Disillusioned defenders? The integration challenges of American Jewish return migrants in the Israel Defense Forces.

There is a consensus within the ethnic return migration literature that ethnic migrants experience difficulty integrating into the ethnic homeland due to (1) state policies that inhibit permanent settlement and upward mobility and (2) social marginalization from the native‐born community. Absent those experiences, one would expect that ethnic migrants would smoothly integrate and be a successful example of nation‐building for the homeland. This paper examines lone soldiers in Israel (immigrants who do not have immediate family in the country) as an example of an immigrant group that is provided with substantial government support for integration and is publicly heralded by Israeli media as model citizens. Based on 52 interviews with former lone soldiers, this paper argues that even in an "extreme case" of state‐ and society‐supported ethnic return, lone soldiers feel marginalized due to their disillusionment with Israeli state politics and linguistic, behavioural and cultural boundaries between themselves and Israelis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]