Reflections on Strangeness in Context: The Case of RussianJewish Immigrants in the Kibbutz

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Qualitative Sociology [quso] ph069-quas-345738 September 25, 2001 10:29 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999

Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 4, Winter 2001 (C© 2001)

Reflections on Strangeness in Context: The Caseof Russian–Jewish Immigrants in the Kibbutz

Tamar Rapoport1 and Edna Lomsky-Feder

This article elucidates and elaborates upon the contextualized meaning of strange-ness and the experience of being a stranger. Our empirical study of strangenessembarks simultaneously from the three leading theories of the stranger—as culturalreader (Schuetz 1944), as demarcator of social boundaries (Simmel 1950), andas trespasser of social categories (Bauman 1990, 1991)—and at the same timecriticizes these theories for artificially divesting strangeness of social context.Our thesis about strangeness-in-context is grounded in in-depth interviews weconducted with Jewish–Russian immigrants (twenty-one university students) whohave lived in kibbutzim. Our assumption is that the kibbutz as a “communal home”is a suitable case study to illuminate the manyfold dimensions of strangeness,as it intensifies the tension between insiders and outsiders. In explicating theimmigrant’s sense of strangeness we claim the local context of the kibbutz interactswith the Israeli national definition of the immigrant as a homecomer.

KEY WORDS: strangeness; immigration; homecoming; kibbutz.

Life in the kibbutz emerged as a significant and meaningful chapter in“immigration stories” related to us by Jewish Russian2 university students whoimmigrated to Israel from the former USSR in the beginning of the 1990s. Thestudents’ encounters with the unique, collective way of life in the kibbutz gave riseto manifold multicolored tales of this relatively short yet distinct chapter in theirimmigration journey to a new society. All students who had lived in a kibbutz por-trayed the way of life there, related episodes and events from their daily life, andtalked extensively about relations with kibbutz members and among themselves,

1Correspondence should be directed to Tamar Rapoport, School of Education, Mt. Scopus, HebrewUniversity, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel; e-mail: [email protected].

2Both the immigrants from the former Soviet Union and the Israeli public use the terms “Russia” and“the USSR” interchangeably when discussing the former Soviet Union. Likewise, “Russia” and “theUSSR” will be used throughout this article to refer to the former Soviet Union.

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C© 2001 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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484 Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder

while concurrently reflecting on their situation and social position in the kibbutz.Encounters of their daily lives in the kibbutz disclose a sense of homefulness andease that is nevertheless coupled with feelings of unease and estrangement, often tothe point of feeling undesired and even rejected. Together with their experience ofan enriching and nurturing shelter, the students clearly voice experiences saturatedwith feelings of alienation and exclusion.

Even our initial reading of the immigration tales was dominated by the voiceportraying the sojourn in the kibbutz as a loaded and meaningful experience ofstrangeness. This experience of being a stranger in the kibbutz deserves attentionas it seemingly contradicts the idea and ideal of communal life and equality thatare at the heart of the kibbutz way of life. As a collective community the kibbutzupholds a promise to better humanity and human relations by realizing universalvalues in daily praxis. The Hebrew word “kibbutz” itself embodies this promise oflife and relations based on mutual responsibility, fairness, and solidarity. “Kibbutz”simultaneously denotes both the act of gathering together different individuals andthe result of this act; it is the creation of community and the community itself.Besides denoting a small communal home, when the word kibbutz is coupled withthe word “exiles” (Kibbutz Galuiot) it expresses the ideal of gathering the Jewishpeople from the different Diasporas to Zion—the big national home of the Jews.Israeli society perceives immigrants asOlim (those who ascend) and their act ofAliya is defined as a return to the homeland.

The creation of a community holds a promise of togetherness, closeness, andfamiliarity. In other words, communality embodies the promise for home and pro-vides an answer to human nostalgia, to homefulness (Turner 1987). The inevitablegap between the idea and the students’ experience of strangeness in kibbutz dailylife exposes and even sharpens the tension between insiders and outsiders, betweennearness and remoteness. Such a tension that, according to Simmel (1950), is al-ways present in human interactions is even more intensified in the encounter be-tween immigrant and the indigenous. Against this background, we consider thefirst-hand experience of immigrants in the kibbutz as an appropriate case studywhich reflects the intriguing manifold faces of strangeness. Moreover, delving intothe immigrant-kibbutz relation enables us to substantiate our contention that thephenomenon of strangeness is always power related and contextualized.

IMMIGRATION AND STRANGENESS—THEORETICALPERSPECTIVES

Entering a new society, immigrants usually tend to experience a sense ofstrangeness. She or he find themselves in a marginal, secondary position, anoutsider—the “other” who, at the same time, is an insider, the one who simul-taneously belongs and does not belong—a stranger. As the taken for granted as-sumptions of the immigrant are broken, a sense of anxiousness, discontinuity and

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Reflections on Strangeness: The Case of Russian–Jewish Immigrants in the Kibbutz 485

even a fear of chaos and lack of control are induced. At the same time, the immi-grant develops a new feeling of being free from old behavioral, cognitive, social,and cultural patterns.

Facing the unknown and the unfamiliar, the immigrant is obliged to reflecton the new social order and cultural patterns she or he encounters and at the sametime to be reflexive about her/himself. Concurrently, from their position outsidethe boundaries of the new social group, immigrants are experienced by the indige-nous group as blurring social categories and even polluting the social space. Theimmigrant-stranger threatens the existing order of the group and poses questions tothe indigenous, who do not necessarily know how to answer. However, strangenessdoes not necessarily imply only repulsion, remoteness, or vulnerability; it also of-fers mutual attraction and curiosity.

In this article we explore the position of the stranger and the experience ofstrangeness by drawing upon three different, leading theories of strangeness andthe stranger—those of Schuetz (1944), Simmel (1950) and Bauman (1991). Indelving into the empirical case study of the kibbutz to illuminate strangeness,we conceive the three leading theories as complementary. We propose that theirsimultaneous application, each penetrating and elucidating another dimension ofstrangeness and the stranger, is more useful in understanding this phenomenonthan reliance on any one of them in particular.

Schuetz, in his phenomenological theory, offers that the immigrant epitomizesthe situation of being a stranger. Schuetz argues that cognitive-phenomenologicalstrangeness is experienced by anyone who enters a new cultural group, whichdiffers from his/her basic conceptions. Immigration, he contends, is a situation inwhich the “taken for granted” is disrupted and disturbed. Schuetz suggests that insituating themselves in a new society and attempting to achieve permanent accep-tance or at least toleration by the approached group (1944, p. 499), immigrants arebusy decoding the cultural scheme of the approached group.

The immigrants’ strangeness is a state of consciousness constantly movingfrom the outside to the inside. The immigrant desires to become part of the group,to become familiar with it, and to act within it. For the strangers, the culturalpattern of the approached group is a “field of adventure, not a matter of course buta questionable field of investigation” (1944, p. 506) that they read. The immigrantas such is a cultural reader, engaged in a process of inquiry of the newly encounteredsociety and culture, critically reading and decoding her/his new surroundings. Sucha reading, namely, the process of drawing closer to the new society, is gradual anddynamic. Through it, the immigrant becomes acquainted with new cultural patternsand conscious of the fundamental discrepancies between the old and the new ones.Thus old patterns become increasingly irrelevant, as new ones take center stage.

