Impact of the Israeli-Arab conflict on the Jews of Russia in Israel in the Contemporary Hebrew Novel

Abstract

From the first attempts to establish Israel until the present time, this entity has witnesseda history full of wars and uprisings with the Arabs, produced by its usurper presence itselfon Arab lands in general, and Palestinian lands in particular. This ongoing conflict cast adark shadow on all sectors of Israeli society, including the Jews of Russia, which has hada direct impact on Modern Hebrew literature in general, and the contemporary Hebrewnovel in particular. The importance of the study is due to the fact that it is the first study -as far as I know - to deal with the impact of the Israeli-Arab conflict on the community ofRussian Jews in Israel as this issue is discussed through two models of the contemporaryHebrew novel by two Israeli female literary figures from Russian origin. The two novelsare “Victor and Masha” (2012) by the writer “Alona Kimhi”, which addressed the problemof the political integration of Jews who emigrated from Russia to Israel during the waveof the seventies of the twentieth century, and the novel “The Lost Community” (2014), bythe writer “Ola Groisman”, which She dealt with the political situation of Jewishimmigrants – especially young immigrants – from Russia to Israel in the seventies andnineties of the same century .The study aims to reveal the position of Russian Jews on thepersonality of the Arab in light of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, in addition torevealing the extent to which the Israeli-Arab conflict affects the Russian Jews' sense ofsecurity and stability within Israel. This study adopts on the critical analytical approach,which includes analysis and interpretation of the two novels to highlight and address theissue of the impact of the Israeli-Arab conflict on Russian Jews in Israel. The study yieldsseveral results, including that the problems surrounding the process of integration into theIsraeli society, in addition to the state of war, insecurity and instability in this society, havecaused severe psychological damages to many Russian Jews. This eventually led to areverse immigration of a large sector of them.