Center for Israel Studies

"Sephardi and Oriental" Migrations to Israel:
Global, Regional and Local Aspects

Sergio DellaPergola

This chapter outlines selected aspects of the migrations of "Sephardi and Oriental" Jews since World War II. We examine several patterns of demographic, socioeconomic and cultural change in the countries of origin, outline the overall volume and major directions of Jewish international migrations, and their absorption and integration in Israeli and other countries during the 20th century. We mostly focus on changes in the composition of migrants to Israel from Asia and Africa and their role in shaping Israeli society, and also look at parallel Jewish migrations from the same countries of origin to western countries such as France or the United States. Our macrosocial perspective aims to supply basic materials to a systematic understanding of the relationship between world Jewry and world society at large, and between different sections of Jewish population in the diaspora and in Israel. This effort naturally needs to be complemented by microsocial analyses - some of which are presented in this volume.

Analytic issues and problems of definition
Large scale international migration was a pivotal feature in Jewish social and demographic history. It repeatedly determined major shifts in the global and regional geographical distribution of Jewish populations and affected the changing contexts within which Jewish social and cultural life developed. Central to an assessment of the experience involving Jews both as minorities and as a majority, was the amount of social justice, political equality, freedom of expression, and socioeconomic opportunities enjoyed by the Jewish collective as a whole, and by each of its members individually. A central predicament throughout Jewish history concerned the relationships and interactions of Jewish minorities with society at large. After the establishment of a large Jewish community in Palestine, and more significantly after Israel's independence, relationships and interactions of different groups within the Jewish majority took augmented salience.
Questions related to population and social change are valuable not only for their own analytical sake, but also for the implications they carry in the framework of political debates and policy decision-making. The issues at stake with the study of Sephardi migration involve not only demographic and sociological measurable facts, but also personal shades of identity that sometimes defy the criteria of rational treatment and nevertheless carry critical weight in academic and public discourse. Study of the sociodemographic profile of "Sephardi and Oriental" Jewish migrants may be articulated around several main research themes:

1. How do we define our target population - the “Sephardi and Oriental” Jewish communities?

2. How do we assess their size, geographical distribution and other sociodemographic characteristics and trends, and how did those change over time?

3. Was and is there any uniqueness in the sociodemographic characteristics and trends of this section of world Jewry as against other Jewish communities, and in comparison with the non-Jewish surrounding populations?

4. How do we assess changes occurring among immigrants and their descendants in Israel and in other countries of absorption? Namely, which had the greater impact: characteristics acquired in the countries of origin, or the context of countries of absorption?

5. What, if any, societal "value added" emerged in the Israeli context of mass immigration beyond the human capital input brought by immigrants from diverse countries, and what particular incentives, constraints and patterns characterized migrations to Israel versus other Jewish migrations that occurred at the same time?

6. Which model - convergence or divergence, homogenization or pluralism, harmony or conflict - came to dominate the subsequent demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural-identificational processes of distinct immigrant groups in Israel and elsewhere?

7. What are the explanatory determinants of any differences emerging from such comparative investigations and what their implications in comparative perspective?

8. What is the projected significance of identificational continuity and change in longer-term sociohistorical perspective? Specifically, under which conditions and until when does a "Sephardi and Oriental Jew” remain “Sephardi and Oriental”?

Evidence about the rhythm of change and steady stateachieved along each of these paths highlights the interaction between migration and integration processes, social structure, ethnoreligious identities and sub-identities within Israeli society and diaspora Jewish communities, and among Sephardi and Oriental Jews in particular.
In the beginning of an analysis of migrations of "Sephardi and Oriental" (in Hebrew "Sephardim ve-Edot Hamizrach", "Jews from Spain and Oriental communities" from which the adjective "mizrachi"="oriental", sometimes rendered as "Jewish communities in the East"), quotes are in order to caution against sweeping and unifying definitions of a section of world Jewry supposed to share historical and sociocultural commonalties and distinct socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. The attempt to define - within world Jewry - a subpopulation constituted of "Sephardi and Oriental” Jewish communities is, indeed, highly problematic for a variety of reasons. A basic dilemma is that definitions of a given collective may reflect objective criteria, clearly specified, unequivocally determined, and likely to be replicated; or from subjective points of view, whether determined by the members of the given group themselves, or by outsiders. The definition of an "Oriental" Jewish subpopulation primarily stems from reference to a given geographic region and therefore appears easy to determine with objective criteria. In practice, however, in both scientific literature and public discourse the conventional concept of Jewish communities "in the East” does not merely reflect a straightforward geographical concept or any other clear-cut rational criterion. The contemporary significance of "Oriental" group identity is unquestionably related to much subtler references to individual and collective experience and memory, and tends to become increasingly subjective.

A simple definitional criterion could rely on a geographical map, and establishing an "East-West" boundaries accordingly. However, Jewish communities in the “Maghreb” (i.e., the Occident), geographically located at the westernmost end of the Mediterranean area, are included in the typical definition of Jewish communities “in the East”. On the other hand, Jewish communities in Eastern Europe are included in the conventional definition of Jewish communities “in the West”. Thus, in usual practice, parts of the "West" belong to the "East", while parts of the "East" belong to the "West".