As opposed to Schuetz’s cognitive-phenomenological perspective, Simmelproffers a structural theory of strangeness, attempting to explain strangeness asa universal component of social relations. Simmel, who is not interested in the

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strangers’ experiences, focuses on his/her social position as it develops through therelations with members of the new group, taking into account the strangers’ twofoldposition as an outsider and an insider. As an “organic member” of the new group,the stranger’s position synthesizes nearness and distance: “The stranger. . . is anelement of the group itself. His position as full-fledged member involves bothbeing outside it and confronting it” (1950, pp. 402–403). Such a position notonly demarcates the inside from the outside, but marks and guards the group’sboundaries. It is a fixed and determined position “by the fact that he [the stranger]has not belonged to it from the beginning, that he imports qualities into it, whichdo not and cannot stem from the group itself” (p. 402). Even when they developrelations with indigenous members, strangers are unable to penetrate the localgroup and ease their separateness and exclusion and thus will continue to beconfronted with the indigenous and remain outsiders.

Similarly to Schuetz, Simmel believes that the strangers’ situation provideshim with the freedom to examine new conditions. As a fundamentally mobileperson both in contact with the indigenous but not organically connected to them,the stranger “surveys conditions with less prejudice. . .he is not tied down in hisaction by habit, piety, and precedent” (p. 405). Yet while Schuetz is engaged inissues related to decoding the taken for granted, Simmel is engaged in explainingand describing the structural position of the stranger—her or his constant crisscrossmovement in and out of the group’s boundaries. Being engaged in explicating theadvantageous position of the stranger due to her/his freedom to move betweenpositions, Simmel, in fact, is to a large extent blind to the power differences betweenthe indigenous members of the group and those penetrating it from the outside.

Combining Simmel’s structuralism with the post-structural analysis ofDerrida and Barth, Bauman develops his own thesis of the stranger, discussingwhat he defines as “the social construction of ambivalence” (1991).3 He placesstrangers in the gray area, the border zone that they always inhabit. According tohim, strangers, who constantly vacillate between social categories, always embodyambivalent social positions. Their undetermined and equivocal location fostersconfusion and anxiety, uncertainty and repulsion. Being neither friend nor foe,standing between order and chaos, the inside and outside, they cannot “bewithothers.” As such, the stranger, the uncategorizable, threatens the very possibilityof sociation by bringing “the outside into the inside, and poison[ing] the comfort

3Contemporary post-structural theory (Kristeva 1991; Derrida 1997) explores notions that deal withthe situation of the stranger and hospitality. Embarking from a psychoanalytic perspective, Kristeva(1991) conceives strangeness as a person’s deep sense of being that is distinct from one’s outsideappearance and one’s conscious idea of “who I am.” She suggests that what may be most fearful tous in the stranger is the strangeness within our estranged selves. Looking at the existential situationof hospitality, Derrida (1997) conceives it as a paradox. He suggests that hosts may be prisoners oftheir own power and territory and therefore accept the stranger as their savior. Yet, as creative as thesetheories may be, they are beyond the scope of this article, as they focus on the psychological being ofthe stranger on the one hand and the existential being of the host on the other.

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of order with suspicion and chaos” (p. 56); thus “he threatens to wash out theboundaries vital to native identity” (p. 67).

Bauman is attentive to human desire to make distinctions and draw bound-aries. In his thesis, this accounts for the indigenous’ need to dissociate themselvesfrom the “physically close” strangers who remain “spiritually remote”—“[those]that bring into the inner circle of proximity the kind of difference and otherness thatare anticipated and tolerated only at the distance” (p. 60). Synthesizing nearnessand remoteness, the strangers threaten to upset the social and cultural order of thenew place.

Embracing Simmel’s view about the undefined, ambivalent position of thestrangers, Bauman moves further on, indicating their impact on the establishedgroup—their power to unsettle individual identity and collective boundaries. Para-doxically, it is the uncategorized and undetermined that have the power to generatechaos.

As we can see, each theory develops a different perspective of society andsocial reality by examining and elaborating a different dimension of the stranger:the stranger as cultural reader (Schuetz 1944), the stranger as demarcator of socialboundaries (Simmel 1950), and the stranger as a trespasser of social categories(Bauman 1990, 1991). Unlike Simmel and Bauman, Schuetz focuses on the sub-jective dimension of the stranger. Yet, being interested in her or his intentionalpassage from “being a stranger” to “being indigenous,” he is blind to the inherentambivalent position of the stranger and her or his impact on the receiving society.Regarding the stranger as one that moves forward from a state of stranger to a stateof being one of the group, he neglects to see the group’s power to intimidate andreject the newcomer. On the other hand, Simmel and Bauman, who focus on thesocial position of the stranger, are neither interested in the stranger as an individualnor in her or his possible transition from being an outsider to being an insider. Theyare intellectually engaged in making clear the position of the uncategorized, thenature of social boundaries, and the dialectic between order and chaos.

We suggest that a common shortcoming of the three theories is their universalaccount of strangeness and thus their blindness to its contextualized manifestations.Artificially divesting strangeness of social context, they neglect to discern thedifferent meanings and importance that strangeness obtains in different social andcultural contexts and social arenas. A related shortcoming of these theories, webelieve, is their regard of strangeness as taking place in a world devoid of powerrelations. Thus they decline to consider the relationship between the marginal,unsettled and anxiety-laden locus of the strangers and the manner in which theyexperience the new society.

This criticism lies at the heart of our empirical study of the students’ expe-riences of strangeness in the kibbutz. We contend that the sense of strangenessis simultaneously constituted in multiple, interconnected contexts. We claim thatthe national and local contexts interact in shaping strangeness. Consequently, the

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immigrants’ experience of strangeness in Israel (as reflected in our case study)should be studied in the context of the national definition of immigration as home-coming and sojourn in the local-communal home—the kibbutz.

THE COMMUNAL HOME AND OLIM

The kibbutz has a long tradition of hospitality stemming from an “open door”ideology that reflects its pride and confidence in its revolutionary way of life,and its related moral obligation to serve the entire Israeli–Jewish collective. As acommunal home, the kibbutz never withdrew inside its physical–social boundariesprotectively and always opened its gates to different types of strangers: members ofIsraeli pioneer youth movements, volunteers from abroad (Jewish and non-Jewish),and especially new immigrants, both individuals and groups.

Since the establishment of kibbutzim at the beginning of the twentieth century,many new immigrants (olim) have lived in the kibbutzim for various periods oftime. Over the years, kibbutzim have absorbed immigrants, either singly or asfamilies, but in relatively small numbers. Many newcomers have experimentedwith this way of life for shorter or longer periods of time, but most have notstayed.

The kibbutz is a unique arena for encounters between the immigrant and theresident, the outsider and the insider (kibbutznik). The social assumption is that,as a “communal home” combining ideology with praxis, the kibbutz is a uniquelyoptimal arena for absorbing immigrants and preparing them for integration intothe “national home” of the Jews, namely, the Israeli society. This uniqueness isattributed to the “total” and collective way of life in the kibbutz, as well as its deepcommitment to serve the national goal of absorption. Indeed, for many decadesthe kibbutz was considered the “identity card” of Israeli society that represents therealization of the Zionist dream.

