In an article published in issue No. 15 of EAJ Policy papers, Olaf Glöckner outlines the challenges encountered by the first generation of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants in Germany. Nonetheless, he concludes his analysis with positive prospects for the development of the country's Jewish community. To what extent is his optimism justified? It appears that the estrangement of Jewish immigrants in Germany from both local society and Jewish communities has proved to be even deeper than previously assumed, and in some sense, it also extends to the much more professionally and culturally integrated generation of young and early middle age. Consequently, in Europe, more so than elsewhere, the preservation of Russian-Jewish self-awareness remains a key factor in maintaining Jewish identity as a whole. The alternative is the assimilation of not so much a "local Jewish" identity, but rather a purely non-Jewish civic identification. Will transnational umbrella Jewish structures be able to address this challenge before the "train" has fully departed?

Unified Europe represents the fourth major concentration center of Russian-speaking Jews and their family members, alongside Israel, the former USSR, and North America. The total population of this group in the region is estimated to be between 150,000 and a quarter of a million people.

Various organizations and experts operate with different, including inflated, estimates regarding the size of the population of Jews and their family members from the last two waves of emigration from the USSR and the CIS living in Central and Western Europe. However, it is evident that in the two German-speaking countries of Central Europe – the FRG and Austria – Russian-speaking Jews play a distinctive role. Conservative estimates place the number of "Russian-speaking" Jews residing in Germany at 180,000–190,000 individuals (out of a total of approximately 223,000 Jews in the country). To this, one must add Russian-speaking Israelis, who constitute about 10–12% of the roughly 17,000–20,000 Israeli passport holders permanently residing in major German cities, according to data from the Israeli Embassy. Meanwhile, only 95,000 Russian-speaking immigrants are officially registered members of local Jewish communities, though they nevertheless make up over 90% of their membership.

Nonetheless, European community leaders and international organization staff interviewed by us have offered more maximalist estimates, suggesting that the number of "Russian" Jews could reach 270,000–300,000 in Germany alone, and between 350,000 and half a million in the European Union as a whole. This is strongly disputed by leading Israeli experts in Jewish demography, who convincingly argue for adhering to the lower tier of demographic estimates for this group. During our discussions, this perspective was particularly defended by Prof. Sergio Della Pergola. Another recognized expert in Russian-Jewish demography, Dr. Mark Tolts, considers even the conservative estimates of the Russian-speaking Jewish population in Germany to be significantly overstated, suggesting that representatives of this group constitute no more than 70%, rather than 90%, of the members of officially registered local Jewish communities.

In any case, there is no doubt that this group represents a significant demographic potential. The main disagreement concerns a much more critical question: to what extent is this demographic resource capable of sustaining a statistically significant number of Jewish identity carriers and securing the future of organized Jewish communal life in this region – a scenario about which many observers had serious, and quite justified, doubts on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Identity and Integration: Inherent Contradictions

In an article published in issue No. 15 of Eurasian Jewish Policy papers (March 10, 2019, https://institute.eajc.org/eajpp-15/) and dedicated to the social portrait of the Russian-speaking community in Germany, Dr. Olaf Glöckner provides a lengthy list of obstacles to achieving this goal. This includes the difficulties faced by the first generation of immigrants during their integration into local society and their relations with the official leadership of German Jewry. However, he concludes his analysis on a quite optimistic note, stating that Russian-speaking Jews – thanks to whom German Jewry, once a tiny minority, now constitutes the third largest Jewish community in Western Europe – have made it possible to build a pluralistic structure of organized Jewish life in Germany, thereby opening up positive prospects for its development. To what extent are these doubts still relevant, and is this optimism justified?

The first point of consideration is that the persistent alienation of Jewish immigrants in Germany from local society has proven to be even deeper than it appeared a decade ago. In a sense, it also affects the much more professionally and culturally integrated generation of "advanced youth" and early middle age. According to studies of Russian Jews living in Israel, Germany, the US, and Canada conducted at the beginning of this decade, only slightly more than one-tenth of respondents in the FRG stated that they felt like "an integral part of German society," whereas in Israel and North America, the corresponding figure is 70-80%. In other words, while the vast majority of Jews from the USSR and the CIS from the recent waves of migration to Israel and the United States declared shortly after emigration that they fully identified with their new homeland, the situation in Europe has turned out to be entirely different.

