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Israelis from Russia: A voyage from atheism to religion

Despite the secular campaign by Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman, and despite their atheist upbringing, a significant number of Jews who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union have become religious.
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - MAY 08: israeli minister of defense Avigdor Liberman greeting the Veterans of the Red army celebrating and comemorating victory over Nazi Germany 73 yeras ago at the Isreali Parlament (The Knesset) on May 8, 2018 in Jerusalem, Israel. Total numbers of deaths during World War II vary but the Soviet Union bore an incredible brunt of casualties during WWII. An estimated 16,825,000 people died in the war, over 15% of its population, many of them were jewish soldiers and Partisan fighters. In
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In late 2018, Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman dissolved the government he was a part of. Since then, bloody battles have been waged on social media between Liberman’s supporters and opponents. But the opponents in this case are not necessarily part of an opposite political camp. Liberman immigrated to Israel from Moldova in 1978, and a significant part of his electorate are former immigrants like him. The debates for and against his ideas often take place within these circles. In fact, these debates take place in Russian, with the participation of new and old immigrants, who arrived from the Soviet Union or the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Liberman and his demands in the realm of religion and state — civil marriage, public transportation on the Sabbath and enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox — are attacked again and again by those who immigrated, just like him, from Moldova, Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, but hold an essentially different set of values. This group believes that in a Jewish state there is no need for public transportation on the Sabbath, that whoever does not want to marry in the faith of Moses and Israel is welcome to travel to Cyprus or leave Israel — Israeli law enables only religious weddings, not civil marriages — and that the enlistment of yeshiva students is not feasible or really necessary.

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