The ideological, social, and economic crisis experienced by the kibbutzimsince the 1970s, coupled with a weakening self-image and a deteriorating signifi-cance and image in Israeli society, resulted in the decline of the kibbutz’s collective-national commitment. Nonetheless, the motivation to take part in the absorptionof immigrants has not totally vanished and is reinforced by other motivations,particularly pragmatic-instrumental motives (especially economic-financial) anda desire for population increase. In any case, the assumption that the kibbutz is anespecially proper and suitable arena for absorption is still strong both inside andoutside the kibbutz.

Although the uniqueness of the kibbutz as a collective way of life is fading,major communal arrangements and services have not been entirely cast aside. Theimmigrants are not part of the changes and do not really experience them. Forthem, the communal lifestyle is still alive: they still eat in the communal diningroom, are enrolled in the collective work plan, and are hosted by adopting families.

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Absorption Programs in the Kibbutz

The large wave of immigration from the former USSR in the 1990s promptedmost kibbutzim (ninety percent) to commit themselves to the national task ofabsorption and to establish a variety of programs to meet this goal. The mainones were First Home and Second Home in the Homeland (designed for directabsorption of individuals and families) andKibbutz Ulpans(Hebrew languageschools catering to immigrants and to Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers fromvarious countries). The latter is a six-month program that combines intensiveHebrew study (twenty-four hours a week) with residency and daily work on akibbutz (some programs combined stays in more than one kibbutz) (Vered 1996).The ulpan students eat in the communal dining hall and are allotted separatequarters (often in rundown and isolated kibbutz buildings). They are assigned a“housemother” who tends to their daily needs (e.g. health and laundry).

The only requirements theulpanistimhave to meet are to work daily in oneof the kibbutz’s manufacturing or service facilities for four hours and to sign aninformal document stating they will adhere to the program’s regulations and codeof behavior (especially the prohibition of drugs and alcohol, and a commitmentnot to miss classes or work). Each kibbutz that adopted these programs committeditself to providing suitable living quarters and special professional teams (teachersand counselors) to handle all responsibilities related to the immigrants’ initial stayin the kibbutz and in Israel. Being hosted by a nuclear family that is part of the largerkibbutz family, the immigrant gains security that eases the sense of strangenessand brings her or him closer to kibbutz members.

THE TELLERS AND TALES

The immigration wave from the former Soviet Union in the past decadehas added almost a million newcomers to the Israeli population, constituting anincrease of about twenty percent in the country’s population. The twenty-onestudents we studied, half of whom are women, arrived in Israel between 1990 and1994 as part of this large immigration wave and joined the Kibbutz Ulpan. Similarto other immigrants to Israel, their immigration was primarily prompted by thesocial and economic insecurity that occurred upon the breakup of the USSR. Inaddition, their leaving the former Soviet Union stemmed from their desire for anew beginning, their sense of Jewishness, and an openness to Zionism (on thepresent group, see Heider and Rapoport 1999).

All the students in the sample group were born to parents with post-secondaryeducation and had completed their own secondary education in various republicsof the former Soviet Union (fifty percent came from Moscow and St. Petersburg).Half of the students had parents in Israel. The students ranged in age from twenty totwenty-five (1996–97; only two were married), and all had spent at least two years

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in an Israeli university, primarily at the Hebrew University (eighty-five percent).The students conceive of themselves as part of the Russian–Jewish “intelligentsia,”referring by this self-definition to quality of education, type of knowledge, andcultural orientation, as well as criticism of the regime and its institutional structure(Markowitz 1993, pp. 125–136; Rapoport and Lomsky-Feder, unpublished).

The students stated that they joined the kibbutz program by chance ratherthan by choice, on the recommendation of fellow immigrants who had concludedthe program, or following the advice of Israeli absorption officials, either in Israelor prior to immigration. The main reason most came to the kibbutz was pragmaticrather than ideological—for the intensive Hebrew studies. Another reason wasto take time to “digest” the fact that they had left home and to explore the newcountry—“to check out what’s going on around me,” in Lyuba’s words (all namesare pseudonyms). Interestingly, we find no mention of an ideological motivationor a curiosity to experience a new way of life (as opposed to other outsiders in thekibbutz; see Mittelberg 1988a, p. 69).

Telling Kibbutz Tales

Most studies of immigrants in the kibbutz are primarily interested in evaluat-ing the success of the various absorption programs tailored for immigrants (e.g.,Wiesel and Leshem 1995; Ben-Refael et al. 1993; Duman 1990; Mittelberg 1988b;Mittelberg and Lev-Ari 1992, 1993). Essentially of a positivist-functional nature,these studies perceive immigration in terms of a process from “strangeness” tofamiliarity, from non-belonging to belonging, from outsider to insider. Gener-ally adopting Israel’s official ideology of absorption and integration, these studiespresuppose and project meanings onto the immigrants that are not necessarily rel-evant to their kibbutz experiences, while neglecting to listen to the immigrants’own voice. Among the studies on immigrants and other foreigners in the kib-butz, Mittelberg’s (1988a) is worthy of note. Questioning whether foreignnessand seclusion turn into familiarity and integration over time, Mittelberg investi-gates the encounter between the stranger and the kibbutz among different types of“outsiders” and distinguishes between the groups by levels of strangeness.

Contrary to academic research, the literature of young immigrants in thekibbutz (especially in the 1940s and 1950s) discloses their multifaceted experienceas stranger-guests: the disappointments and hopes, the oscillation from closenessto distance, the alienation and aspiration, the resistance and acceptance (e.g., Amir1984). The qualitative approach employed here affords an academic glimpse intothe experience of kibbutz life and enables us to unveil the “emic” interpretationsof the multifaceted, often inconsistent and contradictory experiences.

The students in our study narrated their personal stories in open, in-depthinterviews. Narrating about herself or himself commits the immigrant to self-examination of her life and intensifies reflexivity (Myerhoff 1980; Watson 1976).As the immigrants tell their story, they recount events and experiences while

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engaging in understanding and conveying their meaning. In this process they rely oncultural models—images, transcripts, social expectations and conventions—theyare familiar with. At the same time, they decode local models, juxtaposing newmodels with the old, and tend to favor certain cultural models over others. The story,then, brings together here and there, the personal and the cultural, the “model of theworld” and lived-experience. Thus the interview itself can be regarded as an arenafor cultural interpretation according to Schuetz’s phenomenological approach.

The interviews were conducted in Hebrew by three interviewers, one of whomis herself an immigrant from the former Soviet Union and a former resident in akibbutz. The interviews lasted an average of three and a half hours and usuallyspanned more than one meeting. Interviewees were first asked to speak freely oftheir immigration, with the researcher interrupting only to clarify unclear pointsor to elicit fuller, more elaborate descriptions. Then, each of the interviewersposed a set of questions on specific topics: images of the old and new countries,conceptions of “self” and “other” in each country, etc. The interviewees were alsoencouraged to speak in detail about significant people and events pertaining totheir immigration experiences.

The kibbutz tales were analyzed jointly by all three of us. The interpretationhere should not be read as a compromise but rather a product of hermeneuticnegotiation between the immigrant and the Israeli-born researchers and betweennative researchers holding different ideological stances regarding Zionism. Theseenriching hermeneutic negotiations ultimately contributed to our understanding ofthe interviews.