Another definitional criterion might reflect any breaking points throughout the array of sociodemographic characteristics of past diaspora Jewish communities. One should keep in mind the different timing and paces in the spread of modernization across world regions and countries, and the influences these general factors necessarily had on the respective Jewish communities. Research in historical demography indicates that these factors affected the timing and rhythm of sociodemographic change much more than the nature of change itself. Empirically it is not possible to detect a clear breaking point between “Oriental” and “Occidental” communities out of the actual continuum of experiences and characteristics of Jewish communities in different countries. For example, an analysis of marriage patterns of Diaspora Jews before 1961 focusing on ages of grooms and brides reveals a sharp gradient of modernization across countries of residence, but no clear breaking point between communities “in the East” and “in the West” (Schmelz, 1989). All possible intermediate types emerge in the comparison, within a widespread common trend toward later marriages.

Similarly, intriguing new evidence about continuity rather than compartmentalization of Jewish communities worldwide is emerging from analyses of population DNA and the human genome. Recent findings about the genetics of Jewish communities unveil the fact - long assumed by conventional Jewish historiography - that most Jewish communities have substantially similar origins. Research on male-transmitted genetic characteristics tends to confirm a Middle Eastern origin for most contemporary Jews, reinforced by prolonged segregation and homogamy, notwithstanding subsequent geographical mobility of Jews over the centuries (Hammer et al., 2000). Keeping in mind the restriction to patrilinear origins in these types of studies, there exists no clear distinction between “Eastern” and “Western” communities. Jews are more “oriental” compared to non-Jewish European populations, and more “occidental” compared to non-Jewish North African populations.

A further problem concerning the current definitional boundaries of the "Oriental” Jews relates to the consequences of intensive international migration during the 20th century. As a consequence of large-scale intercontinental mobility, especially since World War II the persistence of an “Oriental” Jewish identity does not any longer reflect the actual residential location of Jewish communities but rather global diffusion worldwide - namely in Israel, France and other western countries. With the passing of time and the birth of new generations geographically distant from the actual places of origin, the “Oriental” Jewish identity tends to become increasingly the product of subjective choices and less a matter of objective definitions. The question of “Who is an 'Oriental' Jew?” becomes increasingly removed from its actual roots. Given that the salience of "Sephardi and Oriental" identities and sub-identities operates today in contexts that are one or two generations removed from the actual geography that constitutes the logical background to those identities, the role of Jewish ancestries in Israel and other communities tends to become analytically similar to that longer known for ancestry in the United States and in other major countries of immigration. The transfer of ancestry from direct to symbolic experience is yet to be fully appreciated in Israel's data sources and social research and deserves further analysis.

All in all, somewhat echoing more general contentions about the concept of "Orientalism" (Said, 1978), it appears that the "Eastern” Jewish definition cannot be interpreted on operative but rather on symbolic ground. There is significant suspicion that what is being expressed here is primarily a value-laden statement about difference which turns into hierarchic inequality. This follows three complementary rationales:

1. the paradigm of "Edot haMizrach" (Oriental communities) in the plural, does not stand against a plurality of "Edot haMarav" (Occidental communities). It rather stands against a group of "Ashkenazim" who are implied to form a coherent paradigm as against which the alternatives are measured;

2. the attribute of "Eastern” is often associated with that of "Sephardim", although the history of Jews from "Spain" and from "Oriental" locations does not necessarily have any coherent common ground. This classification ends by including in one category any community that is not “Western”. In other words, "Eastern" is not defined by the existence of a given property, rather by the lack of another property: “Western” (actually, Ashkenazic);

3. the concepts of "West” and "Western", whether so explicitly stated or not, are a proxy for an ideal type of modernization, progress, rationality. This assumes an array of assumedly positive traits which one would strive to achieve and attribute to self, and in the context of World Jewry and Israeli society, to the whole of the collective. As against those ideal characteristics, the “East” and "Eastern" patterns offer an alternative - perhaps more expressive and colorful, probably less orderly and efficient, possibly good for them, but surely less desirable for ourselves or for us all.

A "West"-"East" hierarchization was not necessarily an intentional and negative assumption in the vast body of scientific research existing on world Jewish communities, nor did the usual public use of terminology carry discriminatory purposes. Attention, however, is called to the judgmental risks inherent in such conventional definitions. Clearly a more neutral definitional criterion is the one long followed by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics which classifies the Jewish population by continents of origin such as Asia, Africa, Europe, America. In a cultural-historical perspective, a relevant distinction would be between Jewish communities exposed (in the past or present) to a Christian context versus those exposed to a Muslim context. It is worth mentioning that a "North-South" (rather than "West-East") typology, frequently used in contemporary studies of modernization and globalization, would more correctly capture both straightforward geographical and culturally derived essentials if a dichotomic typology of world Jewry were to be attempted.

It should be clearly stated, however, that the preceding discussion should not be taken as acceptance of such dichotomic reading of Jewish society and history. The real picture is actually one of far greater variation and nuances covering the Jewish experience across the near totality of global space. The dichotomic practice current in large part of the literature, and adopted in most of this chapter as well, can at best be taken as an operative device to simplify discourse that would otherwise become too detailed to handle.

