world of gallows humor question morality and sanity of the actors: He was a good man: he helped old ladies cross the street, distributed condoms among children, and helped shahids blow themselves up.

(http://laps.zahav.ru/?s=шахид, last accessed on 15 Nov 2011) This text parodies two Soviet jokes. One is about young pioneers who forced old ladies to cross the street, because they had to report on the number of their “good deeds” at school. The other is one of the numerous Lenin jokes: Lenin receives a parcel from the Red Cross and instructs his aides to give it to the children. When the aides tell him that the parcel contains condoms he orders: “Then puncture each one and donate them to the mensheviks.” In enumerating merits we intuitively go from the weakest to the strongest one. Of the three mentioned here, only care for the elderly, although in the form ridiculed in a popular joke, qualifies as a moral act. But what do we make of giving condoms to minors – a reversal of the quoted joke? Helping suicide bombers die is even more ambivalent. Does it imply help in carrying out the attack or killing the suicide bomber to prevent death of others? And even if the attack had been prevented, could the terrorist have been stopped without being killed? The text deliberately leaves the dilemmas unresolved letting the addressee wonder as to which of the two scenarios is more realistic. One of the best known genres of gallows humor is sadistic rhymes. This genre has been popular in Russian humor since the 1970s (Belousov 1998), and since the 1990s its repertoire has been substantially enriched by émigrés. Some of the rhymes are paraphrases of the familiar texts circulating in the FSU, but most are new. Among those that were created in Israel, many deal with the theme of the conflict. Notably they do not only circulate orally but during the second 236 Maria Yelenevskaya

Intifada could be found in humor publications, such as the magazine 7-40 and Beseder? In 2001, the latter even held the competition of sadistic rhymes entitled “The Black Box” among the readers. Since this genre is stylized as children’s folklore, in many of the rhymes reckless and ruthless children appear as the main actors. In Israeli rhymes terrorists and soldiers come to the foreground: Vyshel Abdel’ poutru na kryl’tso. Myslíu o vzryvakh svetilos’ litso. Pulia so svistom smeshala mozgi. Metko strelaiet snaiper Sagi.

Early in the morning sat Abdel’ on a porch Dreaming of explosions, his face glowed like a torch The bullet whistled, his brain was just a mess That’s a good shot, sniper Ness.

(V. Talis, participant of the competition “The Black Box”) Here again we see the ambivalence of gallows humor. Are praises for good shots real or a pretense concealing anxiety about dangers of becoming a victim in the conflict? In the topsy-turvy world of sadistic rhymes deadly risks await everyone, but how far is that world from realities of everyday life?

Addressing Transnational Audiences

Russian-Israeli humor has never targeted community members alone. Already in the early 1990s, jokes and satirical texts created in Israel were disseminated among Russian speakers in the FSU and in other Russian enclaves in Europe and North America by word of mouth and by the press. As mentioned earlier, the circulation of humor became more intense with the growing popularity of Ru.net, Internet forums, blogs and humor hubs. Since the problem of terrorism became a matter of concern for many countries, including Russia, the humor of Arab-Israeli conflict increased in popularity in the Russophone world. Arabs, for example, became protagonists of international jokes popular in Russia. In the Soviet times international jokes used to feature Americans, Germans, the French and the English, and their general pattern was juxtaposition of stereotypical western values, habits and behavioral patters against those attributed to Russians (Shmeleva & Shmelev 2002: 75–82). Arabs in the new international jokes are also Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 237 stereotyped: they are not smart enough to live in a technologically sophisticated world, oversexed and are engaged in terrorism: An American, an Arab and a Russian come to Mars. It’s quiet and peaceful and only the hull of the Opportunity is sparkling nearby. All of a sudden manholes disguised under a layer of dust are opened and a crowd of residents of Mars jump out: “What a surprise! We were waiting for you to come!!! Welcome!” (…) They embrace the guests, lift them up, shower them with gifts, drag them down, set the table, and pour whatever drinks one serves on Mars. The Russian frees himself from embraces, runs to the capsule and comes back in a minute, “Hey, you are great guys! I saved a bottle of vodka for a rainy day, so here it is – for you!” The American also went to the capsule: “Here we go… hmm… French cognac from the great American nation!” The Arab is talking quietly to himself: “Yeah, they are great guys, no doubt… but I won’t drag all those plastic explosives back home …” http://www.katakl.com/modules/anekdoty/article.php?storyid=2754, posted on 1 Nov 2004, last accessed on 15 Dec 2012. Gradually learning the local repertoire of humor, Russian speakers began translating jokes circulating in Israel in Hebrew and in English into Russian sending them by mail to friends outside Israel and posting them on popular humor hubs such as www.anekdot.ru. Cartoons presenting the Russian-Israeli vision of the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, can be found in the online catalog of Russian cartoons http://caricatura.ru, where their artistic value and ideological message are discussed and commented on by Russophone viewers residing in different countries. In 2006, during the 2nd war in Lebanon Israeli bloggers, including Russian-speaking users, mounted a campaign whose goal was to explain Israel’s position to the world and to counteract anti-Israeli propaganda in the international media. Jokes and cartoons became an essential part of this spontaneous campaign. Importantly, some of this humor dealt with Russia’s involvement in the Middle-Eastern conflict. Already in 1991 during the Gulf War Russian-speaking émi- grés saw bitter irony in the fact that missiles shot at Israel by Iraq were Russian-designed Scads. Throughout the 1990s residents of the northern villages had to spend many an hour in shelters when Hezbollah units were shooting Katiushas, Soviet missiles, developed and first used against the Nazis during World War II. Among those sitting in shelters were the elderly who had participated in creating 238 Maria Yelenevskaya

