In the 1990s most of the second largest Jewish Diaspora population, which resided in
the former Soviet Union (FSU), changed their places of residence. Whereas the
majority emigrated to Israel, the rest were divided mostly between the USA and
Germany. In fact, this was a continuation of the mass migration which started in the
1970s, and was temporarily stopped in the 1980s. However, the emigration of the
1990s was much more numerous than that of the 1970s. The aims of this paper are to
present (post-) Soviet Jewish resettlement, and to study the demographic
transformation in the course of this mass migration.
We shall study emigration to outside the FSU, and to Israel in particular, as
well as out-migration from Israel of FSU immigrants. In our analysis we shall
compare the demographic characteristics of Soviet Jewry at the onset of the recent
mass emigration of the 1990s with those of (post-) Soviet immigrants in Israel, who
have become the most populous group of the Jews originating from the FSU. For a
better understanding of the problem we shall study the demographic changes amongthe Jews who remained in the FSU, mostly in the Russian Federation. Of course,
necessary attention will be paid to the general demographic situation and its
development in both the sending and receiving countries. Fortunately statistics of
these countries, as a rare exception, contain ample appropriate data which will be
utilized in the analyses.