Russian Students in Israel

...The process is not entirely painless...

...Only recently have government officials and university administrators begun a systematic effort to analyze the immigrants' problems and to seek ways of helping the newcomers overcome them as painlessly as possible...

...And the disjunction between the young newcomers' expectations and their new country's demands upon them has been the source of a certain amount of disappointment on both sides...

...To read foreign papers...

...They will usually experience a confusing block in communications, both lingual and conceptual, for even if one knows the literal translation of a Russian word in Hebrew, it may not mean precisely the same thing or it may have different connotations...

...those from the Baltic republics or other "new" territories (such as Bessarabia) taken over by the Soviet Union during or after World War II have the benefit both of the more recent association of their cultural milieu with the outside (i.e., Western) world and of being able to speak some other language...

...Very few Israeli students, at least after their freshman year, would think of going into an examination without having read some of the recommended supplementary literature, most of which is in English...

...once realized, it was received with incredulity...

...There is a wide gap between the proclaimed and actual values of the two societies...

...An Israeli psychologist who speaks Russian and is in daily contact with immigrants at one of the universities summed up the crises facing the newly arrived student from the Soviet Union: In the shock of their sudden transfer from a totalitarian order to a free society, many of the young become temporarily "drunk" on freedom...

...The switch from a hierarchical and essentially static social structure to a competitive and achievement-oriented one is very difficult...

...I used to take down the important data right away, but it always made the students nervous...

...One newly arrived student pointedly told me, "Not everything in the Soviet Union is bad...

...Underscoring the importance of those two missing years is the fact that in Israel most student "dropping out" occurs toward the end of high school-the part that does not exist in the Soviet educational system...

...Thus the purpose of the preparatory classes is to help the new immigrants develop into more proficient professionals and scientists than they would have become at Soviet universities...

...This may lead to indulgence in wild vodka parties, neglect of their studies, rejection of all authority-things certainly atypical for Jewish students in the USSR...

...The Israeli youth who finishes high school has in effect undergone a preselection process before he approaches the entrance exams...

...Even harder than the scholastic adjustment is the psychological one, requiring a transfer from one set of values to another that is completely different...

...Some of them are already taking courses in the regular programs of study...

...Second, it is safe to assume that most of the problems the students bring with them are fairly characteristic of the state of education in the Soviet Union...

...Moreover, coming here he must learn not only Hebrew but English or French...

...Of course, vast differences exist between individuals, some corresponding to the social level and geographical location of their former place of residence and study...

...One difference between a big power and a small but technologically advanced state lies in the number of high-quality professionals each needs...

...It generally takes the immigrant some time to absorb the idea that "the regime" is "us" rather than "them...

...The Israelis, too, feel somewhat uneasy adapting to people who come from an entirely different society...

...I wait until he leaves the room," the dean of students at one university told me...

...It is far from proportional to their respective sizes...

...most are still attending, or have just finished, the special "preparatory classes" set up within the universities to teach them not only Hebrew and the special vocabulary of their particular discipline but whatever subjects they lack that are required by their respective departments...

...But some of those who fail to gain admission in Jerusalem or Haifa are accepted at other universities, where the competition is not so stiff...

...I try to avoid taking any notes in front of a new arrival from Russia when he comes for his first consultation...

...In contrast, at the average Soviet university, even if the student had to do some "research" in the library (seldom the case with undergraduates, according to the new immigrants), all of the books were available in Russian...

...On the other hand, many immigrants resent the prevalent Israeli attitude that regards all things Soviet as hostile and negative...

...Why should a young Soviet citizen want to know English or French if he does not need it for his official work...

...They start a year later than Israeli children and receive only 10 years of elementary and secondary education, as opposed to the 12 years Israeli students must have before they can take their university entrance exams...

...They offer degrees in such subjects as "milk biology" or "textile chemistry," and the cousin of one Israeli I know is certified in "gasoline station engineering"-whatever that means in a country where service stations are still relatively rare landmarks...

...For those immigrants who began their studies in the Soviet Union and want to complete them here, there is the additional problem of the generally much narrower specialization at Soviet universities...

...There is a good chance it would make him suspect...

...Do you have to report on me to the authorities?' " Combined with this reflexive enmity toward "the regime" is a blanket distrust of any official act or statement: It is automatically presumed to be in the interest of the authorities rather than the citizen...

