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Israeli Americans

Israeli Americans (Hebrew: אָמֵרִיקָאִים יִשׂרָאֵליִם, romanizedAmeriqaim Yiśraʾelim, or ישראלים-אמריקאים) are Americans who are of full or partial Israeli descent. In this category are those who are Israelis through nationality and/or citizenship. Reflecting Israel's demographics, while the vast majority of the Israeli American populace is Jewish, it is also made up of various ethnic and religious minorities; most notably the ethnic Arab minority, which includes Christians, Druzes, and Muslims, as well as the smaller non-Arab minority ethnic groups.

History[edit]

The number of Israeli Americans in the United States is estimated to be 191,000 according the 2020 US census.[6] Israelis began migrating to the United States shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948. Thus, during the 1950s, 21,376 Israeli immigrants moved to the US and the 1960s saw 30,911 Israeli immigrants, often seen as the first wave of Israeli immigration to the United States when 52,278 Israelis emigrated to the US according to US Immigration data.[7] A second wave of modest immigration continued with a total of 36,306 Israelis during 1970 to 1979, 43,669 in 1980 to 1989, 41,340 in 1990 to 1999 and 54,801 in 2000 to 2009. Since 2010, Israeli migration to the US has continued at around four thousand per year.

Culture and organizations[edit]

Various Israeli-American communities have their own newspapers which are printed in Hebrew. Communities arrange cultural, entertainment and art events (including celebrations of the Israeli independence day which usually takes place in Israeli-American demographic centers), and some have the Israeli Network channel, which consists of a selection of live broadcasts as well as reruns of Israeli television news broadcasts, entertainment programs and Israeli sport events. Hundreds of thousands of spectators view the annual Celebrate Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which touts itself as the world's largest celebration of Israel.[25][26] At the 2017 Celebrate Israel parade in Manhattan, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared the Sunday Shimon Peres Day in New York and announced a new venture to promote cultural heritage tourism between Israel and New York, as Cuomo marched alongside the son of the late Israeli leader.[27]


A variety of Hebrew language websites,[28] newspapers and magazines are published in New York,[29][30][31][32] Los Angeles,[33][34] South Florida, and other U.S. regions.[35] The Israeli Channel along with two other Hebrew-language channels are available via satellite broadcast nationally in the United States.[36] Hebrew language Israeli programming on local television was broadcast in New York and Los Angeles during the 1990s, prior to Hebrew language satellite broadcast. Live performances by Israeli artists are a regular occurrence in centers of Israeli emigrants in the U.S. and Canada with audience attendance often in the hundreds.[37] An Israeli Independence Day Festival has taken place yearly in Los Angeles since 1990 with thousands of Israeli emigrants and American Jews.[38]


In Los Angeles, a Council of Israeli Community was founded in 2001.[39] In 2007, an Israel Leadership Council (ILC) was also organized in Los Angeles, later it was renamed Israeli-American Council, and it has been active in supporting activities for Israel, most recently in 2008, it sponsored with the local Jewish Federation and Israeli consulate a concert in support for the embattled population suffering rocket attacks of Sderot, Israel where the three frontrunners for the U.S. president, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain greeted the attendees by video and expressed their support for the residents of Sderot. An Israeli Business Network of Beverly Hills has existed since 1996.[40] The Israeli-American Study Initiative (IASI), a start-up project based at the UCLA International Institute, is set out to document the lives and times of Israeli Americans—initially focusing on those in Los Angeles and eventually throughout the United States.[41]

Economic contributions[edit]

According to CNN, Israeli companies are establishing entrepreneurial ventures in New York City at the rate of ten new startups per month.[42] In 2022, there were 293 Israeli startups in the New York area, the most of any metropolitan area outside Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.[43]

Relationship with American Jews[edit]

Israeli Americans are generally seen as having less interaction with the non-Israeli Jewish American community and its institutions, often preferring to maintain ties of association with other Israeli Americans.[44] Jewish Americans, especially religious Jewish Americans, tend to maintain correspondingly sparse contact with the Israeli American community besides participation in religious ceremonies.[45] At one point, religious American Jews viewed "yordim" as being the antithesis of the Jewish people's "eternal hope" of return and permanent settlement in Israel, but now consider them an important subgroup within the broader American Jewish community. An estimated 75% of Israeli Americans marry within the Jewish community, as opposed to about 50% of non-Israeli Jewish Americans.[46] At the same time, younger Israelis in America are assimilating in increasing numbers.[47]

Comedian-writer came up with a Saturday Night Live sketch in 1990 called the "Sabra Shopping Network". Two years later, Smigel followed it up with "Sabra Price Is Right", starring Tom Hanks as a pushy Israeli game show host, Sandler and Rob Schneider as its presenters and Smigel as a cigarette-smoking announcer, all pushing shoddy electronics on hapless clientele.[48]

Robert Smigel

The concept for the 2008 movie, which was based on the skits "Sabra Shopping Network" and "Sabra Price Is Right", focused on Zohan Dvir, an IDF commando soldier, who stages his own death to fulfill his deepest dream—moving to New York to become a hairdresser.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

At the end of the 2005 film , the main character Avner (played by Eric Bana), who is an Israeli Mossad agent, decides to move from Israel to Brooklyn, New York, to reunite with his wife and their child.

Munich

Yerida

Israelis

Israeli Australians

Israeli Canadians

Israeli British

History of Israelis in Los Angeles

Middle Eastern Americans

Israel–United States relations

History of Jews in Latin America and the Caribbean

Cohen, Nir. "State, Migrants, and the Negotiation of Second-Generation Citizenship in the Israeli Diaspora." Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 16.2 (2007): 133-158.

online

Cohen, Yinon. “Socioeconomic Dualism: The Case of Israeli-Born Immigrants in the United States.” International Migration Review 23 (1989): 267–88.

Gold, Steven J. “Israeli Immigrants in the United States: The Question of Community.” Qualitative Sociology 17 (1994): 325–45.

Gold, Steven J. "Gender and social capital among Israeli immigrants in Los Angeles." Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 4.3 (1995): 267-301.

excerpt

Rosenthal, Mirra, and Charles Auerbach. “Cultural and Social Assimilation of Israeli Immigrants in the United States.” International Migration Review 26, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 982–91.

Rudolph, Laura C. "Israeli Americans." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2014), pp. 493–503.

online