In both New York and Los Angeles, approximately half of the Israeli immigrant population is employed as managers, administrators, professionals or technical specialists. According to the 2000 US Census, Israeli Americans’ rate of self-employment––over 33 percent––is among the highest for all immigrant groups. This high rate of self-employment is achieved by extensive economic cooperation involving coethnic hiring, sub-contracting, and by the concentration of Israelis in a number of areas of economic specialization. Israelis are notably active in the real estate, construction, jewelry and diamond, retail sales, security, garments, engineering, information technology and media industries.

Available reports show evidence that increasing numbers of Israelis are traveling––and remaining––abroad since fall of 2000. The rise in numbers was not only due to increased departures, but also to fewer returns among Israelis living abroad (over 5,000 annually from 1993 until 1999, to barely 3,000 from 2000-2002).

Recently arrived Israelis tend to interact with established Israeli immigrants, relying on connections with them to become oriented in the host society, find jobs within the Jewish and /or Israeli ethnic economy and develop a social life.

Evidence about the national identification of second generation Israelis is mixed. One body of published research, as well as comments by some respondents that we have interviewed, suggests that immigrant youngsters––particularly those who arrived at an early age or were born abroad––are likely to identify with the host society.

However, other data suggest the opposite: that some children of Israeli immigrants retain an Israeli identity in Diaspora settings. Parents encouraged this by speaking Hebrew, socializing with other Israeli immigrants and sending children on regular trips to Israel. One study found that second generation Israelis in Chicago continue to call themselves “Israelis” rather than “Americans” by a wide margin, and another indicates a similar pattern among Israeli immigrants’ children in New York. During our own fieldwork, we heard numerous stories of young Israeli immigrants who demonstrated their commitment to Israel by returning to perform military service.

A third pattern of adaptation available to the children of Israelis is synthetic. Young people who often travel back and fourth between Israel and points of settlement may develop a multi-national outlook. Rather than developing discrete, nationally bounded identities, they feel connections to multiple locations and groups.

Steven J. Gold is professor and associate chair of the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His most recent publication is The Israeli Diaspora.

Every summer we would visit Israel, yet I did not feel entirely at home there either. I was a spoiled kid from ritzy LA who found Tel-Aviv dirty and hot. I loved spending time with my cousins at Gordon beach and hiking around the Negev with local Israeli summer camps. Nevertheless, during these visits, I was convinced that home was a plane ride away. Home was in Encino or Santa Monica, even LAX. Back in LA, though, the same sense of uncertainty waited for me patiently at the terminal.

My Israeli background did not usually serve as a source of pride, but rather a cause of confusion and even embarrassment. I even refused to speak Hebrew with my parents, answering in English whenever I was asked something in this foreign tongue.

Trying to blossom without roots can be very frustrating, and I would often be angry with my parents: why were my roots so far and distant from me? In LA I lacked that deep connection to place, people and heritage. My parents sent my brothers and me to Hebrew school and surrounded us with their Israeli friends and their kids. But these efforts to create a Jewish / Israeli identity always seemed forced and unnatural to me––as if we were trying to import roots from Israel and plant them in foreign soil.

When I turned 15 my family and I moved to Israel. The first years were hell. I didn’t understand the language and even failed many of my classes. I felt frustrated and alone. How could my parents do this to me? Right when high-school was getting exciting we move to this crazy country where I wake up in the night to the sound of the neighboring Arab village’s misgad (mosque). In the morning I would wake up to the sound of a donkey –– where the hell was I?

In the army my connection with the land, the people, and the country began to flourish. I was forced to question why I lived in Israel, why I served in the army, why was I ready to die for this country. Over time, a strong sense of belonging and identity grew within me. I began to feel very passionate about Israel and six years later I left the army as a captain commander, after stressing to hundreds of soldiers that Israel is our home and that we must fight day and night to protect her.

Now I study at Columbia University. Is it hypocritical to educate soldiers to serve their country and then get on a plane to NYC for four years? Today I know it is not. Growing up in Los Angeles and studying in New York has broadened my mind. I am able to appreciate what other Israelis often neglect, and I don’t take Israel for granted. I’ve worked hard to build my sense of home and reconnect to my roots similar to the way my people have, after thousands of years, built their home and reconnected to their ancient roots in Israel. Now that I have such a connection I am able to derive strength from it regardless of my physical location.

It brings me both pain and joy to see Israelis in the US searching for stability and identity, as I once did. Many are driven by economic goals and dreams; others arrive because they are sick and tired of a country that is so complex and intense.

Through my experiences, I was forced to search for the roots I felt I were lacking. Maybe other Israelis in America and other Americans in Israel are experiencing something similar. Whether I choose to live here, there, or in both countries, one thing I’ve learned for sure is that the search never ends.

Edoe Cohen is studying political science and economics at Columbia University, and Modern Jewish Thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

In literature, some of the themes are the new experiences in America, and nostalgia for Israeli roots. While it is hard at this time to evaluate the output of the Israeli American community within a historic perspective, it can be said that this community continues the long tradition of Hebrew creativity in America.

