Israelis on the Move tells the story of young adults from the Former Soviet Union as they beat a path to Israeliness Based on analyses of their immigration stories, the book offers a new perspective in immigration studies that sees belonging as achieved not through the adoption of foundational national ethos of the new place, but rather through participation in local debates about this ethos.
More particularly, the book examines the way in which the young immigrants shape their belonging to Israel through a reading of the homecoming ethos that awards them automatic citizenship. Based on an interpretation of instantiations of the homecoming ethos in everyday life, they form an affinity to their new home, construct their identity, and locate themselves within Israeli society. In doing so they are concerned with decoding, interpreting and critiquing the building blocks of the ethos: the memory of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, military service, the new Jew, and allegiance to their new place. The book shows how the immigrants hold onto an ethos that promises them recognition and inclusion within the ethno-religious nation. At the same time, they resist the total demands Imposed by the ethos, and criticize Zionist premises that are considered as taken for granted.
We term this double, interrelated movement critical belonging, a concept that suggests that the immigrants’ belonging to the new place does not entail the unconditional acceptance of local ethos, while at the same time implying that their critique does not entail their rejection of the new place or a retreat into socio-cultural enclaves.