Analysis of the personal stories was carried out on three levels: (1) the in-dividual kibbutz tale—ascertaining the central themes in each tale and analyzingthe rhetoric of these themes in the context of the entire immigration story; (2) thebody of tales as a whole—collating and interpreting the central themes and varie-gated voices that appeared throughout the immigration stories; and (3) the generalcontext—analyzing all tales as a whole in the context of immigration processes.

Although we did not specifically ask about the kibbutz experience we were notsurprised when the students referred to this chapter in their immigration journeyas significant. The Israelis among us were well familiar with the kibbutz way oflife and spent time there in our youth on several occasions. The kibbutz, in fact, ispart of our biography as children of the Zionist hegemony, although neither of uswere ever members of a kibbutz. Thus, the immigrants’ depictions of the kibbutzreinforced and confirmed our taken for granted regard of the sense of distance andcloseness that an outsider experiences in the kibbutz.

THE MULTIPLE DIMENSION OF STRANGENESS

Our probing of the students’ kibbutz tales revealed a correspondence betweenthe different depictions of strangeness weaved in their stories and the three leadingtheoretical perspectives on strangeness: the stranger as a cultural reader (Schuetz

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1944), the stranger as demarcator of social boundaries (Simmel 1950), and thestranger as a trespasser of social categories (Bauman 1990, 1991).

Strangers as Social Demarcators

As an entirety the kibbutz takes care of and feels responsible towards the immi-grants. Such care stems from the kibbutz’s commitment to promote national tasksand ideals. In an attempt to assure its collective responsibility and commitment tothe immigrants, the kibbutz establishes institutionalized arrangements that supposeto mediate between the outsiders and the insiders. Such arrangements reflect theunderstanding that the outsider’s relation with the extended communal family ischarged from the outset and therefore requires mediation. At the same time the so-cial separation between the insiders and outsiders, as described by the immigrants,protects the insiders from them. This separation, according to Simmel, demarcatesthe boundaries of the local community, defining who does and who does not belong.

Tending and Nurturing

Essentially, the kibbutz offers the immigrants an alternative home during atransitory period in which they are “homeless.” Their transition is twofold: theyare immigrants taking their first steps in a new society, living in a kibbutz, and theyare young people in their transition process to adulthood. They are people whofind themselves within and in-between old and new cultures, as well as within andin-between childhood and adulthood. Both transitions entail a state of liminality,ambivalence and living in a “gray area” (Kahane and Rapoport 1997; Turner 1967).

Katya explicates the advantages of living in the kibbutz: “While still inMoscow I organized to go to a Kibbutz Ulpan for purely practical reasons. . .

I knew that when I get to the kibbutz I’ll have a roof over my head. I’ll have a sortof shelter for the first half year. I will be able to get acquainted with what’s goingon around me, plus learn Hebrew as well. Afterwards I’ll be able to manage.”

As a “small home,” the kibbutz provides the immigrants with basic existen-tial and social needs in a sheltered, protected environment. As opposed to otherimmigrants, who, from the very first day they arrive in the new society, have totake care of their own basic needs, the kibbutz allows the students freedom fromtheir daily chores. In Julia’s words, the kibbutz enabled her “to prepare for lifewithout going to the supermarket and thinking about the price of milk and bread.”Katya emphasizes the importance of getting concrete help: “What’s good is thatthey help, they help. There’s a special coordinator who is in charge, someone re-sponsible for the ulpan, if something needs to be translated, a letter needs to bewritten, work, university, they’d always help out. Even in the smallest matters.”

In light of their previous arduous physical and financial situation, and becausethey arrived in Israel with very limited material and financial resources, freedom

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from daily concerns is particularly significant to immigrants from the former SovietUnion: “When we [my father and I] arrived, the principal of the ulpan sent us tothe dining hall, and we ate, and it was our first really serious meal [since arrivingin Israel]. . .we’d been a little hungry because we’d only eaten a few tomatoes andone chicken which we had to share with seven other people” (Anya). Even Ya’acov,who expressed anger and harshly criticized the kibbutz (see below), conveyed asimilar positive feeling: “I felt very good, I had a good and cozy time and I was trulysorry to leave. . .After I left the kibbutz I felt the loss dearly. I felt like someonewho’d been evicted from paradise.”

In addition to providing basic needs, the kibbutz initiates educational activ-ities in an attempt to promote integration into the “big home” and enhance theimmigrants’ Jewish and Israeli identity. Along with learning Hebrew, the studentsare taken on field trips to familiarize them with the country; their interactions withkibbutz members during work and leisure time are also aimed towards this goal(see Mittelberg and Lev-Ari 1993, p. 30). Though grateful for the trips, the studentsare especially appreciative of the Hebrew lessons they received; all of them praisethe Hebrew teachers.4

Vlad summarizes the meaningful role of the kibbutz as a nurturing shelter:“You’re not in the city where you’re alone and don’t know anything. . .You’re withfriends and you can study and not give a damn about anything else; you eat, study,work and that’s it. You just enjoy life.”

From a perspective of several years, the immigrants portray the kibbutz’schapter in their lives using such terms as “significant,” “enjoyable,” “interesting,”and “worthwhile,” suggesting that a stay in a kibbutz is a good arrangement fornew immigrants: “My incubator in the Land of Israel. I’ve got a really beautifulpicture [of it] . . . It’s my most beloved place in Israel” (Tatyana).

The Adoptive Family as a Bridging Arena

The “adoptive family” is a unique setting devised by the kibbutz to bridge thegap between outsiders and their new communal home by easing their strangenessand giving them a feeling of coziness and at-home warmth in the milieu of a nuclear

4Beyond its role as a preparatory setting for learning to be an “Israeli,” the kibbutz also provides amoratoric setting for the new immigrants—a role it has always played for residing non-kibbutz youth(volunteers, members of Israeli youth movements, and the like). Ya’acov describes life in the kibbutzmainly in terms of coming of age, of a maturing experience among his friends. When asked in theinterview to give a title to his “kibbutz chapter,” he replied: “How I ruined my teeth.” In responseto the interviewer’s astonished face, he explained the metaphor he used, emphasizing his experienceof coming of age while experimenting with new behavior: “Because in the kibbutz I tasted vodkafor the first time and smoked a cigarette for the first time, and beer, and the entire agenda wasoverturned. . .Ruined teeth means a change in the routine of life, a very significant change. I’d neverbeen a drinker, I’d never been a smoker, to my regret I’d never been with a girl before, that’s it. . . Ibegan to be a sociable character which I had really never been before, no longer a goody-goody, achild spoiled by a Jewish upbringing.” In the Garden of Eden Ya’acov tasted the forbidden fruit. Thekibbutz transformed him from a child into a man.

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family. Indeed, some students experience “quasi-familial” relations in this setting.Asya (and her husband) had a positive experience with an adoptive mother whogreatly helped them:

We had a mother who decided she was our adopted mother [note the deliberate substitutionof “adopted” in place of “adoptive”]. She invited us to her daughter’s bat-mitzvah [Jewishcelebration of the coming of age] and took us on trips, really a charming woman. . .Andother than that, we had no such relations with anyone else in the kibbutz.