Changing Jewish population geographies
Having come to terms with the complexities and uncertainties of definitions, we turn to some descriptive data on Jewish population . Table 1 outlines the geographical changes in the regional distribution of world Jewry between 1948 and 2000, showing in particular the implications for the size and distribution of Jewish communities in Asia and Africa. The main determinant of change was mass emigration of Jewish communities from Asia, Africa and the Balkans (as well as Eastern Europe), and their relocation to Israel, and a large number of countries in Western Europe, North America, and Latin America. The continuing shift of the major centers of world Jewry brought about a realignment of world Jewry with the more developed areas at the global level. Of the over 1.2 million Jews that were estimated in 1948 to live in North Africa (South Africa typologically belongs to the western countries) and Asia, including parts of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), only about 60,000 remained in 2000 - a decline of over 90 percent. On the other hand, immigration from Asia and Africa of over one million Jews between 1948 and 2000, and the respective natural increase in subsequent years, were among the main determinants of the rapid Jewish population growth in Israel (Bachi, 1977).
At the root of these trends, international migration was a continuous formative feature in Jewish history and society and stimulated the encounter of communities emanating from different regional and cultural backgrounds within the peculiar new contexts provided by countries of immigration. The world Jewish migration system over the last 50 years (Table 2) consisted of two main supplying areas, Eastern Europe and North Africa and the Middle East; two major receiving areas, the Western countries and Israel, provided the sites facilitating major Jewish population exchanges and encounters.
For a variety of reasons, ideological, instrumental and contingent, migrants leaving one same context of origin did split and integrate in different receiving contexts. This was one of the most important and sometimes problem laden features of Jewish geographical redistribution over the 20th century. While the yearly pace of international migration was highly variable, nearly 90,000 people on average were on the move yearly. Overall Israel received nearly two thirds of the total migrants after 1948. The propensity to choose Israel over a Western destination was higher from Asia-Africa than from Easter Europe. Rates of emigration per 1000 Jews at origin, reflecting the perceived components of push in migration decision-making, were also much higher in Asia-Africa than in Eastern Europe, while they were extremely low in the Western countries and also in Israel. In the exchange between Israel and the Western countries, the net balance tended to be in favor of the latter. These various features of world Jewish migration need to be assessed in a comprehensive rational framework. While the idealistic motives behind much of aliyah cannot be undervalued, the intensity and outcome of global Jewish migration flows tended to reflect quite exactly the hierarchy of countries in terms of their general conditions of socioeconomic development and political stability. When this was feasible, people moved more often from places of a lower standing to places with a better ranking in world system hierarchy. As a consequence, the geography of world Jewry became gradually more associated if not identified with the leading core of the more industrialized, developed and also democratic countries. In the process, the Jewish communities of Sephardi and Oriental origin nearly completely left their historical areas of origin, and in fact created a new type of a diaspora.
Keeping in mind the abovementioned critical remarks about definitional criteria, Table 3 attempts to provide an estimate of the total number and geographical distribution of Jews of "Sephardi and or Asia-Africa" origin in the year 2000. The estimates adopt an extensive criterion based on rough evaluations of objective indicators such as countries of origin in Asia, Africa and the Balkans, as well as subjective indicators such as self-identification or membership in Jewish community organizations which refer to a Sephardi cultural tradition. Within these limits, we suggest a world Sephardi/Oriental population estimate of 3.4 million, out of a world Jewish population of 13.2 million (26% of the total). In Israel, the Jewish population of Asia-Africa origin, including the foreign and the Israeli born, constituted slightly less than 50% of total Jews. Their share among the total Jewish population in Israel grew from about 25% in the earlier post-independence years to reach a slight majority on the eve of the last wave of immigration from the FSU, following which it declined modestly. In the Diaspora, Sephardi and Oriental Jews could be estimated to constitute about 10-15% of total Jewish population, with varying shares according to regions. Besides the small remnants in the historical areas of origin, their proportion was particularly significant in Western Europe and Central America. Of their estimated global total, about two thirds live nowadays in Israel, with two other more significant concentrations in North America and Western Europe. The percentage of Jews actually living "in the East" (Asia and Africa, besides Israel) out of the world total of the same origin now amounts at 1-2% only, and continues to decline.
Large scale and selective international migration calls for examining the overall results of such movement of human capital for Israeli society and for world Jewry more generally. A ratio can be computed between the number of Israeli Jews originating from a given country, and the Jewish population currently living in the country of origin (Figure 1, based on a logarithm scale). The results provide a measure of the cumulated historical odds of staying in the country of origin or leaving to Israel - an indication of relative attractiveness within each dyad of countries. The shorter the bars in the diagram, the greater the propensity of Jews from a given country to live in that country. The longer bars indicate that more of them live in Israel than in the country of origin. The pattern is highly differentiated and reflects mass movement mostly from countries in North Africa, the Middle East and to some extent the Balkans and Eastern Europe to Israel, as against resilience and sometimes attraction of new migrants in countries in North America and Western Europe. The crossover point, between a larger number living in the original country or living in Israel passes between Germany-Austria and Czech-Slovakia-Hungary.
Examining the ranking of aliyah intensities by country and comparing it with indicators of the quality of country social environments, such as the UN Human Development Index (HDI) , a clear reverse correlation appears between the propensity to move to Israel, and life quality in the respective countries. In other words, Israel immigration was associated with a negative selection of immigrants, at least judging by the quality of life in the countries were Jews previously lived. One may try to draw a rough balance of the overall impact of immigration on the nature of Israeli society by looking at Israel’s population composition by countries of origin, and attributing to each subpopulation the appropriately weighted HDI of the respective country. The resulting average HDI might be considered a predictor of Israel's expected ranking. The HDI such calculated ranks between 60th and 70th out of about 170 countries. But in reality, Israel's HDI is ranked 22nd - substantially better than would be predicted by its population composition by countries of origin.
This striking inconsistency calls for an interpretation that can be articulated in two directions. Evidently, one should take into account the sociocultural and socioeconomic selectivity of those migrants, who might not reflect adequately the typical human capabilities of the societies of origin. More specifically, and significantly, all of those migrants to Israel were Jews, and evidently the social structure of diaspora Jewish populations, and of the migrants among them, was not representative of the general society in each country of origin. But there is unquestionably a further explanation, and that has to do with the societal value added produced by social trends that developed in Israel throughout the longer-term process of immigrant absorption. Israeli society apparently succeeded at mobilizing those immigrants to achieve the purpose of societal building and growth. By converse, most of the immigrants found in their new countries significantly improved societal contexts relative to those they might have experienced had they remained in the countries of origin. The terms of reference of Israel's significant socioeconomic improvement and societal growth extend beyond the human resources actually brought-in through immigration, and evoke the notion of a collective project to which in one way or another most of the participants were intensely associated.

