Transnational Migration to Israel in Global Comparative Context explores both how and why the recent influx of approximately 200,000 non-Jewish migrants from dozens of countries across the globe has led state officials to declare in definitive terms that Israel "is not an immigration country" despite its unwavering commitment to welcoming unlimited numbers of "homeward-bound" Jewish immigrants. As this innovative volume illustrates, the arrival of these economically motivated migrants, about half of whom are defined by the state as "legal" and half as "illegal," has dramatically transformed the local labor economy of Israel/Palestine. Moreover, the presence of labor migrants, along with smaller groups of asylum seekers and victims of trafficking in women, has also generated a wide array of complicated legal, policy-related, cultural, and ideological questions and dilemmas for the Israeli state, local municipalities, and civil society.Taking both the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's newfound embeddedness in globalizing labor markets as backdrop, this multidisciplinary collection investigates the causes as well as the consequences of these new waves of transnational migration to Israel both in comparison to other world regions and in terms of three interrelated levels of analysis: first, the micro-level of migrants' everyday experience; second, the meso-level of state and institutional policies and practices; and finally, the macro-level of global political economic trends and processes. Bringing together a dynamic array of pioneering senior researchers along with more junior scholars, the volume is distinctive not only in its incisive comparisons between Israel and other "destination countries," but also in its multifaceted analysis of how the Israeli migration regime has shaped, constrained, and on occasion been challenged by the arrival of these largely unanticipated migrants. Among the themes analyzed are the relationship between transnational migration processes and the simmering Israeli

Despite consensus about the importance of multigenerational analysis for studying the long-term impact of immigration, most studies in Israel have focused on the integration of first-generation migrants, neglecting key changes (in economic, social, linguistic, and identity outcomes) that occur intergenerationally. Rebeca Raijman tackles this important but untold story with respect to Jewish South African immigration in Israel. By collecting data from three generational cohorts, Raijman analyzes assimilation from a comparative multigenerational perspective. She also combines both quantitative and qualitative evidence with in-depth interviews and participant observation, thereby providing a rich and more complete picture of the complex process of migrant assimilation. While the migrant subpopulation of South Africa has not received the attention that immigrant populations from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia have, as English-speaking migrants they are a powerful and significant group. Given the status of English as an international language, this study has important implications for understanding the expected assimilation trajectories of Anglophone immigrants in Israel as well as in other non-English-speaking societies. South African Jews in Israel not only contributes empirical material concerning immigrants in Israeli society but also articulates a theoretical understanding of the social mechanisms underlying the integration of various generations of immigrants into a variety of societal domains.