Discussion
Jews are an ethnic and religious group known for its mobility. Economic opportunities and political situations are the chief factors that explain the distribution of Jews across the world today. Patterns of Jewish migration are well-documented in demographic literature. In the talk proposed here, the focus is different. Examining historical models of Jewish migration, this talk will relate to it as an early marker, a precursor, of a dramatic geopolitical shift.
Jews, as well as some other minorities, migrate in response to danger or significant uncertainty. Registering their movement early, measuring it and understanding its quantitative regularities helps to inform about the political prospects of countries and regimes. This predictive aspect of Jewish migration is insufficiently known to the scholarly community.
In this talk, the focus is on Jewish migration out of Russia and Ukraine in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war. Relying on statistical sources, the talk will examine this migration in comparison to migration of Jews out of other countries of Europe today and in the past. It will relate to the following questions: (1) what are the observed patterns of Jewish migration from Europe in the 21st century? (2) against this background-are there unusual patterns in Jewish migration from Russia and Ukraine from 2022 onwards? (3) what do the observed patterns of Jewish migration suggest regarding the political future of both Russia and Ukraine?
