Homecoming, immigration, and the national ethos: Russian-Jewish homecomersreading zionism

For immigrants entering a society characterized by a strong national ethos of homecoming, the interpretation of that ethos is Essential to their makin g sense of their new lives and reconstructing their identity. Our case stud y explores how immigrants interpret the Israeli national ethos while strugg ling over their position in the old-new homeland. Analyzing personal narrat ives of Russian-Jewish university students in Israeli society, we discuss h ow their multivocal critiques of the "national-Zionist ethos" reflect and f uel the heated and dividing discourse over national identify in Israeli soc iety of the 1990s. We explain how the homecomers read the national ethos, c onfront it, and participate in the local cultural discourse by their dual p osition as outsiders-insiders in the new society, together with their exper iences as a diasporic minority group, in the native land. We suggest that t he interaction between two cultural systems-the Diasporic heritage of the J ewish Russian homecomers and the Zionist ethos-broadens and elaborates the Israeli national discourse.