Currently there are two Hebrew weeklies in Los Angeles –– Shalom LA, the editor of which is Gal Shor, and Shavua Israeli, whose editor is the creative writer Meir Doron. In addition there is a West Coast supplement of Yediot Aharonot edited by Arnon Hadar. These papers combine news from Israel and articles about local matters that interests the Israeli American, a structure well suited for the Israelis who live in two worlds.

As for contributors to Hebrew writing in America, the following academics have published both creative work and research: Benjamin Harshav is well known for his academic publications and his poetry; Robert Alter has published books and articles in both English and Hebrew; Rena Lee Kofman and Abraham Balaban, research, poetry, prose and short stories. Moshe Pelie has produced and published research and prose; Aviva Barzel, Esther Fuchs, Mishael M. Caspi and Avraham Marathan have each published both research and poetry.

Other writers of prose, poetry, essays and short stories include Mordekhai Roshwald, David Rabbi, Yosef Weinbaum and David Kramer. Poetry has also been published by Edith Covensky (in both Hebrew and English), as well as by Avraham Linik, Yacov Halevi Haramgal and Leib Borovik. American-born Robert Whitehill has authored Hebrew poetry volumes. Other writings include Menahem Lawtman’s humorous stories and Rahel Kapen’s many essays.

There are scholars whose main works are academic, such as (and I ask to be excused for omitting the many names of important contributors to Hebrew culture in America), Dan Miron (published a poetry volume), Yair Mazor, Gilead Moragh, Sara Feinstein, Hayim A. Waxman, Yona Sabar, Zvi Yehuda, Nancy Berg, the late Gila Ramraz Rouch, Amram Gamliel, Zion Zohar, Moshe Avital, David Ben Menahem, Nancy Ezer, Shmuel Schneider, Shmuel Bolozky, Avraham Holtz, Naomi Sokoloff, Yael Feldman, Adina Ofek, Edna Amir-Coffin, Hayyim Tawil, Meir Havatselet, Esther Raizin, Yaron Peleg, Shalom Goldman. Gad Nahshon writes important essays and book reviews.

While Israel is, of course, the undisputable center of Hebrew creativity, the abundance of Hebrew-language creativity in America proves that Israel is not the only place where such creativity can flourish. Lovers of the Hebrew language in Los Angeles have been publishing BAMA that includes their art, poetry and short stories.

Hebrew has been central to Jewish culture throughout the generations. Even in small Jewish communities around the world one could find people with a remarkable knowledge of Hebrew, and communities dedicated much of their resources to further the teaching and knowledge of Hebrew. Today, however, the centrality of Hebrew to Jewish culture is not clear to everyone and there are those who take pride in reducing the requirement for Hebrew in Jewish studies. This is a tragic error. The future of writing in Hebrew in America will depend more and more on the Israeli element.

Lev Hakak is professor of Hebrew literature at the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. He is the author of numerous volumes of Hebrew prose and poetry.

Unfortunately, our holdings at UCLA are very limited. They include a substantial collection of Shavua Israeli, Shalom LA, Israeli community telephone directories, a few issues of the Council of Israeli Community newsletter and scattered issues of older publications such as Anashim and Koktel. We would really like to obtain complete archives of all these publications.

I don’t think other libraries have large collections of Israeli American publications either. Hebrew Union College and Harvard both have collections of Yisrael Shelanu, perhaps the longest running Israeli American newspaper, and Harvard has a few Israeli-Canadian publications as well. The Israeli magazines and newspapers published in Los Angeles are generally held only at UCLA. There is little in terms of newsletters or publications in US libraries that document Israeli organizations or cultural activity.

I am sure that the various Israeli community organizations in the US have such publications. It’s important for us to identify and archive this type of material. We would be very interested to obtain Israeli American yellow pages from different cities, as well as publications documenting Israeli community festivals for Yom ha-’Atzma’ut, Israeli Film Festivals and others.

David Hirsch is adjunct faculty at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and Librarian for Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies at the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library.

On one of his last visits here, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin held an official meeting with the local Israeli community––the first time he had done so. This marked a degree of acceptance back home that was internalized by the local Israelis.

This in turn has lead to another shift––the slow integration of the Israeli community into the larger Jewish community. This is evident in day schools, where Israelis often times choose to send their kids to get a measure of Jewish identity, even though their own degree of observance is at odds with that of the schools.

Having said that, it’s still very important to note that there is a rather distinct Israeli sub-community with its own social clubs, restaurants, social calendar, and newspapers (the two weeklies). But how many Israelis still declare that they’re going home soon?

One of the interesting phenomena that I see among Israeli (or Iranian or Russian Jewish) college students is that they are fluent in the spoken mother language, but can’t read or write. And few of the Israeli-American kids have a textured sense of what life is like in Israel. It’s a version of the idealized Israel that we see among active and identified American Jewish college students. I am not sure what this portends for the future.

Regardless, without the Israelis, Iranians, and Russians, the LA Jewish community would either have hit the wall demographically or be in decline. This is an important sociological datum that is all too often neglected. Moreover, these three communities have added tremendous cultural diversity to the LA community.

David Myers is professor of history and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA.