Center for Israel Studies

The Adjustment and Integration of Soviet Jews in the United States in the 1980s

Rita J. Simon

This chapter focuses on the Soviet Jewish immigration to the United States that began in 1979 and continued into the late 1980’s. During this period some 90,000 Soviet Jews arrived in the United States. Before I describe the demographic characteristics and subsequent adjustments of that cohort, a few comments about the earlier Russian Jews who began arriving in the United States in the 1870’s and continued coming until the onset of the First World War are appropriate. That earlier cohort accomplished in one generation what most analysts claim takes immigrant groups three generations to accomplish, that is to reach educational, occupational, and income parity with native born or other American citizens. The Russian Jewish immigration of that pre- World War I era was an extraordinarily successful immigration and a wonderful contribution to American society. But, this chapter focuses on the Soviet Jewish immigration that began in 1979. The data that I report are based on a national study that my husband, Julian Simon, and I conducted of 900 Soviet Jewish families, the large majority of whom had arrived in the United States in 1979 and the earlier 1980’s and were living in fourteen cities in the United States.

Most of these Soviet Jews came from large cities in the Ukraine and Russia proper: Kiev, Moscow, Odessa and Leningrad. At the time they left, and it is important to emphasize that these were Soviet Jews who opted not to go to Israel. They were Soviet Jews who waited, sometimes more than five years, and opted to come to the United States. The majority of them were between 31 and 50 years of age; 58 percent were male, 42 percent female; 80 percent were married, and they had an average of 1.5 children. Most of them were well-educated and technically trained. The men had an average of 14 years of schooling, the women 13 years. Ninety-four percent has received diplomas from institutions of higher education that were equivalent to the U.S. baccalaureate degree. Ten percent had continued their studies toward a higher degree and five percent had completed that degree. Most of the male respondent reported that they worked in the industrial branch of the economy. They held jobs as engineers, builders, and mechanics. Seventy-two percent of he Soviet women worked full-time as engineers, teachers, doctors, and nurses.

At the time they were surveyed, in the mid-1980’s, 92 percent of the men and 80 percent of the women, who were between 18 and 54 years of age, were in the labor force. In fact, the women, after they arrived in the United States, were in the labor force at a higher percentage than American women. When we examined all of the socio-economic measures, their years of schooling, their occupational status, how much money they were making, how much they paid in axes, the results indicated that the Soviet Jewish immigrants who arrived during this period, were making positive and important contributions to American Society. For example, 13 months after they arrived in the United States, the Soviet immigrants were contributing more to the public coffers in the form of taxes than they were taking out in public aid. And, remember these were people who came as refugees, and refugees usually need welfare assistance at a higher rate than immigrants or Americans citizens. But these refugees, within a little over a year after they had arrived in the United States, were already making a financial contribution to the American economy in the form of taxes, and not seeking welfare or other forms of public aid.

When we asked the respondents what were the main reasons for their coming to the United States, 49 percent said because of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. The next two important reasons were the hopes they had for their children’s education and their children’s future; and family reunion with relatives in the United States. How well did they integrate themselves into American society? As a part of the survey, respondents were asked to compare their life in the Soviet Union with their life in the United States on various dimensions, including: friendships, work situations, social status, income, cultural opportunities, and housing. We asked them whether their situation, in each of these respects, improved, worsened, or remained the same since their arrival in the United States. A large majority felt that looking at such objective indicators, as housing and income, their lives were much better in the United States. All of the respondents, for example, were living in their own homes. None were living with American relatives or in some form of institutional setting.

On the other dimensions, their responses were more mixed; especially, with regard to the cultural opportunities that were available; and the friendships they were forming. On these issues they reported both positive and negative aspects of their life in the United States. In the opinion of many, the ballet and opera companies, for example, in most American cities did not compare favorably, either artistically or price wise, with their equivalents in Kiev, Moscow, or Leningrad.
Some respondents felt that they had to accept less prestigious and important positions in the United States compared to those they had held in the Soviet Union during the normal period (i.e., prior to visa application) of their life. As most immigrants do, the Soviet Jews recognized that learning English well, was an important and necessary skill for their subsequent adjustment and mobility. At the time of the survey, 50 precent were attending English classes, even though almost all of them had knowledge of English before they came to the United States.

