3 Language Education in the Trilingual Situation: The Post-Soviet Jewish Intelligentsia in Israel between State, Community and Labor Market

The issues related to language education in the trilingual situation are discussed in this study, referring to the experience of the post-Soviet Jewish intelligentsia in Israel. While most immigrants to Israel since 1989 from the former USSR are of Jewish origin, their mother-tongue is neither Hebrew nor Yiddish, but Russian. In Israel, integration into the labor market requires Soviet immigrants to master both Hebrew and English, this despite the fact that the immigrant population is large enough demographically to support the continuous use of the Russian language