Contemporary Russian Jewry: a Psychological Portrait

On September 3 Eugene Tartakovsky (PhD, Professor of Tel Aviv University, Israel) took part in the «Culture matters» research seminar with the report on "Contemporary Russian Jewry: a Psychological Portrait".

The report presents the results of the study of Russian Jewry, conducted last year. In this study, the term "Russian Jews" implies all those Jews who lives in Russia and has the right to immigrate to Israel in accordance with Israeli Law of return. The questionnaire was filled in by about 1200 people that meet the definition and living in five cities of the European part of Russia.

The focus of the study was concentrated on the relationships between value orientations (method of Sh. Schwartz), ethnic and national identity, social contacts, and plans for emigration. For example, it was identified that discrimination is positively related to intention to emigrate, and life satisfaction, religiosity, Russian identification and some other factors negatively related to intention to emigrate.

The purpose of the presentation was to discuss directions for further data analysis and consideration of the psychological mechanisms that explain the obtained results.