Tzadia, E. and Yacobi H. (2007), Identity, Migration, and the City

Tzadia, E. and Yacobi H. (2007), Identity, Migration, and the City: Russian Immigrants in Contested Urban Space in Israel, Urban Geography, Vol.28 No5, pp.436-452 Abstract: This article deals with the way in which Russian immigrant identify with the Israeli national project, highlighting the process through which this identification occurs and its effect on the urban context. Our main argument is that this identification has risen through interrelated processes including the ideology of the Israel state and the history of settlement, the Russian social constructs of ethnicity and power, and local policies through which the state and the private sector produce neighborhood space. More specifically, the article focuses on the ethnic relations and urban policies among Russian immigrant in the Jewish-Arab "mixed" city of Lod in Israel. Through critical examination of political declarations, media sources, and urban policy documents, it examines the process of de-Arabization and Judaization and the cultural-political values that Russian immigrants hold in relation to nationalism, minority-majority relations, and civil right as they knew in their homeland. It also explores the nationalist-economic conditions that the shape the nexus between public policy and free market actors and advance the national project of "demographic engineering. Key words: Ethnic conflict, identificationm Russian immigrants, mixed cities