Figure 17. Oleg Sh., “I don’t see anything…” Many Israelis are convinced that while the world is sympathetic to Palestinians, the predicament of Israeli civilians suffering from terrorism remains hidden. This cartoon criticizing passivity of the UN peace-keeping force in the Middle-East alludes to the lyrics of a once popular Soviet song: “I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, I won’t tell anyone anything.” http://caricatura.ru/art/sh/url/parad/sh/9921, last accessed on 26 Jan 2013.

these weapons and using them on the battlefield. The motif of Russian weapons used against Russian citizens, (many immigrants of the 1990s have double citizenship) came back in 2006: The film crew ofRosoboroneksport [Russian acronym for “Russian De- fense Export”] apologize to the residents of Israel and Lebanon for the inconveniences which might have occurred while a video clip advertising its new products was being shot.

www.newsru.co.il/rest/15oct2006/anekdotes.html, posted on 15 Oct 2006, last accessed on 30 Dec 2012. International media often write about gigantic profits of weapons producers and the motif of war as a testing ground for cutting-edge destructive technologies and state-of-the-art weapons is a recurrent theme of humor devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This reflects fears of rank-and-file citizens who feel they are at the mercy of the military on both sides and have little control of their own life. When the end of Israel’s military operation Pillar of Defense was announced, many Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 239

Israelis living in the South expressed relief but also worries as to whether the goals of the operation had been achieved and bombing of the Israeli territory would come to an end. In response to these concerns one of the participants of the discussion forum “Bloggers for Israel” posted the following text tagging it “stories, humor”: They say that Israeli government has applied to the Guinness Book of Records to have the operation Pillar of Defense registered as the most expensive advertising campaign in history. It promoted Rafael’s products, namely, “The Iron Dome”14. In this context stopping the operation against Hamas is the natural result of the campaign.

Posted by nikonel on 22 Nov 2012, http://gaza2009.livejournal.com/, last accessed on 4 Jan 2013. Jokes and cartoons posted on the net during military conflicts often form a virtual dialogue between Israel’s supporters and opponents. Thus during the 2nd war in Lebanon the favorite “Lebanese” joke of the Russian bloggers mentioned “labor battalions”, the units which have a bad reputation in the Russian army and are a source of army jokes. These allegedly peaceful units, whose task in war periods is to reconstruct destroyed roads and bridges, come out as unmanageable gangs of unscrupulous and marginal personalities: Russia announced that it would send two labor battalions to Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel immediately announced capitulation. Israeli bloggers responded: “International news agencies report: two platoons of Chechen militants captured two Russian labor battalions in Lebanon.”

www.newsru.co.il/rest/15oct2006/anekdotes.html, posted on 15 Oct 2006, last accessed on 30 Dec 2012. Parallels between the Arab-Israeli conflict and Russian wars in Chechnya were often discussed in the Russian-language Israeli media during the second Intifada (Fialkova & Yelenevskaya 2007: 131). Then the emphasis was on the similarity of strategies applied by militants in the Caucasus and in the Middle East and on the psychology of the population in these areas tolerating the dictate of the militants. In the last joke quoted above, the parallel is back, but instead of sympathy for the Russians the text celebrates their defeat. 240 Maria Yelenevskaya

