- Population
- ~1,000,000-1,100,000
- Location
- Throughout Israel; largest in Ashdod, Haifa, Beersheba, Rishon LeZion, Bat Yam, Netanya, Ashkelon, northern and southern development towns and Ariel
Russian-speaking Jews are the roughly one million immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union, mostly in the 1990s, together with their children and some 100,000 who arrived after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Because the immigration law admits anyone with one Jewish grandparent, perhaps 400,000 to 500,000 of them are not Jewish by Orthodox law and cannot marry in Israel. Decades of Soviet atheism left most of them secular: they celebrate New Year's Eve with a fir tree and Grandfather Frost, keep Russian at home and read Russian-language newspapers. Engineers and doctors who once swept streets raised a generation prominent in high-tech, and Russian-speaking fellowships are the largest group of Messianic congregations in Israel.