Yana is also grateful to her adoptive parents: “They are warm people andgenuine pioneers, they were the founders of the kibbutz.” But in the larger settingof the adoptive family, when with their children and grandchildren, Yana feels lesscomfortable: “I didn’t feel so good in their home, I can’t explain it, I felt like astranger. . . I didn’t enjoy sitting with them to eat meals.”

Ya’acov disagrees with what he believes is an imposed adoption and pointsdirectly to its problematic, asymmetrical nature, which he compares to the rela-tions between a “real” adopted child and his adoptive family: “When people meetthrough coercion and they say that this is now your adoptive family, I can’t acceptit,” because, he emphasizes, this is not a natural relationship that gradually devel-ops of its own accord. He is especially disturbed by the power of the adopter, for,in contrast to relations in a normative family, here only one gives and the otheronly receives: “I feel that I also have to contribute something. . .The only thingI’m supposed to do is receive and get to know and act nice and try to understand,but I also want to invite them. . .And then I feel like a beggar. . .For example, inthe kibbutz I couldn’t really invite them to my cabin.” The belief in the ideal modelof a “natural” family makes it hard for Ya’acov to accept the goodwill and effortof an adoptive family.

Living in a “Russian” Enclave

Lack of contact with kibbutz members, and especially isolation from theyoung people of the kibbutz, are dominant in the narratives: “We Russians. . .

hardly had any contact with people from the kibbutz” (Yana). The prevalent feel-ing towards the kibbutz members is one of distance and alienation, even if closerelations are sometimes established on an individual basis (see also Moyen et al.1995). For example, Ya’acov states: “I had a lot of friends in the kibbutz, Russians.I didn’t have any relations with kibbutzniks. On the contrary, I had a few confronta-tions with them which sprang from mutual misunderstandings.” According to Ira,the “two worlds didn’t meet. . .We used to live our lives in the ulpan, and thekibbutzniks led their lives separately, absolutely separately.”

In public areas, such as the living quarters, the dining hall and the workplace,the boundaries between the veteran and the newcomer, the insider and outsider,are demarcated time and again. In the great majority of kibbutzim the immigrants’living quarters are located on the edge of the kibbutz, near the outer fence, and are

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often rundown and neglected—in sharp contrast to the well-tended spaces of thekibbutz members. In the dining hall separate seating areas mark the difference. Infact, in recent years, in many kibbutzim it is mostly the foreigners who eat in thedining room, and, unlike the members, they are not allowed to take food out: “Thedining hall was the sum of communal life, and sometimes on Saturday evenings, forexample, when the kibbutzniks would eat at home, they would almost forget andseveral times actually did forget to bring us food. It actually happened” (Albert).

While the students did not generally establish close and meaningful relation-ships with kibbutz members, they did develop a tight, cohesive social group amongthemselves. Indeed, the most positive and significant memory of social relationsthat the immigrants recall concerns the other co-patriots they met and befriended inthe kibbutz. (They also cherish positive memories of their relations with immigrantsfrom other countries and volunteers; see also Mittelberg and Lev-Ari 1993, p. 21.)

Ya’acov stresses the retreat into the “Russian bubble” as his own choice:

I loved my [Russian] friends. The moment we left the kibbutz we stayed in our own circle,and you can say that we got out of that [kibbutz] framework, it was good. Really. . . I wantto emphasize that from the beginning and ’til now I move mainly in Russian circles. I don’treally feel any need to leave this environment and become assimilated [into Israeli society].

Long after Ya’acob left the kibbutz he kept in touch with “Russians.” Tatyanaexplains the power and attraction of the youthful group:

There was this very happy time, because there’s a group of young people. . .We were theretogether, tied to one another and we really needed each other. . .Because where can you go,to Afula [a small provincial town nearby]? To the kibbutzniks, with whom we had almostno contact? You’re alone there, within this strange atmosphere, you’re alone.

Establishing a community, the students create a supportive network and amoratoric arena that fosters the flourishing of different manifestations of youthculture: parties, sexual experimentations, and non-normative behaviors, especiallydrinking, “stealing” food from the dining room, and using the phone withoutpaying. The non-normative manifestations express a certain rebellion toward thekibbutz, whether conscious or not.

It should be noted that solidarity between the young people did not keepthem from drawing ethnic-class distinctions within their own group of Russianimmigrants. The students were engaged intensively in making such distinctionsmainly in the first stage of their stay in the kibbutz, when all are still strangers to eachother. Yaniv, from the Ukraine, distinguishes between two different camps, “theintelligentsia and the simple folk, who are coarse and speak in Ukrainian slangand not in the Russian accent of grown-ups.” Lera, who came from Leningrad,also distinguishes between Jews from urban centers and those who came fromthe Ukraine. She calls the female Ukrainian immigrants she has met “vulgar”and therefore prefers, she says, to mix with the volunteers. The stigmatizing ofother Russians dissolves during the stay. Essentially the distinction between theimmigrants and the kibbutzniks overrules inner distinctions.

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Being unable to penetrate the local group while being in contact with it, theRussian immigrants who remain outsiders establish a social enclave detached fromthe locals in which they feel socially and culturally welcome and secure.

Simmel’s (1950) deterministic account would contend that the immigrantsare and will be unable to overcome their separateness and exclusion. Even ifthey are institutionally taken care of and develop relations with individual kibbutzmembers, they will always remain outsiders, because they are not allowed topenetrate the communal home. At the same time the students-immigrants areinsiders, as everyone living in the kibbutz, either permanently or temporarily, isfrom a certain aspect an insider, “an element of the group itself” (p. 402).

Different types of outsiders-insiders, who have always been an element of thekibbutz, are necessary to prove the kibbutz’s openness and inclusivity in the faceof being accused of its sectorial ideology. The established category of the outsider-insider serves concurrently to demarcate the indigenous. The generation and con-solidation of the “Russian” social enclave designate the boundaries between localsand newcomers and at the same time fortify it. Moreover, they draw firm boundariesaround the members indicating the exclusive and excluding nature of the kibbutz.

Simmel provides us with a clear understanding of the dual position of immi-grants. From this vantage point the immigrants read the social order, daily life andpeople in the kibbutz.

Strangers as Cultural Readers

Before coming to the kibbutz, the immigrants’ knowledge about this settingwas scanty, gleaned mainly from stories told by Israeli emissaries, brochures orletters of relatives already in Israel. Their reading of the kibbutz was directed bytwo major cultural images they brought with them: the kibbutz as an Israelikolchoz(a Soviet cooperative) and as the incarnation of “beautiful” Zionist Israel. Ya’acovconstructed an especially romantic image from pictures he saw in brochures. “I’llshow [describe to] you a picture that was in the pamphlet in Russia,” he tells theinterviewer:

A fence, a white horse beside it, a very wide spreading wheat field, let’s say, and there’sa girl sitting on the fence, she’s got long hair and she’s cute. That’s the kibbutz. I didn’tthink that there are sometimes ugly horses in the kibbutz, that it’s cold in winter and hot insummer and there are cockroaches and disgusting work and people who aren’t nice. Thatwas the kibbutz for me—the girl and the white horse, do you see?

Later, the opportunity to experience kibbutz life first-hand replaced this naiveimage with a more critical one, shared by many of the immigrant students.

