Many of the 550,000 Jews who emigrated to Israel during the past five years from the former Soviet Union are settling into Israeli life, but most of them are unhappy, according to a new survey released this week.
The survey, which was commissioned by the Jewish Agency for Israel, matched criteria such as employment, housing and language skills against the immigrants’ own opinions about life in Israel.
The survey found that 86 percent of the immigrants were employed, one-third owned their own cars and nearly 40 percent had taken out mortgages to buy apartments.
But more than half of those questioned said they were dissatisfied with life in Israel. Much of the dissatisfaction was attributed to the immigrants’ work situation.
Survey results indicated that nearly half of the immigrants were employed in unskilled jobs, with only one-third working in the professions they held before coming to Israel.
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