Humor at the Service of People’s Diplomacy

After the Second War in Lebanon (July – August 2006), bloggers’ campaign to support Israel intensified in 2009 during the Israeli operation in Gaza that came to be known as Cast Lead. Many of the texts and images created since 2006 have become part of the “information war” waged in the media, in social networks and blogs. For a long time Israeli media abstained from broadcasting on TV bloody scenes of terrorist attacks, considering it immoral. As a result, many Israelis were convinced that the world was unaware of the price paid by civilians, and that the country was losing in the information war. During the military operation Cast Lead (December 2008 – January 2009), Russian-speaking bloggers created a community “Gaza2009”, or “The war through Bloggers’ Eyes” http://gaza2009. livejournal.com/, last accessed on 4 Jan 2013. Its purpose was to inform the public and explain war events to Israel’s supporters. More than one thousand bloggers responded to the initiative, and internet users from 60 countries visited the site during the operation. The success of the site inspired its initiators to continue the blog in a different format under the name “Bloggers for Israel”. It was active during the operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012. Like in 2009, during the previous campaign, among the posted materials were humorous and satirical texts. The potential of transnational connections of the Russian-speaking community that could be used to explain Israel’s position to co-ethnics was noticed and appreciated by the government, and in 2010 the Prime Minister B. Netanyahu and the Minister for the Diaspora Affairs, Yulii Edel’shtein (an immigrant from the FSU) held meetings with bloggers encouraging them to disseminate positive information about Israel using the audiences of their blogs (http:// blogoped.com/archives/2625#comment-47327, posted by Alex Blogoped on 16 May 2010, last accessed on 4 Jan 2013). In 2009 the right-wing party Nash dom Israil (Israel, Our Home) which enjoys high support among Russian speakers sponsored the creation of another propaganda web site www.hamasa.net. The address itself is humorous: it means “Hamas doesn’t exist”. The goal of the site is to document and post materials exposing Islamist terrorists, “so that millions of common people could learn the truth about the Middle-Eastern conflict” (http://hamasa.net/%d0%be- %d1%81%d0%b0%d0%b9%d1%82%d0%b5, last accessed on 4 Jan Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 241

2013). As could be expected from the name of the site, several rubrics on this web site are devoted to humor. During the operation Pillar of Defense, Israeli Russian-language mass media reported on various solidarity actions with Israel in the FSU. One of them was a PowerPoint presentation circulating by e-mail, on Facebook and in Russian social networks Odnoklassniki (classmates) and Zhivoi Zhurnal (Live Journal). It is a collection of snapshots on which adolescents and young people hold hand-made posters with texts in support of Israel: “Israel, Moscow is with you!”, “Israel, Ukraine is with you!”, “Israel, we are with you! Krasnoyarsk, from Russia with love!!!” and more. All the posters carry a positive message, except the last one. The poster in the hands of a young man, smiling from ear to ear, reads: “Palestine, fuck you!!!” and displays a drawing of fingers positioned to render a gesture with the same meaning. The abrupt change from cheering Israel to abusing Palestine was meant to surprise and amuse the viewer. The report about this action, as well as a selection of “the best photographs”, including the abusive one, was published on the Israeli portal IzRus (http://izrus. co.il/nepolitica/article/2012-11-19/19682.html, posted on 19 Nov 2012, last accessed on 4 Jan 2013). As Kõiva and Vesik remark, messages circulating as viral e-mail messages are a new type of chain letters, which may promote a politician, or as we see in this case, a political action. It is next to impossible for a receiver to discriminate between information and disinformation. There is no way for viewers to know whether the presentation consists of genuine pictures, or is a propaganda trick. Various hoaxes have been the fastest growing portion of computer-mediated folklore (Kõiva & Vesik 2009: 109). In recent years a salient motif of the Russian-language humor dealing with the Middle-Eastern conflict is presentation of Israel as the uncompromising enemy of the world terrorism. Israelis in these jokes protect civilians, find themselves in situations where they have to defend themselves and people of other nations, yet are constantly criticized for overreacting. In the mass media and in the informal discourse people often complain that when judging Israel and its policies countries apply double standards. One of the satirical texts carrying this message appeared just a few days after the assassination of Osama bin Laden. It alluded to the American press releases reporting on the terrorist’s extermination. 242 Maria Yelenevskaya