Sharing a home and rubbing shoulders with the members, the immigrants,like other outsiders, had ample opportunity to become intimately acquainted withthe kibbutz way of life—to examine home from the inside. In reading life in thekibbutz the students take on the perspective of an anthropologist, trained and ready

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to observe and read the society and culture he or she investigates. However, unlikethe anthropologist, their reading is neither intentional nor is it their reason forliving in the kibbutz. Their life there is one chapter in their journey to build theirlife in the “national home” they share with the kibbutzniks (Israel). Generally, theirtales offer an astute reading of the kibbutz and its members, and form a mosaic ofsubtle distinctions with regard to lifestyle, manners and day-to-day occurrences.

The students’ cultural lenses focus on two major themes: the “key figures” inthe social life of the kibbutz, and the parochial nature of the kibbutz. According toAlbert, the kibbutz and the kibbutznik form a lens through which one can observeIsraeli society and learn its ways: “Because kibbutzim and kibbutzniks are a largeand significant part of Israeli society. . . there I met for the first time the Israelitype who actually reflects Israelis in general.” Echoing this same convention, Yanaassociates the young kibbutznik with the native-born (sabra) hero (Almog 1996).She describes him as a strong, physically able male whose Israeli identity derivesfrom being a soldier, someone who is tough, is far removed from Diaspora Judaism,and does not belong to the “intelligentsia.” Yana, along with other Russian students,is not captivated by this ethos; rather, she and the others deconstruct this alreadyfading stereotype. Asya, for instance, refers to the non-heroic, undisciplined bodyof the kibbutznik: “My image [is] of a kibbutznik in an open shirt, with thesegray zippered slippers and his pants hanging down, with his stomach and rear-endshowing,” she says laughing.

The students are attentive to intergenerational differences in the kibbutz—between the founding fathers, who immigrated from thegola (the Diaspora—mainly Russia and Eastern Europe), and the native-born members (Evens 1995).While disparaging the younger generation, they express positive feelings towardsthe veterans (vatikim) with whom they share cultural roots. Tatyana warmly callsa veteran kibbutz member, with whom she worked in the petting zoo, “Grandpa.”She loved it when he used to sing her a Russian song about Stalin and the Kremlinthat he remembered from his youth. Yana observes the differential attitude of thegenerations towards outsiders. From her experience, she deduces that the elders’openness contrasts with the suspicious and conditional acceptance of the younggeneration: “I think it’s typical of kibbutzim that the older population of the kibbutzis more open to strangers, more inviting, more mindful of them.”

The immigrants’ astute view of the kibbutz distinguishes not only betweenthe generations, but also between the genders. They are aware of the prejudicesand lower status attached to women in the kibbutz (see Spiro 1979; Bowes 1989).Recalling her relations with different kinds of women, Asya exposes the kibbutzstereotypes: women who hold public positions are subject to gossip and otherwomen are ridiculed as “snobs,” considered tough, and labeled “bitches.” Anotherimage she cites—that of the elderly woman—replicates the kibbutz stereotype ofthe “nagging grandmother” as opposed to the “kindly grandfather.” She mimicsthem slightly cynically, saying: “It’s customary for all the grannies to come andsay to you, ’Would you like a cup of tea?’”

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The students’ cynical stance becomes even more evident in their representa-tions of the kibbutz as a parochial community—sleepy, impervious to the outsideworld, and stifling. Nina refers to the difficulty of maintaining one’s privacy:“Everyone knows about everyone and there’s no free will. One is jealous of theother; they make all sorts of small trouble. I didn’t like the relationships in thekibbutz.” Disparaging the “uniqueness” of communal relationships and solidarityin the kibbutz, Lyuba invalidates kibbutz ideology by insinuating its similarity tolife in thekolchozvillage:

They are simple people who gossip about one another and don’t have anything [else] todo. . .They don’t like each other and they don’t like strangers. . .The kibbutz is like anyother village in the world. It’s a closed society. People can’t live with each other even insidethe family, so they talk all sorts of nonsense and throw this one or that one out of the kibbutz.

Yana, who has lived in a kibbutz for four years, alludes to the personal impli-cations of living in a closed community:

Everyone there sleeps during the afternoon break, it’s simply obligatory. . .You can’t callpeople between two and five o’clock. It’s impolite because you might wake them up. . .Youget up [from the afternoon nap] and you go to supper, so who has a reason to get dressedup. . .So when Friday comes [when people dress for the Sabbath], how many clothes doyou need? And that’s it. But when you live in the city you have to look your best [all thetime].

According to Yana, the daily nonstimulating routine causes boredom and apathy.Like her peers, she is aware of the parochialism and pettiness in the kibbutz andthe feeling of stasis that reigns there.

The Russian Jewish immigrants view the kibbutz astutely and ironically. Theyde-heroize the kibbutz, suggesting it is neither the home of great figures nor of arich and meaningful life. Rather, according to them, the kibbutz is petty, unempa-thetic, and socially and culturally dissatisfying. Kibbutz life and kibbutzniks aremundane and certainly not “bigger than life.”

This manner in which the students observe the kibbutz is not unique. One mayhear very similar descriptions from other outsiders—both non-kibbutznik Israelisand non-Israelis from other cultures—as well as from people that have lived in thekibbutz in different historical time periods (see, for example, Amir 1984; Lieblich1984; Oz 1982; Shaked 1998; Shacham 1980). Thus although the immigrants havegrown up and were socialized in another culture, their reading of the kibbutz is notunique.

Had Schuetz listened to our students, he might have suggested that, in theirjourney to the Israeli society, the immigrants are busy decoding what is “takenfor granted” in kibbutz society. Schuetz would easily explain the immigrants’engagement in the continuous process of inquiry and interpretation of kibbutzsociety and culture and their critical reading of their new surroundings. From theircriticism he would depict their neutralization of the heroic ethos of the kibbutzand kibbutzniks and their reprovement of the manner in which the kibbutz treats

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those who do not belong. Furthermore, their voices corroborate his thesis that inthe first stage of entering a new society the strangers’ taken-for-granted is notshattered. Having no intention from the outset to join the kibbutz, coupled with thepre-defined, relatively short period of time, the immigrants’ stay there accountsfor their little inner confrontation between old and new cultural schemes.

Yet, Schuetz would not notice that while the students are quick to decodethe new taken-for-granted they encounter, they do not wish to normatively orideologically adopt it. Most importantly, by disregarding power structures andinteractions, his phenomenological approach is limited in its ability to accountfor the students’ sense of exclusion and rejection and their experience of socialisolation and marginality. To this very sense of exclusion we move in the nextsection, applying Bauman’s theory to explicate it.

Strangers as Trespassers of Social Categories

From their encounters with the kibbutzniks in the kibbutz’s communal areas,the immigrants developed strong feelings of exclusion and rejection. Relatingsuch an encounter, Asya recalls: “On the first day we arrived and were looking forthe volunteers’ quarters, some old women were walking on the sidewalk and weasked them in Russian and in English and they didn’t reply. Then later on, whenwe’d gone some way off, I heard them speaking in Russian.” The sidewalk, whichsymbolizes the crisscross movement between the private home and the publicsettings, is a highly charged area. In this arena, discomfort and ambiguity, relatedto the close/distant relations between members of the various groups staying in thekibbutz, are institutionalized. Whom to greet and whom to ignore is the pivotaldilemma of face-to-face encounters in a closed community.