Another measure of the respondents’ social adjustments is how happy they were. When they were asked, “Taking all things together how happy would you say you are?” 16 percent answered “very happy,” 62 percent “pretty happy,” and 22 percent “not too happy.” How happy they were, was in part a function of how long they had been in the United States. Respondents who were here longer were more likely to say they were very happy. For example 35 percent of those who arrived before 1978 answered “very happy.” When the same question was asked of a national sample of the U.S. population, 33 percent said they were “very happy,” 54 percent said they were “pretty happy,” and 13 percent were “not too happy.”
The survey also tried to access how respondents felt about their decision to leave the Soviet Union and come to the United States by asking: “All things considered, if you had to do it again, would you choose to remain in the Soviet Union, come to the United States, immigrate to Israel, or immigrate to some other country?” Eighty-six percent said they would come to the United States, five percent would remain in Soviet Union, six percent would go to Israel, one percent would go elsewhere, and two percent did not answer. And, when asked what advice they would offer Jews still living in the Soviet Union, only two percent said they would advise them to remain there.

The section that follows focuses on assessing the respondents’ Jewish identity. Remember, the most important reason the respondents gave for why they came to the United States was to escape anti-Semitism. Now that they were in the United States, a country in which anti-Semitism was not a major or serious concern, what were they doing about their Jewish identity? For example, we asked, “If you could be born again, would you wish to be born a Jew?” and 90 percent answered “yes.” When we asked about attendance at temples and synagogues, 75 percent said they attended occasionally. Those who did attend occasionally or fairly regularly were affiliated mostly with a reform temple followed by a conservative synagogue. Less than 20 percent were affiliated with an orthodox synagogue. They did not belong to Jewish federations or Jewish fraternal organizations. For example, a little over 10 percent said “yes, we use the services of the YMHA.” On the whole they did not join Zionist organizations. Neither were they involved in organized, secular American Jewish life.

Over 60 percent said that they had books and pictures in their homes about Jewish history, and they were interested in Jewish music. We also asked if they observed any rituals. Over half of them reported that they did not eat bread on Passover. Almost half, 49.7 percent said that they fasted on Yom Kippur, about a third avoided eating ham or bacon, and a little over a third have a mezuzah on their door. Seventy percent said, “we attend religious services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.” All of these practices were highly correlated with age. The older respondents observed these rituals more than the younger ones. When asked, “What activities, or what behaviors, would you encourage your child to adopt?” Sixty percent wanted their children to marry a Jew; one third wanted then to have mostly Jewish friends. One activity that they did not encourage was to have their children consider going to Israel. Only 3 percent said they wanted their children to settle in Israel. Remember, these were the Soviet Jews who opted not to go to Israel themselves. They had not changed their mind about that. They wanted their children to remain in the United States where they thought they would have a bright future.
When we asked, “How would you identify yourself? What terms would you use to identify yourself?” They could have said: American, Jewish, American Jew, Russian, Soviet Jew, Russian-American, over two-thirds said, “I simply see myself as Jewish.”

Finally, I discuss the American Jewish reactions to the Soviet Jews when they started arriving, and the Soviet Jewish reactions to how the Americans responded to them. What were the Soviet Jews’ expectations about the type of reception they would receive from the American Jewish community? Did they expect to be received as heroes, after all they had endured living under Soviet rule, or as refugees who were coming hat in hand and who would need a good deal of help from the American Jewish community? The American Jews were somewhat surprised and angered when the Soviet Jews made clear that they wanted and expected Jewish agencies to provide them with the same living conditions enjoyed by most American Jews. They did not ask, rather they demanded of the American Jewish professionals to whom the Soviet Jews came as clients to help them with jobs and to help them get established. The American Jews assumed that the Soviet Jews would be prepared to wait, to learn, and to listen. This was not the case. The Soviet Jews also accused the American Jews of being materialistic and crude. Their implicit feelings were that perhaps in coming to this country, they could help to refine them. The American Jews’ collective memory of the last cohort of Jews who came from Russia and eastern Europe, was that they were religiously observant or that at the least, they had some religious identity. They were people who had come out of the schtetel. They were not cosmopolitans. But in the 1980’s, the American Jewish community found that the Soviet Jews expected to be treated as heroes. They also expected to be treated as people who in many ways were culturally, educationally, and in their worldliness, superior to the American Jewish community.

Writing today in June 2002, it is clearly time to do another study and see what has happened to the Soviet Jews, their children, their integration into the larger American community, and their ties to the American Jewish community. Have they in fact proven as successful as that cohort of Russian Jews who came to this country a hundred years earlier.