Four helicopters landed in a suburb of Beirut under the cover of the night, and a group of Israeli soldiers from saieret matkal’ (Hebrew for a “special unit”) got off. They penetrated a carefully protected building and after 40 minutes of fire exchange left, carrying Nasralla’s (head of Hezbollah) body. A DNA test, carried out on board the helicopter, reliably confirmed the identity of the body and in “full compliance with the laws of Islam” the corpse was thrown into the Mediterranean Sea. Three men perished together with Nasralla15, as well as his 148th wife who sacrificed herself trying to shield her husband. Bibi, Barak and Sarah (the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife and Defense Minister Ehud Barak)16 watched the event on TV screens, filmed and broadcast through the helmets worn by the soldiers of the special mission unit. Late that night Bibi’s report about the victory of the world democracy over terrorism was broadcast on all radio and TV channels. Your home assignment: Describe the reaction of the world community. (received by e-mail, 11 May 2011) With minor modifications this text was posted on various web sites. Like many other provocative humorous messages, it challenges the addressee by structuring the text as a problem to be solved. Indeed, some of the Internet users took this at face value and sent their predic- tions. Some others re-posted the text adding introductory statements that left no doubt as to the attitudes expressed: “A simple assignment for you”, “Bin Laden’s assassination: What is allowed to Jupiter is prohibited to Netanyahu”.

Conclusions

• Israeli Russian-language humor devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict is grounded in the tradition of the Soviet political anekdot and relies on the precedent texts of the Russian and Soviet history, culture and art. As novices in Israeli politics, in the 1990s FSU immigrants had few opportunities to make their voices heard by the majority when they expressed pessimism about the possibility of peace. As a result, Russian humor and satire joined the ideological battlefield around the conflict using semantically complex multi-layer texts, which is typical of interest groups having limited access to publicity (Lõhmus 2009: 187). Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 243

• Humor of the conflict generates new topics but also revives old scripts adjusting them to the new events and personalities. New texts are created in response to the escalation of hostility but also as a reaction to attempts to resume peace talks with Palestinians. Pervasiveness of gallows humor in the jokelore of Russian-speaking Israelis reflects anxiety and common people’s feeling of helplessness in the face of war and terrorist attacks. • There is ambivalence in the image of the Israeli created in the Russian-language humor about the Arab-Israeli conflict: power, competency, and brutality in the attitude to the neighbor-enemy on the one hand, and tolerance bordering on weakness on the other. This contradiction of the self-image is a recurrent theme and was expressed already in the Soviet Jewish joke (see Shturman & Tiktin 1987). • Like the rest of Israeli society, the Russian-speaking community presents a wide spectrum of political views, yet the voices of people with left-wing leaning are less audible than their right-wing opponents’. This tendency can be observed in the serious discourse and even more so in humor, where compassion for the plight of Palestinians is virtually non-existent. • Russian-language humor interpreting the Arab-Israeli conflict is transnational in terms of producers and addressees. In the era of electronic media, due to the speed of dissemination and ease of access political humor has become an important tool of propaganda and is intensely used by the countries participating in the Middle- Eastern conflict. Russian-speaking immigrants of the 1990s are actively involved in popular diplomacy and reach out to co-ethnics in the Russophone world. Members of the group known for its “dissident” humor before emigration have evolved into creators of “patriotic” humor which mirrors views and attitudes of the Israeli right wing. 244 Maria Yelenevskaya