Like Yana, Albert tells about an annoying encounter while walking on thesidewalk, from which he concluded that: “There was hatred of Russians in thekibbutz.” He elaborates about this experience: “I would walk along the path andsee a woman with a baby carriage walking towards me. I’d give her the rightof way and say ‘Hi’ and she’d turn the other way to avoid saying ‘Hi’ to me.”In this pseudo-intimate physical encounter on the narrow sidewalk, the motherdeliberately flaunts her disregard of Albert the stranger.

Writing about the lack of clear rules for meeting strangers, Bauman refers tothe art of “mismeeting”:

If one can not bypass the space they [strangers] occupy or share, the next best solution isa meeting which is not really a meeting, a meeting pretending not to be one, amismeeting[emphasis in original]. . . that is first and foremost a set of techniques that serve tode-ethicalizethe relationship with the Other. Its overall effect is a denial of the stranger asa moral object and a moral subject (1991, pp. 62–63).

The young mother who demonstrably rebuffs Albert, despite the gesture he madein giving way to her, is communicating to him that he is an outsider and unwanted.

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In her body language she de-ethicalizes her relations with him, denying him as amoral object and subject. Her negative reaction is stiff because she has to share anarrow space with a stranger.

The dining room is another narrow space that the kibbutzniks have to sharewith the immigrants (and other outsiders). As such it is also a space of social control.By means of food, the most basic human need and the very heart of hospitality,the residents signal to the immigrants that they are strangers. Sharp-eyed Anyaalso relates feelings of exclusion and rejection that she experienced with respect tofood: “They looked in your mouth [to see] what you were eating: that you wouldn’ttake two eggs for breakfast, but only one, and that you wouldn’t take food homeand all sorts of things. . . that you wouldn’t eat schnitzel twice. . .And the foodwas really bad. . .”

The Russians’ otherness is manifested in the kibbutz by means of differentstigmas concerning deviant or depraved behavior. According to Albert, “The youngpeople [in the kibbutz] used to write slogans on the wall like ‘We don’t wantRussians here’ and ‘We want a different sex.’” The native-born conveyed theirdissatisfaction with the outsiders by demanding that the kibbutz bring them femalevolunteers from Western countries. Sexual devaluation of Russians, portraying thewomen as cheap and easy (“Russian whores”), is a common response in Israelisociety (Golden 1996). Lyuba experienced it personally: “I had a boyfriend outsidethe kibbutz, so they said I was a prostitute and that all sorts of old men come topick me up every evening.” Deviant sexuality was not the only stigma attachedto the immigrants: “They thought that whoever comes from the Soviet Uniondoesn’t know how to work and make money and that Russians drink vodka andare alcoholics” (Tatyana).

The students offer several explanations for their social exclusion: the characterof the kibbutz members, who “don’t like people from the outside” (Lyuba), thelanguage barrier, the unbridgeable cultural gap, and previous bad experiences withulpan attendees. But the students also take responsibility upon themselves. Andthere are those who express empathy and understanding for the difficulties of the“non-voluntary hosts”: “I don’t blame them, they’ve got a life of their own,” saysGeorg. Looking back, some of the students regret not having made enough of aneffort to get close to the kibbutzniks.

Albert is the only immigrant who declines to negotiate with the kibbutz overhis marginality. He immigrated to Israel with a dream of fulfilling a type of broth-erhood, an intimate and supportive relationship, which in his opinion characterizesthe Jewish community. In the kibbutz he hoped to find a way of life resembling thecommunal life of the Jews in the Diaspora, a sort of supportive extended family.In the last kibbutz he lived in, Albert made a conscious effort “to break throughthe fence” of a society which, in his opinion, is “closed and doesn’t really wantto admit strangers.” He insisted on not being a stranger; he was determined to getto know the kibbutzniks and to reveal himself to them, aware that his strangeness

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caused mutual uneasiness. With the aim of gaining acceptance, Albert confrontedthe transparent gaze of the kibbutz members. The strategy he chose was “to im-pose an agreeable presence”: every day he would come to the club, take a seat bythe counter, smoke and deliberately greet everyone who came inside. The strat-egy succeeded, the fence came down, and the kibbutzniks began greeting him.Nonetheless, Albert understands that success does not mean actually being ac-cepted into the family. In his view, the contact between the newcomer and theveteran is contractual, revolving around the possibility of a comfortable life to-gether, but not love, certainly not in the initial stages: “I understood that I don’thave to be their friend. We just shouldn’t disturb one another, we should worktogether so that we can make a living.”

The Lowest Among Strangers

Asya, like the others, notes that the new immigrants in the kibbutz are rankedlower than any other group of strangers. The example she brings to clarify thispoint concerns discrimination in the allocation of vacations and pocket money (thestudents’ two main benefits during this period):

The immigrants’ ulpan is on the lowest rank, and below them are the volunteers. . .There’ssome kind of ranking. . .You are immigrants from Russia or you aren’t. . .Those whostudied at the ulpan and came from Belgium, from the United States, from all differentplaces, they’d be given a free day without any problem. . .There was also a distinctionbetween Russians and others about the money [the Russians received less] and it was reallyannoying.

According to Vlad, whereas the volunteers (who are not necessarily Jewish) areaccepted “as family” because “they come and go,” the Russians are not reallyaccepted because they stay on in Israel. Paradoxically, it is the distant Jewishrelatives, who are joining the Israeli national family, who are discriminated againstand relegated to the fringes of foreignness.

Albert offers a sociological explanation for the negative attitude towardsRussians in the kibbutz that links ethnicity and cohort. According to him eth-nic background and seniority are the determining factors in defining the Russianas stranger. Whereas in his native land Albert, like other Russian Jews, was ex-cluded because he was a Jew, in the land of the Jews he is excluded and stigmatizedas a Russian:

There are some stigmas here in Israel that were greatly influential [in the kibbutz memberswho refused to accept him]. . . It turns out that they [kibbutzniks] restrict and define youand you don’t belong to them. They’re Israeli, you’re Russian, as opposed to Jews andJews. . .The founders were Ashkenazi [like the Russians, they are of Eastern Europeanorigin] and they were old. Younger members were of Oriental origin, from India, and theyparticularly hated Russians, to my regret.

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When the interviewer asked Albert what he thought the explanation for this mightbe, he further elaborated his sociological explanation:

Stigmas apparently, a sort of xenophobia.A stranger at home[authors’ emphasis]. . . insidetheir home. . .And there are several reasons for it. They [the Oriental Jews] underwentextreme humiliation—their parents, when they came to Israel, and I think it was simplypassed onto us in some sort of sense. Besides, we were Russians, and in their eyes we werea little sub-human.