...Typically, this problem expresses itself in the ambivalence of most newly arrived students toward the Soviet system and society they left behind...

...The immigrants' rejection and suspicion extends to virtually anyone in a position of authority, including elected student functionaries...

...For example, "good" and "good for me" are very different notions in Moscow and in Jerusalem...

...To listen to the Voice of America...

...Those from the big cities are generally more advanced intellectually and educationally than those from the provinces...

...Except for those who studied foreign languages as a profession, speaking a foreign tongue was not, at least until recently, an advantage in the Soviet Union," explains a student from Moscow...

...The Israelis, they feel, do not help them in their studies nor do they make any special effort to ease their social integration into the student community...

...The immigrant students, meanwhile, find it hard to understand why this country, clamoring so loudly for the right of Russian Jews to come here, has not subordinated every other effort to the task of making their entry into Israeli society as easy and pleasant as possible...

...For a long while, the very existence of this problem was hardly perceived...

...Meanwhile, he is at a loss for the "points of orientation" that he feels should tell him "what the regime expects" of him...

...They rush from their classes to their jobs to their families and, when they talk, they exchange jokes from their last stint in the Army reserves," a young man from Riga complains...

...Academically, much depends on the amount of knowledge they have acquired in the Soviet Union-language, general information, and specific expertise in their chosen field of study...

...The pattern of higher education in the Soviet Union is probably well suited to its need to overcome a great shortage of middle-level personnel," explains one Israeli expert, noting both the limited orientation and lower quality of universities there...

...Then, one day, one of them blurted out, 'Why are you writing all that...

...This can be an almost overwhelming experience for someone who has always had everything decided for him by his government...

...The Israelis have yet to find the future Albert Einsteins, Leo Szilards and Mark Landaus they perhaps unwisely expected to discover in every group arriving from Moscow, Leningrad or Riga...

...CULTURE SHOCK Russian Students in Israel BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Among the thousands of Russian Jews who have immigrated here in the last year and a half are several hundred former Soviet students now enrolled in Israeli universities...

...Indeed, monolingualism is one of the major handicaps afflicting most students from the USSR...

...The mathematics a Soviet boy learns by the end of the first or the beginning of his second year of engineering studies is equivalent to what an Israeli boy has to know just to pass his entrance exams here," says a professor of the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology...

...instead of being rewarded for obedience and conformity, the newcomers find the premium on individual initiative and originality...

...The government there gave us our education...

...Unless they are among the few who attend the special "mathematics" secondary schools that add an extra year to the curriculum, Russian youngsters end up two years behind their Israeli counterparts...

...The other academic shortcoming of Russian students is the amount of time they have spent in school...

...There is a measure of truth in this, for most Israeli students are older, having their regular military service behind them...

...Psychological case workers are especially suspect, apparently because it is feared that their real task is "to send away" to asylums people "who make problems...

...Two factors make the students' encounter with Israeli reality especially fascinating: First, it reflects the same issues that confront many other Soviet immigrants, particularly professionals, who represent a hefty portion of the total (Israeli immigration authorities still decline to disclose detailed figures...

...It is much easier for a person who speaks two languages to learn a third (say Hebrew) than it is for someone who Eliahu Salpeter is a member of the editorial board of Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...The dilemmas of cross-cultural confrontation are not unilateral, however...

...On the one hand, the feeling that "the regime" is hostile, in opposition to the citizen, is almost indelibly ingrained in everyone raised in the Soviet Union...

...Their difficulties are both scholastic and psychological, though the two cannot always be separated...

...There are many things we think are bad in Israel, too, for example the manners of the young people...

...This makes any form of counseling extremely difficult, particularly during the period immediately after their arrival, when it is most needed...

...many are married, have children, and must hold down a part-time job, even if only to supplement their scholarships, which are smaller than those given to immigrants...

...Freedom, of course, confers a new responsibility on the individual to make his own decisions and determine his own personal life...

...knows only his native tongue to learn a second language...

...In fact, the newcomers are often rather bitter about their colleagues...

...At the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, only about half of those completing the preparatory classes pass their departmental entrance exams, and at the Haifa Technion the percentage is even smaller...