Qualifying the Leading Theory of Diaspora Jewry: An Examination of Jews from the Former Soviet Union in Canada and the United States

Abstract

The leading theory of the Jewish diaspora asserts that Jewish communities outside Israel are steadily shrinking and assimilating to dominant cultures, with the decline being especially advanced among Jews from the former Soviet Union. We test this proposition with data from the 2013 Pew Survey of American Jews and the 2018 Survey of Canadian Jews. Our findings suggest that Canada deviates from the global trend to a degree that affects even Jews from the former Soviet Union residing in that country. Although only about 25,000 Canadian Jews currently residing in Canada were born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated since 1970—a small fraction of the number who immigrated to Israel, the United States and Germany over the past five decades—the Canadian outpost is worth studying because its features require a qualification of the leading theory of the Jewish diaspora, namely that assimilation rates vary by identifiable features of national context.