Integrating Caucasus Mountain Jews into Israeli Society

As part of the recent massive aliya from the republics of the former Soviet Union (FSU), a group of 55,000 Caucasus Mountain Jews joined the 15,000-strong community already in Israel. These earlier arrivals came for the most part in the 1970s. Other Mountain Jews descended from pioneers who arrived during the early years of Zionism and were part of the state-building effort. Today, some 80,000 Israelis - immigrants and their native-born children - can trace their origins to the Caucasus Mountain region.

The very traits that enabled the community to survive through the centuries now constitute serious obstacles to integration into Israeli society. Their desire for tight-knit communities, their distinctive language, and the conservative values that long sustained them are now a hindrance. JDC-Brookdale Institute's studies on Mountain Jews in Israel show some of the key issues now facing the Caucasus olim:

• Lack of Hebrew proficiency: nearly half of the adult Mountain Jews in Israel cannot write in Hebrew, and over a third cannot read Hebrew.
• Teenage Dropouts: the dropout rate is very high, with 25 percent of all Caucasus-Israeli teenagers under 18, and 36 percent of those between 16-18, dropping out, compared to 4 percent among the overall Jewish population.
• Unemployment: 50 percent of the community's adults are unemployed. Most of those working are in unskilled labor and therefore earn low incomes.
• Financial distress: the low rates of employment and the nature of the jobs have created widespread poverty among the Mountain Jews.
• Communal leadership: traditional communal leadership has been unable to find its place in the new Israeli reality, leaving a void which is only now beginning to be filled by a younger generation.

Of the range of issues facing the Caucasus-Israeli community, the serious levels of unemployment and the high dropout rate have been identified by the community and by service providers as the major difficulties facing this special community. JDC has focused on these two problems, and has developed a range of interventions to prevent the trend to drop out and to encourage employment of adults.

Success in this realm cannot be attained without the full cooperation and assistance of the community, which has much to contribute. The lynchpin of JDC's work with the Mountain Jews in Israel is therefore involvement of the community itself.

JDC is partnering with various government ministries in its work with the Mountain Jews, including the Ministries of Education, Labor and Social Affairs, Absorption and Housing. Other key partners are local authorities and the Israel Association of Community Centers.