A Question of Identity: Israeli Volunteers in the Russia-Ukraine War
Military service and participation in war have been recognized as playing a key role in shaping national and personal identities, particularly in militaristic societies. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, hundreds of Israelis enlisted for combat, rescue, and humanitarian aid missions. This article examines the impact of participation in the war on the identity-building processes of volunteers, most of whom are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from post-Soviet countries. Through an analysis of thirty life stories of people who volunteered in Ukraine between 2022 and 2024, the study traces the interrelationships between the subjects’ migration-oriented and biographical backgrounds and their experiences of war. Based on Norbert Elias’s figurational sociology, the article analyzes the identity dynamics of the subjects and the ways in which personal biography and combat experiences mediate their relationship to social units of reference, both real and imagined. The main conclusion that emerges from the study is that participation in a foreign war is perceived as an opportunity to reshape, and even “repair,” the personal and familial life story, but at the same time constitutes an identity-disrupting event. While the identity work of the subjects strives for the establishment of a non-national subjectivity, freed from the dual commitment to both Israeli and post-Soviet identity, participation in the war gives rise to a vague and fragmented experience of identity that accompanies them during and after the volunteering period.
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