Notes

1 All the translations from Russian are mine. 2 The Hebrew acronym ZAHAL stands for The Defence Army of Israel. 3 The comic list under this title with slight modifications can be found on several sites, e.g., http://kirulya.livejournal.com/2829093. html?page=2#comments, posted on 10 May 2011, http://my.mail.ru/ community/sma-israel/23dc7c40b0f44db1.html, posted on 06 June 2011, last accessed on 25 Nov 2012. 4 The popularity of humorous toasts is reflected in the abundance of toast collections on Ru.net; see e.g., www.Pozdrav.ru, www.pozdravOK.ru, www.SuperTosty.ru and others. Some of the Russian-language émigrés’ portals post them in humor sections: http://www.souz.co.il/humor/category. html?id=27, http://iadsi.wmsite.ru/humoresques, etc. Moreover, humorists include them in their books and concert repertoire. One example is the Russian-speaking Israeli author Alexander Kanevsky. In his recent book Confronting Laughter toasts appear under the heading “Table Verses” (Kanevsky 2010). 5 The joke collection of www.zahav.co.il contains 31,139 jokes sent and ranked by users. The humor section “Smile-Therapy” of the forum www.besedka.co.il displays 56 threads, the longest of which “Jokes” is 104 pages long with 2060 messages and 132,204 viewings. Numerous humor threads can also be found in various forums on the portal www.israelinfo.ru. One of the most popular of these threads “Who can make everyone laugh?” numbers 208 pages with 3116 messages and 508,454 viewings (last accessed on 6 Dec 2012). 6 The first Palestinian Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) against Israel took place in 1986–1993; the second and more violent Intifada Al Aqsa lasted from 2000 to 2005. 7 The terms “allusion”, “cento” and “quotation” are sometimes used inter- changeably since all the three are text-linking devices. Since the instances of intertextuality analyzed in this chapter emphasize symbolic likening between the source and the target, the term allusion seems to be the most appropriate of the three. My understanding of allusion follows the definition proposed by Harris “Allusion is the evocation of a person, character, place, event, idea, or portion of a text through quotation (exact or approximate), implicit reference through similarity, explicit reference or echo. Such evocation or suggestion is intended to lead the reader to bring some aspect of the referent to bear at that point of the originating text” (Harris 1991). Finding Bearings in a Tangled Web 245

8 Other examples are the title of V. Lenin’s article “One step forward, two steps back”, an excerpt from I. Stalin’s speech “Life has become better and merrier”, N. Khrushev’s description of maize “The queen of the fields”, which came to symbolize failures in agricultural policies, and finally, V. Putin’s threat to “bump off terrorists in the water-closet”. All of these phrases and utterances have become language clichés continuously quoted and alluded to in the media and in the informal discourse in Russia and in diasporic communities. 9 The title of this publication was the Hebrew word for “Ok?”, and the sub- title was in Russian. This humor weekly was publishef from 1991 to 2010, initially in the newspaper Nasha Strana (Russian for “Our Country”), and later in the paper Vesti (Russian for “Herald”). Its editor was the writer and journalist Mark Galesnik. Among the authors were professional writers, journalists and caricaturists living in Israel and in the FSU, as well as humor enthusiasts among the readers. Many of the texts first published in Beseder? entered folklore of the Russian-speaking community in Israel. 10 Komsomol is an acronym of the Soviet communist youth organization. 11 Natan (Anatolii) Sharansky is an Israeli politician and author. He was the first Soviet dissident and political prisoner released by M. Gorbachev. He immigrated to Israel in 1986 and became a politician and the head of an immigrants’ political party Israel be aliya. 12 Schem is the Hebrew name of the town of Nablus situated in the Palestinian Autonomy. 13 Tanzim, or Organization, is a loosely organized Fatah militia which spearheaded some of the riots and traded fire with Israeli troops during riots in 2000 (Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ jsource/arabs/Tanzim.html, last accessed on 3 Jan 2013). 14 Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is the Israeli company designing, developing, manufacturing and selling high-tech defense systems for land, sea, air and space applications. Among its products is the anti-missile system the Iron Dome which was first used in 2011 to intercept missiles shot from the Gaza strip at the Israeli territory. 15 Hassan Nasralla is the head of the Lebanese political organization Hezbol- lah that was fighting Israeli troops and shelling Israeli territory in 2006, during the Second War in Lebanon. Because of the similarity between his family name and the past form of the Russian verb “nasral”, a vulgarism denoting defecation, jokes exploiting this paronymy became popular in the Russian-speaking community and were willingly translated by immigrants into Hebrew to amuse veteran Israelis. 246 Maria Yelenevskaya

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Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya http://www.folklore.ee/rl/pubte/ee/sator/sator12/

ISSN 1406-2011 (print) ISSN 1736-0323 (web) ISBN 978-9949-490-80-6 (print) ISBN 978-9949-490-81-3 (web) DOI: 10.7592/Sator.2013.12 Tartu 2013

Printed version: Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya. In Search of the Self: Reconciling the Past and the Present in Immigrants’ Experience. SATOR 12. Tartu 2013

Authors: Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya Series editor: Mare Kõiva Cover design: Kadi Pajupuu Layout & HTML: Diana Kahre

Electronic version editing is supported by EKKM09-168 Expansion of the sphere of use and introduction of the Estonian language, culture and folklore in electronic information carriers.