The next generation: Russian Jewish young adults in contemporary New York

Abstract

This article provides a descriptive snap shot of Jewish, young adult children of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, now living in the New York Metropolitan area. By exploring their communities, friendship networks, patterns of language retention and acquisition and the ways in which they construct their Jewish identity, the article seeks to understand how this new “second generation ” is being incorporated into American, and American Jewish life. The majority of second generation Russian Jews, show a strong sense of Jewish ethnic identity. Jewish religious identity is a more mixed picture. A significant minority have become traditionally observant. An almost equal sized minority is not at all religious and in some cases even anti-religious, while others insist on the right to redefine “Jewish” in their own terms. The large majority of the respondents and their families received some assistance on arrival from the organized Jewish community. While most of the young Russian speaking Jews are economically upwardly mobile and many express gratitude to the Jewish community for its help, many are resentful of educational and religious institutions who they feel pressured them into becoming more observant and whom they describe as insensitive to the conflicts between the second generation and their immigrant parents this caused, as well as to the Russian speaking Jew’s ethnic distinctiveness