Immigrant absorption sins
We now turn to a more problematic aspect of the same process, by examining more in detail the occupational characteristics of migrants, and the modalities of their economic absorption. As noted, Jewish international migration was quite selective, both in terms of the countries of origin and of the characteristics of the migrants. Judgement improves significantly in the presence of comparisons that provide a relevant background to empirical observation, and in the following this comes in the form of a comparison between immigrant absorption patterns that occurred in Israel, and similar processes which affected Jewish migrants who went to France . The two columns in bold characters in Table 4 provide a simplified representation of the occupational characteristics of migrants who went at comparatively close points of time, if not simultaneously, to France and to Israel. France drew heavily from North Africa and from Central-Eastern Europe; Israel drew from a broader range of countries in Asia-Africa (including a strong contingent from North Africa) and from Eastern Europe (including minorities from Western-Central Europe and America). The data refer to migrants who moved up to 1961, and include the major migration waves following Israel's independence and the process of French decolonization in North Africa.

Occupational differences in the countries of origin are quite interesting. Among those who went to Israel, the differences by continents of origin were not that significant. European immigrants to Israel included a modestly, though significantly higher proportion of professionals, managers and other white-collars than immigrants from Asia and Africa (23% vs. 15%, on the aggregate). While not spectacular, the implications of that difference would later be quite crucial. On the other hand, the difference between those who went to France and those who went to Israel from Muslim countries was quite significant. A predominant section of the social, cultural and political elites of North African Jews preferred to move to France, so that the same elites were obviously lacking in the Israeli process of absorption (61% vs. 15% of white collars on the aggregate among migrants, respectively). I would call this selectivity process in the choice of destination by international migrants “the first original sin”.
But there was a second, more problematic original sin, related to the processes that developed in the course of the early absorption of immigrants in the new countries (continuation of Table 4). Crucially important here are the percentages of occupational retention, i.e. of those who were able to stay in their occupational category - especially in the better white-collar categories - and for whom therefore the post-migration adaptation was less traumatic. Retention rates were significantly different among migrants born in Asia-Africa and in Europe-America. European-origin professionals were able to keep to their position much better than their counterparts from North Africa and the Middle East, both in Israel (61% vs. 49%) and in France (59% vs. 43%). The same pattern is true for migrants previously employed in sales: 25% of the European-American vs. 15% of the Asian-African in Israel stayed in their occupational branch, and 41% vs. 29% in France respectively did. The lower shares of traders remaining in their original occupations in Israel clearly reflect the constraints operating among a group coming to constitute the majority of a population, with its comparatively normal share of commerce, versus the greater specialization possibilities available in this case to a minority. A mixed pattern of occupational retention emerges in administrative (managerial and clerical) occupations: 48% of the migrants of European origin vs. 42% of those from Asia-Africa kept to their branch in Israel, while 49% of the North Africans vs. 35% of the Europeans did in France. The latter fact is explained by the strong Jewish presence in the French colonial administration in North Africa, and the reintegration of French citizens (especially from Algeria) in their posts after repatriation. The differences in occupational retention among those who originally were in sales and trade are even more striking. In Israel, only 15% of the immigrants from Asia-Africa, vs. 25% of those from Europe-America remained in the same branch, while in France retention rates were higher: 29% vs. 41%, respectively.
Clearly, the price paid by immigrants from Asia and Africa in the post-migration process of occupational absorption was much higher. Indeed, among those who experienced post-migration occupational mobility, the great majority moved downwardly. For instance, of the immigrants who had been professionals in Asia Africa and moved to a different occupation in Israel, 69% went to blue-collar, no or unknown occupations, vs. 44% of the immigrants from Europe-America with the same characteristics abroad. In France, on the other hand, 72% of the North African professionals who had to move out of the professions were able to move to administrative jobs and only 28% moved to blue-collar, no and unknown occupations. Among the European immigrants to France, nearly two thirds of those who had to leave their professional status landed into trade rather than into blue-collar occupations. Similar patterns appear among migrants who were in administrative positions in their countries of origin before migration. Regarding the mobility of former traders, the vast majority of immigrants to Israel moved to blue-collar: 91% of those from Asia-Africa, vs. 75% of those from Europe-America. In France the experience was totally different, with the vast majority of mobile traders moving to professional and administrative occupations: 86% of those from North Africa, vs. 88% of those from Europe.
Table 5 summarizes these trends, showing (through ratios of born in Asia-Africa to born in Europe-America in each of the categories of Table 4) the commonalties but also the sharp contrasts between the immigrant absorption processes in the Israeli and French contexts. Some of the same processes indeed appeared both in France and in Israel, namely a general downward mobility among international migrants, and a better resilience among those from Europe than among those from Muslim countries. Among the former, a large share of post-migration mobility was horizontal rather than downward. On the other hand, a rather traumatic productivization affected the immigrants from Asia-Africa in Israel and the socioeconomic price demanded of them was much higher than the much smoother experience of European-American immigrants in Israel, and the even milder accommodation of their North African peers in France.

