RUSSIAN-ISRAELI RELATIONS: THE ROLE OF THE RUSSIAN-SPEAKING COMMUNITY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

The article is devoted to the study of the large and actively developing community of Israel - the “Russian street” - and its influence on the relations between Israel and Russia. The author considers such aspects of the topic as: the differences of the “Great Aliyah” of the 1990’s from the first wave of repatriation of the 1970’s and the factors that formed the unique “Russian-Jewish” identity among the representatives of the “Russian street”, the political and economic potential of “Russian Israel”, the main areas of cooperation between the two states and the role of the “Russian” community in this cooperation. A specific feature of the work is the use of the hermeneutic approach which is expressed in the author’s desire to comprehend the unique identity of a specific cultural community and to identify a number of factors that have decisively influenced the formation of a unique identity of such a community in a specific historical period. The author also resorts to general scientific procedures and operations, such as analysis and synthesis, inductive and deductive methods. The scientific novelty of the research is the author’s attempt to give a forecast concerning the possibility of forming a pro-Russian economic lobby among Israeli businessmen in the future as well as a forecast concerning the return of our former compatriots to Russia with the goal of developing the domestic high-tech industry. The main conclusion of the study is the following: if politically the community does not have a decisive influence on the actions of the Israeli authorities, then economically, it unequivocally contributes to strengthening economic ties between Israel and Russia. Russia’s initiatives to develop various forms of economic, cultural and media cooperation can give impetus to the growth of the influence of the Russian-speaking community.