The role of established immigrants within institutionalised immigrant integration in Israel

Abstract

To which extent does the participation of ‘co-ethnics’ in immigrant integration policy implementation enable a more accommodating approach towards newcomers? Whereas immigrant integration policymaking has usually been envisaged through a host/stranger prism, Israel municipal departments for “Aliyah and absorption” (that is for Jewish immigration, and the integration of new Jewish immigrants) provides an interesting case: the last decades, they have primarily recruited established first-generation immigrants to cater for the newest Jewish immigrants settling in their cities. This article offers some new insights regarding the participation of these established immigrants in the implementation of Israel immigrant integration policies. On the one hand, these municipal service workers, and other local actors working towards immigrant integration, have permitted a more pluralist approach to socio-cultural integration; on the other hand, the rather partial diversity of these established immigrants –mostly Western Russian-speaking immigrants–, has limited the potential for an alternative, less ‘ethno-centred’ approach to immigrant settlement to develop.