This leads us to a more ideologically laden comment. Israel in a sense did not really behave as utopia, as some would have imagined it. Utopia would result in a perfectly egalitarian society, one that is blind to shades of human-capital characteristics in the name of higher values and aspirations. Instead, the immigrants' economic absorption patterns quite rudely reflected the rules of free market competition. In addition, the individual characteristics of immigrants turned to be somewhat weighted by the overall international standing of their countries of origin. On further consideration, to have achieved free-market status, i.e. what is normalcy in most societies, actually was utopia for people who were historically dispersed and often discriminated against, and primarily wanted a return to normality. But normalization implied a much heavier price on some people and a lighter price on others. The more veteran - significantly more leaning on European origins - tended to be more centrally located in Israel, and to be closer to better market and educational opportunities. This carried, and continues to carry to these very days, very heavy social and political consequences.

Subethnic convergence, divergence, catch-up
We now turn to a summary evaluation of sociodemographic trends that developed in Israeli society since the major formative immigration waves. The data presented in the following address the cardinal question of whether or not the social dynamics in a highly heterogeneous society founded on diverse immigrant groups allowed for the emerging of greater equality and a coalescence of previously different patterns. Clearly given the historical circumstances, a variety of possible patterns could be expected ranging from convergence and integration, to divergence and segregation, and from meeting of the different at mid-point, to catching-up of the weaker to the characteristics of the stronger. The following outline of various processes of equitable society formation, if any, focuses on the Jewish population, and therefore omits the crucial question of the evolving relationship between Jews and Arabs in the evaluation of Israeli society. The latter cannot be considered as entirely separate from the main thrust of the present analysis, as the outcome of Jewish-Arab interactions actually did affect the nature of Jewish community internal interactions. But, given the limited scope of this chapter, these questions cannot be dealt here.
A primary concern with multiethnic and multicultural societies regards the allocation of residential space to the different groups, whether more clustered or diffused. Previous analyses in Israel have clearly shown a trend to greater residential diffusion and declining segregation among different origin groups (Schmelz, DellaPergola, Avner, 1991). This is true both at the broader countrywide level of regions and cities, and at the more specific level of urban neighborhoods and smaller territorial units. A model of the countrywide and regional geographical location of different origin groups in Israel is shown in Figure 2. This Smallest Space Analysis of the 1995 Israeli census data synthesizes a matrix of 26 groups of countries of birth, subdivided by 16 sub-district territorial divisions. The closer the points representing two given origin groups, the more similar the respective regional distributions. A more central position on the map means greater diffusion over Israel's territory; less central positions indicate peculiar patterns of regional clustering. Eight regional residential clusters of immigrants from geographically near countries - presumably sharing similar backgrounds abroad - appear for Western Europe and North America, Central and Eastern Europe (predominant among veteran immigrants), the different republics of the FSU (predominant among more recent immigrants), the Balkans, Asia, and different areas in North Africa. The fact that the latter groups of countries form significantly distant clusters importantly exposes the already noted analytic insufficiency of the generic Asia-Africa aggregate.

The salience of countries of origin as a distinguishing factor in creating communities of vicinity, social networks, frequent bases for communication and for reinforcing particularistic identities is confirmed by these data. Four major factors explain the differences: the timing of immigration to Israel and the availability of housing in each period, Israel's variable policies concerning national population dispersion, the socioeconomic position of members of each group and their ability to negotiate convenient locations, and the ideological orientation of different groups vis-a-vis living in the territories occupied by Israel after the June 1967 war . But no clearly hierarchical residential patterns related to the geography of origin emerge, as would be the case if all the origin groups from Asia-Africa appeared on one part of the diagram, and all those from Europe-America were on another part. Differences in the geographical distribution of immigrant groups in Israel are not necessarily related to inequality but rather to preferences that are inherent in a very diverse society.

Following increasing opportunity for encounter in socioculturally mixed neighborhoods, several demographic processes do point to convergence among different origin groups in Israel. Since the early stages of Israel's statehood, energetic public interventions affected most health differences that had been imported by immigrants. The general life expectancy increase was accompanied by a rapid catching-up by immigrants from Asian and African countries that had brought about less advantaged starting characteristics. At the same time, a significant increase in the frequency of interethnic marriages occurred over time between Jews from Asia-Africa and from Europe-America. By the 1990s, the occurrence of such heterogamic marriages was more than half of its expected likelihood had marriage choices been made totally at random. Intermarriage supposedly watered down or partly altered the cultural bases of origin group identity, thus further speeding-up the process of cultural integration .

