Acculturation orientations towards Israeli Arabs and Jewish immigrants in Israel

The State of Israel can be characterized as having two integration policies: an assimilationist one towards "valued" Jewish immigrants and a somewhat ethnist one towards its "devalued" national minority, namely Israeli Arabs. Using the Host Community Acculturation Scale (HCAS), this study explored Jewish undergraduate (N=153) acculturation orientations towards "valued" Jewish immigrants of Russian and Ethiopian background and towards "devalued" Israeli Arabs. Results showed that Jewish undergraduates mainly endorsed the integrationism and individualism acculturation orientations towards Jewish immigrants. However, they were more segregationist and exclusionist towards Israeli Arabs than towards Jewish immigrants of Russian and Ethiopian background. Assimilation was weakly endorsed towards both Jewish immigrants and Israeli Arabs. Based on an extensive questionnaire, multiple regression analyses showed that each acculturation orientation had a distinct psychological profile. The integrationism and individualism orientations were endorsed by undergraduates who were tolerant towards ethnic diversity, felt secure personally, culturally, and militarily, and did not endorse the social dominance orientation (SDO). In addition to not feeling threatened by the presence of Israeli Arabs, integrationists and individualists were identified as secular Israelis and Labour Party sympathizers rather than as religious Jews. In contrast, the assimilationism, segregationism, and exclusionism orientations were endorsed by undergraduates who felt insecure personally, religiously, culturally, and militarily, who tended to be less tolerant towards ethnic diversity, and who were more prone to endorse the SDO. In addition to feeling threatened by Israeli Arabs, they avoided close relations with Russian and Ethiopian immigrants. Segregationists and exclusionists were identified mainly as Jewish nationals, Orthodox Jews, and as Likud Party sympathizers. Exclusionists were distinctive in also feeling threatened by the presence Jewish immigrants of Russian and Ethiopian background. While taking into consideration the context of intergroup relations in Israel, results are discussed using the Interactive Acculturation Model (Bourhis, Moise, Perreault, & Senecal, 1997).