Glöckner is correct in pointing out that the "old" Jewish communities (i.e., Western and Eastern European Jews who survived the Holocaust and their descendants), which did much to facilitate the physical adaptation of immigrants from the former USSR in EU countries, failed to develop an adequate mechanism of "compensation." Extending his analysis, one could say that they have de facto become part of the aforementioned trend of "alienation" or, at best, the incomplete integration of the newcomers. This was driven, among other things, by the reluctance of the local Jewish political and ideological establishment to seek a compromise between their own religio-halakhic vision of the Jewish community in Europe and the prevailing understanding among Russian-speaking immigrants of Jewishness as an ethno-cultural and ethno-genetic phenomenon, alongside an orientation toward high professional and educational standards as a "core Jewish value." This, in turn, rapidly led to an obvious disparity in mutual expectations.

It should be noted that religiosity is not entirely alien to the "Russian-Jewish landscape" in Europe. For instance, according to a survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), about 17% of Russian-speaking Jews in the region identify with varying degrees of certainty as adherents of Liberal (Reform) Judaism, and nearly 9% as adherents of Orthodox Judaism. Yet, the middle and older generations of Russian Jews who settled in Germany and other Central European countries are considered significantly less religious than their peers among the "indigenous" Jews. Although some immigrants, particularly youth, have drawn closer to Jewish religion and tradition over time, the vast majority continue to view Judaism solely from an intellectual and historical standpoint – as an element of, or background to, Jewish ethnicity. This approach, as our conversations with communal leaders of "non-Russian" origin revealed, still meets with rigid rejection in those circles.

Two additional factors have contributed to this mutual estrangement. The first is the issue of individuals of mixed parentage, whom traditional community leaders were initially unwilling to accept as part of the local Jewish collective. Unlike many Jewish communities in the diaspora that demonstrate a degree of flexibility when integrating post-Soviet immigration, most Central European communities strictly adhere to halakhic rules. In Germany, this policy is pursued not only by Orthodox communities belonging to the Central Council, but also by the local Union of Progressive Jews, which distinguishes it, for example, from liberal communities in the US and certain counterpart communities in the UK that grant full membership to patrilineal Jews, provided they received a Jewish upbringing at home.

It is easy to see that this circumstance is closely linked to the conflict between religious and ethno-national understandings of Jewishness, and it certainly does not facilitate the reconciliation of the two Jewish factions. Consequently, in the opinion of many of our interlocutors, a rare historic opportunity for German and other Central European Jewish communities to strengthen their ranks by embracing individuals of capability, self-awareness, energy, and (in part) Jewish ancestry, may have already been missed.

Perhaps the most candid remarks on this matter came from Heidelina Sobodka, editor-in-chief of the Berlin-based Jewish newspaper "Jüdische Allgemeine," who did not hide during our conversation that her Polish-Jewish heritage largely shapes her adherence to the Eastern European understanding of the ethno-cultural essence of the Jewish collective.

"I feel Jewish in a cultural sense. I have an issue with the fact that, being secular, I must constantly prove that I am indeed Jewish (no less than anyone else). If a Jewish person converts to Christianity, it is regrettable, but they do not cease to be Jewish because of it, even though they may be lost to the Jewish people. I have far more issues with ethnic Germans who undergo conversion (giyur). I understand their motivation, especially in Germany, where, by becoming Jewish, they transition from the category of 'oppressors' to that of 'victims.' Yet, it is these individuals who set the tone in religious communities and instruct me on how to be a 'real Jew'."

Significantly, almost all the experts we interviewed did not believe that the loss of Jewish connection among the descendants of Jewish-non-Jewish mixed marriages is inevitable. On the contrary, they believed that many individuals of mixed parentage and non-Jewish family members of Jews are willing to adopt a Jewish identity and embrace its traditions and value system. The prerequisite for this, in their view, is the recognition of diverse forms of belonging to Jewishness, coupled with a "positive impulse" emanating from the core of the Jewish collective.

In the 1990s, Heidelina Sobodka notes, "as a social worker, I interacted extensively with new immigrants, half of whom were patrilineal Jews and, accordingly, were not welcomed in the community. The Conference of European Rabbis ignored the problem for 20 years. We kept telling them that they must find a way to integrate these people into the Jewish collective, but they did nothing at the time. Only today, 20-30 years later, are they ready to adjust their approach. While some might still be interested, the vast majority has likely already been lost."

As a result, many Russian-speaking Jews of "partial" Jewish descent find their niche in organizations and structures unrelated to Jewish communities, where the tone, as noted by Ella Nilova, former coordinator of the Berlin office of the World Congress of Russian Jewry, "is set by the far more numerous representatives of non-Jewish immigrant groups from the former USSR in Germany."[1] Consequently, the process of detachment from organized Jewish life draws in not only the periphery but also the ethnic core of Russian-Jewish communities. This is easily observed when visiting areas of concentrated "Russian" presence in major cities like Berlin, such as "Charlottengrad" in the famous West Berlin district of Charlottenburg, or other "Russian ethnic colonies" characterized by a developed Russian cultural and socio-economic infrastructure: restaurants, supermarkets, hotels, service enterprises, Russian literature and art centers, theaters, clubs, and marriage agencies.