The development of fertility patterns in Israel followed, too, a clearly convergent path. Jewish total fertility rates (TFR) were comparatively stable in Israel, diminishing from 3.6 children in the 1950s to 2.6-2.7 in the 1980s, and remaining steady thereafter. But the gaps between different origin groups were initially quite large. As Figure 3 shows, by the mid-1950s an immigrant woman from Asia-Africa had over 3 children more than her immigrant peer from Europe-America. This quite imposing TFR gap decreased steadily throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and by the early 1980s it was reduced to less than one half of a child. The subsequent revival of a fertility gap between the two main origin groups reflects the more recent immigration of Jewish women from the low-fertility FSU and from high-fertility Ethiopia. By 1992 the TFR gap had again reached 1.5 children, but in later years again immigrant women rapidly adapted to the established standards of the receiving society. A decline of higher fertility concurred with some increase of lower fertility. Proof of the stable achievement of uniform family growth behaviors appears in the data for the second, Israel-born woman generation, where the original immigrant fertility differences have long entirely disappeared.

Another set of variables central to the study of the processes of immigrant absorption in Israeli society concerns the socioeconomic mobility of different origin groups. A first important aspect concerns the ability of public education systems to provide high level and homogeneous skills as a background to future occupational achievements. The educational levels of immigrants, especially during the initial period of mass immigration, were quite unequal. Immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa included high proportions with low or no education and low proportions with university training. The Israeli education system aimed at equalizing educational attainments within a reasonable frame of time. The size of educational gaps between the two main origin groups can be assessed over time at various levels, from entrance into the system at age 6 to possibly achieving a college degree. We may compare education achieved among Jews from Asia-Africa relative to Jews from Europe-America at three such points of educational lifecycle for the 1960s throughout the 1990s. These are: median years of study completed, having successfully completed a matriculation diploma at the end of high school, and being enrolled in higher education at age 20-29. By positing the respective percentages achieved by the Europe-America origin group at a level of 100, we obtained a measure of relative disadvantage for the Asia-Africa origin group (Figure 4). Given the rapid general improvement of educational levels, closing the gap meant shooting at a quickly moving target.
Having achieved nearly universal literacy thanks to the general enforcement of compulsory education, efforts of the public education system turned to reducing the proportion of youth dropping out of school before completing secondary studies. Median years of education increased and eventually, with a median level of education of 12 years and above, the vast majority of the younger generations raised in Israel completed a curriculum of secondary studies or its equivalent. By the mid-1990s, the gap in years of schooling achieved among the Israeli-born of Asian-African origin still lagged 11% behind the achievement of their peers of European-American origin, as against about 30% in the 1960s. Convergence of levels of educational attainment, however, was not completed in at least two other respects. The first was the greater tendency of youngsters of Asian-African origin to enroll in secondary schools of a technical rather than humanistic orientation. The corollary was lesser opportunity to successfully pass matriculation (bagrut) exams - a necessary prerequisite for admission at Israeli universities. The lag of youngsters of Asian-African origin versus their peers of European-American origin in achieving matriculation exceeded 70% in the 1960s and had declined to 16% in the 1990s.
A related gap concerned the under-representation of the Asian-African origin among university students and, later, among college graduates. In the 1990s the percent enrolled in higher education at ages 20-29 was still 35% lower among the Asian-African-born versus the European-American-born (versus 85% in the 1960s). The gap still exceeded 60% among the Israeli born of Asian-African origin - whose actual higher education enrollment was higher than that of the immigrant generation - versus their peers of European-American origin. These lags clearly tended to diminish over time but still were significant in a context of rapidly increasing educational attainments among all sections of Israel's population. Total rates of ever exposure to post-secondary education (including Israeli Arabs) rose from 9% in 1961 to 39% in 2001, when they reached 58% among Jews aged 25-34, versus 29% at age 65 and over. Educational attainment was enhanced during the 1990s with the significant expansion of the Israeli higher education system. The opening of several new colleges, whose criteria for admission may be less selective than those of major universities, allowed for further expansion of the population with higher education anticipating a substantial reduction of existing gaps among future college graduates.

