Reports of high percentages of emigration from Israel were termed here today as “much exaggerated” by Moshe Rivlin, director general of the Jewish Agency. Addressing a press conference, he said that only 12 to 15 percent of immigrants to Israel left the country. This, he stressed, was considered “a normal percentage.”
Mr. Rivlin reported that the Jewish Agency was seeking to organize “group immigration” of professionals and that a first group of American teachers was already in a Beersheba Ulpan, a center for accelerated teaching of Hebrew. He said a group of Argentine physicians were expected to settle in the Negev area. Efforts also were being made, he reported, to encourage North African Jews who resettled in France, to make their ultimate home in Israel.
He said particular attention was being paid to students among such North African Jews and that many of them were already attending Israeli universities. An organization of university students originating from North African countries will hold its founding conference here next week.
The conference will be addressed by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and A.L. Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency executive. It will be attended by 25 delegates from France and 240 from Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
