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This article examines the representation of social workers in the Russian-language immigrant press in Israel. Social work is a public service that did not exist in the USSR and most Russian immigrants were not familiar with it before immigration. This lack of basic knowledge underscores the importance of reliable representation of this major public service in the immigrant media. Nevertheless, the findings show that by taking the immigrants’ side under any circumstances, while distorting the function of the social work services, the immigrant press fails to fulfill its socialization role and does not facilitate its readers’ integration in their new society.

This study investigated various roles played by host, homeland, and global media in the lives of immigrant families from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS, former USSR) to Israel and Germany, as well as the place of different media in family conflicts, consolidation, and parenting strategies. The study was based on focus group interviews with 60 families of Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel and Germany and 73 semistructured, in-depth interviews with immigrant youngsters. The findings of this study demonstrate that the mass media fulfill diverse roles for immigrant families, assisting them face two main relocation challenges: integration “inward” (i.e., cultural transmission and family consolidation) and “outward” integration into their new surroundings.

This study examined the roles of popular music in the lives of immigrant adolescents from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS—former Soviet Union) in Israel. Based on 70 in-depth interviews with newly arrived adolescents aged 12–18, our research revealed that these adolescents' musical preferences matched different stages of adaptation to their new country, with different music styles fulfilling different integration needs. During their first two years in Israel, interviewees enthusiastically explored local musical fare. This stage was also characterised by positive attitudes towards their new home and their anticipated integration. In dramatic contrast, the next three to five years were characterised by disappointment with the local culture, accompanied by growing social alienation. Many adolescents found consolation in late-1980s Russian rock music, as texts critical of the Soviet regime helped them express anger and frustration felt as they came of age in new, difficult and often hostile surrou...

This article illuminates the roles of the internet in the unique intersection between adolescence and immigration. The data presented were gathered through in-depth interviews with 70 teenage immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel. The analysis suggests that the internet provides valuable resources for personal growth and empowerment, as it helps to develop and strengthen many aspects of young immigrants' evolving identity during a critical period of social and material disadvantage, when they are engaged in settling into and adjusting to a new society. This case study highlights the importance of researching the internet's roles in the lives of disadvantaged populations, and the potential of this medium for closing knowledge and social gaps.

The present study aims to examine the pluralistic potential of reality shows, which might allow minorities to shape the program's script and to gain recognition for their particularistic identities. For this purpose, two prime-time reality shows were chosen— The Ambassador and Seeking a Leader—broadcast in Israel in 2005. The analysis of the programs included identification and deconstruction of their metanarratives and exposure of several mechanisms of stigmatization and othering used against minorities. In addition, the authors analyzed the tactics utilized by minorities to maneuver the script and steps taken by the majority to maintain its cultural dominance. The research reveals that the ostensibly pluralistic nature of reality shows is limited a priori by the hegemonic forces. Although the hegemonic discourse in reality shows is highly sophisticated and disguised, the sense of equality and pluralism that these programs inspire constitutes an even more powerful mechanism of exclusion and cultural domination.

This study examines the roles of the different media — those in the host language, those in the mother tongue and those of the global media — in the lives of immigrant children and adolescents from the former Soviet Union in Israel, at a time when they are coping with complex and unique personal and social challenges as a result of the immigration process and the need to solidify a new identity. In addition, the study looks at the parents' role in their children's media choices and the roles fulfilled by the media in immigrant family conflicts and in bridging intergenerational gaps.

When I entered for the first time through the doors of the city synagogue, where the Russian cultural club Nash Dom was located, I saw a group of five people, all of them immigrants from the former...

This chapter analyzes how the need to preserve ethnic identity and affiliation with one’s homeland is expressed and fulfilled through Internet use by two distinctive groups of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel: Immigrant youngsters aged 12-18, and immigrant senior citizens aged 65 and above. The aim of such simultaneous examination is not to identify the obvious intergenerational differences in Internet use but rather to increase our understanding of the Internet roles for different groups of immigrant users, irrespective of age. The findings are based on two recent studies: A study conducted in 2006 with 70 immigrant adolescents and a study conducted in 2009 with 32 seniors. Both studies reveal important similarities that shed light on the Internet’s role in maintaining connection with one’s country and culture of origin and preserving homeland identity among different generations of immigrants.

The study described in this chapter examines the role of fashion in the lives of immigrant children and adolescents from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel. It is part of a more extensive, ongoing research project concerned with the role of media in the lives of immigrant children and youth, as they explore their new environment and also look back at the life they have left behind (Elias and Lemish, 2008a; 2008b, 2008c). While fashion was not an original focus of this study, it emerged in the interviews as a site where immigrants are constructing hybrid identities, as well as re-affirming old ones, in the realms of gender, adolescence, Russianness and Israeliness. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to present a grounded analysis of these aspects of the interviews and to highlight the unique roles that fashion preferences serve as a facilitator of young immigrants’ search for collective and individual identities, as well as for communicative means of expressing them.

This article offers an overview of the empirical research on the new second generations in the Israeli setting, while highlighting the sociological problematique emerging from the data. It summarizes key empirical findings on the second generation of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, and children of migrant workers, and it introduces new variables and theoretical angles that have recently emerged within the Israeli context of immigration, such as transnationalism and inequalities based on race, nationality, religion, and citizenship. We argue that by introducing these analytic parameters, the Israeli research agenda on immigrants' second generation should expand beyond replication of the questions applied toward the massive immigration waves of the 1950s.