THREE YEARS AGO, Adina Bankier-Karp was given a challenge many in Australia’s Jewish community would expect to be insurmountable: find 400 ultra-Orthodox Jews willing to answer a survey about their lives.
Members of Melbourne’s strictly observant sect, Adass Israel, are reluctant to engage with the outside world – let alone the wider Jewish community. The Gen17 survey is Australian Jewry’s only major population study. Ultra-Orthodox respondents and their views were coveted; when Gen08 (Gen17’s predecessor survey) was run a decade earlier, this cohort was notably absent from the data.
Bankier-Karp, a part-time PhD student at Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation (ACJC) and teacher Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne, has connections in Adass Israel and other strictly observant parts of the Jewish community. She also relishes a challenge.
“We hired a hall, we set up computer banks in the hall; we had men's and women's hours. And we got 400 people who were happy to fill it in.”
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The inclusion of ultra-Orthodox responses was a coup. But as the survey went public, another gap emerged in the data: Australian olim – Jews who have made aliyah to Israel.
“I had quite a few friends and family members who'd made aliyah who contacted me when Gen17 was in the field,” Bankier-Karp explains. “They said to me, ‘wait a minute, we were born in Melbourne. We were educated in Melbourne. We went to Zionist youth movements in Melbourne. How come we are not part of the story’?”
“I took that feedback to [the report co-author] Andrew Markus. Andrew said ‘we want to look at Australians who are in Australia.’”
Bankier-Karp saw an opportunity for further research.
Enter Professor David Mittelberg. The Melbourne-raised sociologist, aged in his 70s, is based at the Oranim Academic College of Education. A year earlier, he’d toyed with the idea of researching Australian olim.
“I've been in Israel for 50 years, and I've been writing on the issue about Jewish identity, Israel experience for a long time.”
When the two met in Melbourne, in 2018, conversation quickly turned to research ideas – his and hers. “David asked me what I enjoyed about Gen17 – because it had already come out by then – and if there was anything I thought had been missing,” Bankier-Karp remembers.
“He used a wonderful analogy: ‘Was there any more juice in the lemon to squeeze?’ he asked.”
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The pair agreed further research was needed on Australian olim. They wanted to uncover why olim made aliyah; how they viewed Israel; and what they considered to be markers of a Jewish identity.
With the support of the ACJC and the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA), Bankier-Karp and Mittelberg undertook a survey of 386 Australian Jews across Israel. Questions from Gen17 were replicated to provide a point of comparison.
The survey results, together with an accompanying report, were made public last week. They include surprising and noteworthy findings.
Despite the domestic issues and security threats Israel faces, the survey found a large majority (82%) of respondents reported a very high level of satisfaction with living in Israel. When asked about the next five years and ‘how likely are you to continue living in Israel?’ almost all respondents (90%) indicated they were Definitely/ Very / Fairly likely to continue living in Israel.
Respondents enjoyed stable, well-paying jobs and lasting relationships in Israel: three-quarters (75%) reported prosperous economic circumstances. While a majority (62%) were single upon making aliyah, nearly three-quarters (71%) had either married or partnered since.
Most (85%) experienced difficulties with Hebrew when they first arrived. Yet after living in Israel these difficulties were overcome: 85% they were Good/very good at ‘understanding Hebrew’ 78% were Good/very good at ‘speaking Hebrew’ and 81% were Good/very good at ‘reading Hebrew’.
Although sanguine about life in Israel, olim were not blind to the political and social problems that beset the country: 88% agree there is ‘too much corruption in Israel’s political system’; 61% agree that ‘Orthodox Judaism has too much influence in Israel’s society’; and 59% agree that ‘in Israel, non-Jewish groups suffer from discrimination’.
Australian Jewry should consider abandoning the exclusive philanthropic model that transfers financial capital to Israel in favour of a model that synchronises the transfer of financial, human, and social capital - Mittelberg and Bankier-Karp
On the topic of Jewish identity, Bankier-Karp and Mittelberg were keen to overlay the Gen17 data with the Australian olim data. Of special interest were the approximately 20% of Gen17 survey respondents who spent a year or more living in Israel but preferred to return to live in Australia. The researchers wanted to know how this cohort would compare with Australian olim who went to Israel and stayed to make Israel home.
Bankier-Karp says the data was strikingly similar: “An Australian Jew, who currently lives in Australia but has had more than a year in Israel is more similar to an oleh and an olah – in their attitudes, their political beliefs, their ideology and in their perceptions of what is core to their Jewish identity – than Australian (Jews) who have had very little to do with Israel.”
The authors conclude the survey report with a provocative finding. They believe more can be done to encourage and facilitate the economic success of olim:
“Australian Jewry should consider abandoning the exclusive philanthropic model that transfers financial capital to Israel in favour of a model that synchronises the transfer of financial, human, and social capital. A new model would not only facilitate aliyah, but also sustain the lives of the olim and in so doing contribute to the economic vitality of Israel,” they wrote in the survey.
They have called on the Israel–Australia Chamber of Commerce and the ZFA, as well as other organisations, to work together to “build transnational frameworks of enterprise and social capital, linking Israel to broader markets.”
Their research project is deeply personal – both researchers want to see Australian olim continue to thrive.
Mittelberg made aliyah in 1972 and has lived on Kibbutz Yizre'el ever since. He speaks proudly of its achievements in building a multinational corporation that is listed on the Israel Stock Exchange; selling robotic swimming pool cleaners across the world.
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“No Jewish philanthropy was involved with that. We're very successful. We don't need help. But imagine if philanthropists (in the diaspora) were able to create opportunities for occupational mobility and business structuring which would be conceived as being important for Israeli society economically or socially. And then they become an enabler for young olim at the beginning of their professional careers to network into those organisations.
“I think they would be doing something for Israel socio-economically, and for the olim themselves.”
Bankier-Karp, who divides her time between research and teaching English and Jewish studies at Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne, says the project gave her new insights into people she knew intimately.
“I've been working at Scopus for almost 22 years. Many of these (the survey respondents) are my graduates. And it's interesting to see where they've gone. And although I had the anecdotal evidence, to sit with them and see how they'd gone, that was fascinating.”
In the coming weeks Bankier-Karp will farewell her mother and stepfather, who are making aliyah. There they’ll join Adina’s brother and his family as well as her extended family of Australian olim.
For now, Adina is staying put in the Jewish community she loves.
Meanwhile, Mittelberg laments the coronavirus is “building walls that none of us ever imagined.
“I certainly thought I would be able to come to Australia at a moment's notice. At the moment, I don't know if I'll ever come again.”
READ THE REPORT: AUSSIES IN THE PROMISED LAND
Main photo: Photo: Australians living in Israel (Facebook)
