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essional employment opportunities. These articulations, we submit, build upon the perceived motivations of migrants of either nationality to return home at times of global economic crisis. For contemporary highly skilled Israeli migrants, homecoming is an opportunity; aided by cultural capital earned abroad and close-knit social networks in the old–new country, both migrants and state officials understand homecoming as a second chance for improved living conditions in a socially familiar environment. It is this discourse of cosmopolitan localism, which underlines economic openness and sociopolitical closure, through which the latter attempts to appeal to its subjects overseas. Germans, on the other hand, are much more ambiguous about ‘coming home’. While, owing to a generous system of social benefits, Germany is seen as a safe haven at times of uncertain global economy, its migrants often perceive personal connections as key to professional success in the homeland. Their long absence from—and adoption of different cultural norms than those accepted in—‘The German System’ is perceived as disadvantageous and discourages some from going back. Such perception, which is not without support,3 suggests that one’s actual skill set is only one, albeit important, component in the decision of German—and, to a large degree, Israeli—migrants to ‘come home’. While they are sought after by their home-states through different SARPs, which imagine the desired returnee in particular ways, Israeli and German highly skilled migrants nonetheless resist these constructions and focus on more realistic risks and possibilities as they contemplate repatriation. Israel and Germany may seem, at a first glance, like an odd choice; yet, despite obvious geo-cultural dissimilarities, both countries share important political and economic characteristics, which make them worthy of comparison. Both are high-income countries, sharing an ethnicity-based citizenship regime (jus sanguinis), a restrictive approach towards non-ethnic migrants (Joppke et al. 2002) and a generally negative public view of foreigners (Rajman, Semyonov, and Schmidt
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 797 2003). More importantly, both have witnessed a considerable brain drain in recent decades (Ben David 2009; Borrmann, Jungnickel, and Keller 2007). Reasons for highly skilled departure vary, but the adverse effects of neoliberal economic policies on the welfare state, most notably the higher education system, and the post-2007 global economic recession have been acknowledged in both countries (Ben David 2008; Borrmann, Jungnickel, and Keller 2007). In Israel, sweeping academic budget cuts during recent years have had such devastating effects on the system, that the years 2000– 2010 came to be known as ‘the lost decade’ (Volenski 2012). Similarly, the German academic system underwent major modifications since 2000, including cuts at all levels, yielding a high sense of job insecurity and dissatisfaction (Lange-Vester and Teiwes-Kügler 2013). These internal challenges, coupled with the effects of world recession and theglobalracefor talent (Shachar 2006), drove both countries to set up highly skilled return initiatives. Israel’s ‘Returning Home at Sixty’ (Chozrim HaBayta BeShishim), ‘Returning to Israel for All the Reasons in the World’ (Mikol Hasibot Shebaolam)and the ongoing ‘Israel National Brain Gain Program’ (INBGP) join a long tradition of return initiatives, which encourage th