Occupational stratification - a natural outcome of educational attainment, among other factors - underwent significant upgrading since the 1960s among Israel's Jewish population subsequently to the already mentioned difficult experiences with insertion in the Israeli labor force and loss of occupational status following immigration. Table 6 summarizes changes in the socioeconomic characteristics of the two main Jewish origin groups in Israel between 1966 and 2001. All along the period covered, the percentages of professionals, managers and clerical personnel were lower among Jews of Asian-African origin versus European-American, though rapidly increasing across the board. Among Jews of Asian-African origin, including the Israeli-born, the aggregate of academic, technical, managerial and clerical occupations constituted 16% in 1966 and 49% in 2001, and among persons of European-American origin they passed from 38% in 1966 to 60% in 2001. This was counterbalanced by higher but declining proportions of workers employed in industry, construction, transport and agriculture among the Asian-African origin: 60% in 1966 and 29% in 2001, versus 40% and 24% respectively among the European-American. The common general direction of change in Israel's social stratification clearly pointed to a growing predominance of white-collar over blue-collar occupations. The state as an indiscriminate employer obviously contributed to large-scale access to the lower echelons of white-collar jobs - an opportunity largely utilized by persons of Asian-African origin. On the other hand, after the 1967 war much of the Jewish upward mobility of Jews was enhanced by the availability of a large pool of Palestinian labor from the West Bank and Gaza. The latter substituted for Jewish employees at the lower levels of occupational stratification who mostly were from Asia and Africa. In more recent years the same low-status jobs have been taken up to a larger extent by other non-Jewish foreign workers.
An assessment of relative occupational disadvantage of the Asia-Africa origin group versus its Europe-America counterpart can be gained through an index of dissimilarity that measures the percentage of persons belonging to a one group which ought to change their occupation in order to become distributed identically to another group. The sign attributed to the index reflects the greater or smaller frequency of academic, technical, managerial, and clerical occupations among Jews of Asian-African relative to European-American origin. Such occupational gap diminished between 1966 and 2001 from -22% to -17%. This admittedly slow improvement in relative stratification occurred within a general Israeli context of significant upward mobility. In 1992, the occupational profile of the Asia-Africa origin group resembled the profile of the Europe-America origin group in 1966, and was indeed slightly better (index of dissimilarity/relative gap: +7%), and the same trend had continued in 2001 (index: +11%).
A final indicator of socioeconomic inequality concerns income distributions. Figure 5 describes the relative representation of persons born in Asia-Africa among Jewish urban employees regarding income distribution across ten deciles of households over the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The earlier distributions indicate an overwhelming over-representation of the Asia-Africa group at the lower end of income distribution, and a similar under-representation at the higher end. The more recent data show that while inequality has not disappeared especially at the top and bottom income levels, the distribution quite fairly encompasses both major origin groups. Several caveats should be mentioned here: the data do not include the urban self-employed and the rural sectors, and they only relate to the foreign-born. The Israeli-born are more heavily concentrated at higher income levels. Moreover, the data ignore the far greater income inequality that exists among Jews and non-Jews. Significantly, the recent immigration from the FSU created a large group of European origin at the lower end of the income scale. But the indication is that persisting educational and occupational gaps do not necessarily play a crucial role impairing the achievement of a more equal standard of living among all sectors of the Jewish population.

In the light of the data presented on educational attainment, occupation, and income, persisting gaps between the two major origin groups are better described as time related evolutionary lags rather than insurmountable obstacles inherent in the social structure of Israeli society and its attitudes toward Jewish ethnocultural divisions. The relative slow pace of the trend toward closing the gaps rather than its pattern may be a matter for concern. The fact documented here is that social gaps associated with origin groups continue to be significant at the higher levels of the Israeli social ladder. This implies that the production of cadres provided with higher levels of training continues to be affected by imbalances that prevailed between the respective social profiles of origin groups in a more distant past. On the other hand, the documented closure of demographic gaps ensures more egalitarian starting points for the new generations born in Israel, whereas a significant cause for the persisting socioeconomic gaps can be traced in past demographic unbalances, and the consequent differences in standard of living and life quality.

Changing perceptions of subethnic identities

One further important process that would appear to contradict the foregoing discussion about convergence of Jewish origin groups in Israeli society is the recent growth of ethnic parties to represent a substantial share of the political system. This calls for a brief reassessment of the role of ethnic identity, or more appropriately subethnicity, in the final evaluation of the consequences of large-scale international migration of "Sephardi and Oriental" Jews. In Israel's social science literature several competing schools of thought have addressed the main issues. A first perspective acknowledging the past Israeli emphasis on nation-building, mainly perceived ethnicity along cultural lines. As a central tenet of the process of integration of immigrants, the salience of cultural diversity - hence ethnic identity - appeared to be progressively declining. According to an opposite view, ethnic cleavages in Israeli society fundamentally overlapped with social class divisions and conflicts. At the extreme of this view, an exploitative interpretation of existing ethnocultural inequalities was suggested. A third perspective, in a sense intermediate between the two preceding ones, recognized the existence of various types of stratification as a central, permanent, if not fundamental characteristic of Israeli society (Eisenstadt, 1954; Smooha, 1978; Horowitz and Lissak, 1989; Swirsky, 1989; Ben Raphael and Sharot, 1991; Goldscheider, 1996; Shafir and Peled, 2002).
In practice, one of the important lessons of the last decades is that when assessing social inequality and its relationship to sociocultural origins, it is not enough to simply watch at the story told by measurable data, but it is also essential to evaluate the actors' subjective perceptions and expectations. What counts is not only what actually happened but also what people thought they wished had happened. The overall evaluation of the social structure/ethnic identity equation depends as much on sociodemographic change as on identificational change.
It is important to recall, in this respect, that given a comparatively later reach of modernization, Jews in Asia and Africa continued to experience for longer a more traditional outlook than other diaspora communities. So did Jewish migrants from Asia and Africa in comparison to the veteran Jewish communities that absorbed them in different locales or to other Jewish migrants that concurrently arrived in the same locales. Table 7 presents frequencies of adherence to selected indicators of Jewish identification among Jews of Asian-African origins in France, the United States, Mexico and Israel between the 1970s and the 1990s, showing differences versus the total Jewish population in each place. With nearly no exception across a variety of behavioral, attitudinal, ethnic or religious indicators, Jews from Asia and Africa continued to display higher levels of Jewish cohesiveness, practice, and communal commitment. At least during the early stages of social insertion after migration, these more traditional characteristics surely affected the nature of the migrants' personal and community social networks, and their attitudes toward the opportunities and challenges presented by the new environments. It may be at least hypothesized that the more traditional sections of a community also had larger families and therefore heavier dependency ratios, a more inwardly oriented attitude toward their peer immigrant community, and perhaps less training in the skills required by a competitive secular society.