One of the catalysts for this process was indeed the disruption that immigration caused to the hard-won professional status of the older generation of "new" Jews in Germany. A representative survey conducted by a research group led by Eliezer Ben-Rafael in 2008-09 in Germany showed that approximately 60% of respondents were outside the labor market at the time, including a third of working-age individuals living on social welfare and another quarter who were retirees. Both groups perceived themselves as existing on the "economic periphery" of local society. The researchers attributed this to the age structure of these groups and the relevance of their previously accumulated "human capital" to the demands of the local economy and society.

Thus, the loss of traditional "social identity anchors" – unmet professional ambitions and limited opportunities to fit into the organizational and value-driven paradigm of the "old" Jewish communal establishment – drove a segment of the older and middle-aged generation of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants toward the "Russian cultural ghetto," which in this part of Europe carries a distinct ethnic Russian character. This process leads many observers to a discouraging conclusion that diverges from Olaf Glöckner's optimistic assessment: if integration is occurring, it is taking place into mainstream German ethnic society rather than into a Jewish-German one.

Dilemmas of the "1.5 Generation"

At first glance, the "1.5" generation raised in Germany and other Central European countries, and particularly the second generation of Russian-Jewish immigration, should not face these issues. Indeed, much like the Russian Jews who settled in Israel and the United States since the early nineties, these young people show a strong interest in acquiring German or Austrian citizenship and fully integrating into the local culture. As noted by Pavel Polian and Mikhail Vajsband, who have monitored Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany for many years, young people from Russian-Jewish backgrounds graduate from school with average grades far higher than those of native Germans. They demonstrate high professional ambitions and the capacity to swiftly enter the German middle class. This aligns with the forecast of Michael Blumenthal, Director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, who back in 2006 was "convinced that the young generation of Russian Jews – those currently studying – will find their way in Germany. In 10-15 years, many of them will sit in the Bundestag, others will become university professors, and still others will be successful entrepreneurs and artists. But I think we must wait a little longer for this."

The rapid and successful integration of young Russian Jews into German society and its middle class, as observers note, is by no means accompanied by an equally effective integration into the institutional structure and social environment of "official" Jewish communities, a problem that is particularly acute outside of major metropolitan areas. Marianna, a former employee of an international Jewish organization, believes that in smaller towns, the character of Jewish life is dictated primarily by Orthodox communities, where the average age of active congregants and leaders is pre-retirement or retirement age. In her view, such demographics alienate young families with children. "Their needs remain unaddressed, and they consequently drift away from Jewish communal life."

These circumstances likely explain the fragmented identity of young Jewish immigrants noted by Glöckner, shaped by family, home, personal experiences in German schools and universities, as well as earlier experiences in Jewish kindergartens, primary schools, youth centers, and contacts with Israel. This "fragmented identity," according to extensive survey and research data collected over the years, does not prevent Russian-speaking immigrants in Central and Eastern-Central Europe from taking pride in their Russian cultural heritage and their affiliation with the Jewish people, even if they do not actively practice Judaism. Thus, in Europe more than elsewhere, a situation exists where the preservation of Russian-Jewish self-awareness remains the dominant, and in some cases, virtually the sole factor in preserving Jewish identity altogether. The alternative is the adoption not of a "local Jewish" (i.e., Jewish-German, Jewish-Austrian, Jewish-Belgian, etc.) identity, but of a purely non-Jewish civic identification.

All of this legitimizes the efforts of various local and international Jewish organizations to target their work toward the first and second generations of relatively recent immigrants from the USSR and CIS countries. However, despite several successful standalone projects of this nature, a truly effective and structured system for these activities has yet to be established. Will transnational umbrella Jewish structures be able to rise to this challenge before the "train" has definitively departed?

A portion of the materials used in this article was gathered during the research project "The Effectiveness and Public Perception of Genesis Philanthropy Group's Activities in Strengthening the National Identity of Russian-Speaking Jews" / V. (Z.) Khanin and E. Bardach-Yalov, Tel Aviv, October 2015. The author expresses gratitude to the initiator of this project, Ms. Sana Britavsky.

[1] The total number of "Russian-speaking" immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Germany since 1989 exceeds 4 million. "Russian Jews" make up less than 5% of this community, while the remainder consists of ethnic German repatriates, as well as Ukrainians, Armenians, Russians, Tatars, and Chechens.