Disapproval of the Russian “invasion,” he explains, is especially virulent amongthe children of immigrants whose parents suffered humiliation at the hands of theveteran Ashkenazis; now they treat other Ashkenazis, who are the new strangers,in the same way. The Russians threaten the status of Oriental Jews, who are al-ready ranked low in the Israeli stratification structure. Albert alludes to Bauman’s(1990) more general account about the manner in which the stranger demarcatesboundaries and creates social distinctions. Along this line, the newcomers pose athreat of “infection” and blurring of the boundaries between those who belong andthose who do not.5

There is nothing self-evident about the relegation of the Russian immigrantsto the lowest status among the other groups of strangers. Ostensibly, as Jews, theyshould have an advantage over the volunteers who do not belong to the Jewishfamily. Even in comparison to Jewish volunteers from other countries, they shouldhave an advantage because they are fulfilling the precept of “return to Zion.” Yet thekibbutzniks, especially those of the younger generation, are much more fascinatedwith the volunteers from Europe and America (see also Mittelberg and Lev-Ari1993, p. 22), who bring with them the tang of a desirable, progressive world. TheRussians, in contrast, are grasped as exilic, as people who carry with them the tasteof the forgotten, rejected Diaspora and the anachronistic Jewish cultural tradition.

In short, the identity represented by the volunteers is desirable, whereas thatof the Russians is delegitimized. Consequently it appears that the strangeness ofdifferent groups vis-`a-vis the kibbutz cannot be lumped together under a singleconceptual umbrella. The different groups not only signify different historicaltimes and cultural identities (for example, an East European exilic past versus aWestern future), but also hold different statuses in Israeli society: the immigrantswill remain and may compete over status and resources and cannot be sent backto where they came from, whereas the volunteers and tourists will return to theirnative homes.

Bauman could easily account for the charged relations between thekibbutzniks and the immigrants and the exclusion of the dangerous, threateningand polluting newcomers. He would be attentive to the tendency of the kibbutzniks

5Feelings of discrimination and low status among the immigrants sometimes appear in other contextsin the immigration stories. For example, Anton, who tries to get rid of his Russian accent, contendsthat South American, French, and American accents do not exact the same social price as does havinga Russian accent (Lerner 1999, p. 118).

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to disassociate themselves from the “physically close” new family members whoremain “spiritually remote”: “[those] that bring into the inner circle of proximitythe kind of difference and otherness that are anticipated and tolerated only at thedistance” (1991, p. 60). The Russian Jews are not unfamiliar but rather relevantstrangers, as they are reminiscent of the “old” exilic Jew whom the “new Jew”desires to forget and silence. Arriving from the Diaspora, the immigrants threatento upset the hegemonic definition of “Israeliness” more than other strangers in thekibbutz who will return to their native homes. Synthesizing nearness (physical andfamilial) and remoteness (cultural), they threaten to upset the social and cultural or-der in the kibbutz. While their nearness suggests intricate moral relationships, theircultural remoteness—which, in fact, is not totally foreign to the natives—sparkscharged relationships.

THE EMBEDDEDNESS OF STRANGENESS IN CONTEXT

Embarking simultaneously from three leading theories on the stranger—structural, phenomenological and post-structural—our analysis aims to unveil themanifold dimensions of strangeness. Delving empirically into the case study ofthe kibbutz as a communal “total” and socially intense environment indicates thatstrangeness as such seems to always involve reading and decoding, demarcatingsocial boundaries and posing a threat to social order. The analysis corroborates thesalience of each of the three dimensions in constituting strangeness.

At the same time, our double-edged criticism of these theories for their uni-versal, essential account and disregard of indigenous-newcomer power relationsproffers that strangeness is always a contextualized phenomenon. Thus we prefera contingent, grounded rather than an a-contextualized conception of strangeness.Taking into account the aforementioned suppositions, we suggest that the inter-play between dimensions of strangeness and social context(s) is responsible forinducing variegated experiences of strangehood and meanings of being a stranger.

Our analysis indicates the students’ position of strangers and their sense ofstrangeness are embedded in their sojourn in the kibbutz communal home, butare rooted at the same time in the larger context of Israeli society, a society thatperceives Jewish immigration as homecoming—return to the national home. Thusour contention is that being a stranger-guest in the kibbutz and at the same timebeing a newcomer-homecomer interact in constituting “strangeness at home.”

The invitation to makealiya is extended by the national collective, ratherthan by individual members or families. As such, according to Bauman’s con-ceptualization, the stranger (or the homecomer) claims “a right to be an objectof responsibility” (1991, p. 59). This places Israelis in general in an ambiguous,tension-evoking position with regard to their moral responsibility for, commitmentto, and intimacy with the immigrants. This duality is expressed in the popular idiom“Israelis love immigration but they do not like immigrants.”

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By virtue of their membership in the national home Israeli Jews are sup-posed to serve as hosts. Since this is not of their own choice, their hosting is in asense involuntary or even compulsory. Thus the relations between them and theimmigrants are regulated by consanguinity and mutual distrust, at once suggestingmoral pre-contractual relations and engendering contractual relations. This tensionbetween closeness and remoteness, trust and distrust constitutes the experience ofbeing a “stranger at home.” Such tension is intensified in the kibbutz.

As part of its attempt to ease homecomers’ sense of strangeness and securetheir adjustment to the national home, the kibbutz invitesOlim to stay there. Theinvitation is extended to the immigrants as “distant relatives,” as members of thelarger “Jewish family.” As Jewish newcomers who are expected to join and em-brace the national home, the immigrants are metaphorically “brothers and sisters”of the kibbutz members—affiliated to the insiders by blood relations. Thus theydo not impose themselves or come by surprise as unexpected strangers-guests.At the same time, the immigrants are strangers because they grew up abroadin a different cultural context. As newcomers they bring with them worldviews,lifestyles, and socioeconomical interests that differ and often compete with thoseof the locals. Yet, as part of the Jewish “imagined community,” they are more thanmere strangers. In contrast to the volunteers, for example, who are interested inexperiencing a collective way of life (Mittelberg 1988a), the immigrants are notsimply passing through. Entering the world of the kibbutzniks and staying for aperiod of time, rubbing shoulders and sharing domestic daily life with the insiders,the immigrants are, in Simmel’s (1950) terms, the man who comes today (for apre-defined period of time) and stays tomorrow (in the national home). Therefore,their presence intensifies the tension and ambivalence between the familiar andthe foreign, friend and foe, insider and outsider. Such tension is always present inimmigration. However, whether the newcomer is regarded by the host society as ahomecomer, migrant, refugee or a person in exile determines the manner in whichthis tension is managed in different social contexts, and the newcomers’ distinctmode of experiencing strangeness.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is the product of a joint research project entitled “From ‘Being aStranger’ to ‘Being a Local’: Personal Stories of Russian–Jewish Immigrants toGermany and Israel.” The research is supported by grants from the Israeli ScienceFoundation, founded by the Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the NCJWInstitute for Innovation in Education, Politics and Society, both of the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, and by The Memorial Foundation for Research Culture.

Our heartfelt gratitude is extended to our graduate students with whom wediscussed our drafts and shared our intellectual struggle and who shared withus their insightful comments, and to Helene Hogri for her careful and creative

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editorial work. Our deepest thanks are also extended to the “Russian students”for sharing their experiences and reflections with us and teaching us great lessonsabout immigration, Russianness, and Israeliness. Finally, we want to thank theeditor, Robert Zussman, for his most helpful comments and encouraging us torevise the article.

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Documents

Reflections on Strangeness in Context: The Case of RussianJewish Immigrants in the Kibbutz