But beyond the thicker and more binding identificational parameters of Jews from Asia-Africa, an intriguing and important question is how group identity shaped itself or became reshaped along with processes of social change, namely in the context of international migration. It may be assumed that some aspects of ethnic identity were eroded and some were actually created in the process. In the specific case examined here it is useful to recall again that "Sephardi", "Oriental" or "Asia-Africa" are all labels indicating a subethnic identity within the broader framework of Jewish (ethnic) identity. Subethnic identities constitute one stage in a hierarchical ladder at the top of which may stand a very broadly encompassing panethnic identity (such as "Israeli", above all other internal distinctions in Israel; or "white" in a larger and more complex society such as the United States). Subethnic identity may evolve from narrowly defined, localistic, and low rank, to increasingly broad, generic, and high rank in the hierarchy (e.g., from Halabi, to Syrian, to Sephardi, to Jewish, to Israeli; see Figure 6). This evolution can be shown to have happened in the context of past migrations, at the beginning of 20th century America, and in the course of the mass waves of aliyah to Israel. A further feature associated with migration absorption may be identity translation. In fact, in the case of recent immigration form the FSU, every immigrant became a "Russian", although coming from the Ukraine or Belarus (and for that matter, any American immigrant became an "Anglo-Saxon"). No matter how artificially imposed, the perceptions of the outer public tended to have some bearing on the identities of the actors themselves.

Subethnic identity, specifically among the "Sephardi and Oriental" in Israel, developed as a consequence of the pre-migration background of migrants, of the modalities of their migration and absorption process, and of the reception context. The question becomes to what extent earlier ethnocultural differences affected the sociodemographic patterns of immigrant absorption, and to what extent the consequences of immigrant absorption affected the patterns of subethnic identity. The collapse of smaller identities into a broader, more encompassing and possibly more generic identity may have had very powerful structural implications for the overall process of absorption. On the other hand, the cultural residue of the major immigrant process of sociodemographic integration may have created the opposite: to revive old or even to generate new brands of more localistic, definite, specific sub-identity.

I would suggest that in the light of the, though slowly, convergent trends described in the main of this chapter, in the longer run subethnic identities cannot survive more than as a secondary and residual attribute, and not as quasi-physical, primordial distinguishing elements as they were during the earlier stages of the process of immigrant absorption. Varying intensities of subethnic identity could indeed coexist in Israeli society. They ranged from a relatively small minority among whom homogeneity of cultural and socioeconomic environments reinforced a sense of strong and nearly all-encompassing ethnic bond; through a majority among whom ethnic origin was an enriching frame of reference within a predominant orientation toward more neutral socioeconomic goals and cultural expressions; down to a further group for whom any cultural residue or interest for ethnic identity was lost. These coexisting approaches defined, respectively, cohesive ethnic community, meaningful social group, or mere population category - until when origin could even not be traceable any longer.
While the effect of time and generation in Israel operated toward enhancing the presence of the weaker types, the role of subethnic identity was not bound to be lost completely, significantly because of the dynamics of rising expectations, and of their enhancement by a class of interested political intermediaries. Any past accomplishments in creating greater social equality among Israeli origin groups was likely to strengthen the legitimate demand for even greater parity. The possibility always existed for ethnic origin stereotypes to become associated with social status. The socially mobile Israeli-born of Asian-African origin, or more significantly, the mobile children of interethnic marriages could identify by a broader Jewish ethnic identity or even a neutral Israeli panethnic identity, while their socially stagnant or downwardly homologues could identify with a "mizrachi" subethnic identity. At the margins of successful absorption and integration, any pockets of social marginality and disadvantage could constitute fertile soil for the revival of subethnic identities, hence evidence that convergence never did not occur.

Concluding remarks
One conclusion of this study concerns the importance of a comparative approach when investigating processes occurring in a given context, especially given the complexities of the historical and sociocultural experiences of the Jewish Diaspora. We also need to keep in mind the importance of external determinants in the unfolding of Jewish social history. Much of what was discussed in this chapter in fact reflects the tremendous ups and downs in the presence, stability, or disappearing of Jewish communities worldwide during the 20th century. This in turn reflected the changing geopolitical equilibrium between different components in the world system.
We can be assured that there will be such ups and downs in the future, too. It is indeed very difficult to predict such discontinuities, but Jewish history encountered many such moments, and might meet some more in the future. As long as fluidity continues to characterize the social system worldwide, and in as much any such changes will affect Jews worldwide, Israeli society will be part of them. Any such changes may affect both the eventuality of further migration being directed to or from Israel, and Israel's ability to cope with the continuing challenge of immigrant absorption and of trying to have different group identities coalesce into a coherent national social structure. The experience of "Sephardi and Oriental" Jewish migrants offers a full paradigm of how the challenges of Jewish heritage maintenance vs. social mobility, localistic identity vs. planetary diffusion, and idealism vs. relative deprivation were coped with in the past - and a few serious lessons for the future.

Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was undertaken at the Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics, The A. Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tanks are due to Dr. Uzi Rebhum and Benjamin Anderman for processing of the Israeli 1995 population census. The paper was completed in 2002/03 while the author was a Skirball Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Yarnton, U.K..

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