Absorption Minister Shlomo Rosen told the Knesset yesterday that the anticipated increase in immigration from the Soviet Union has failed to materialize so far. There has been no rise yet in the aliya figures since Oct. 18 when letters were exchanged between Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Sen. Henry M. Jackson detailing the U.S. Soviet understanding on emigration, Rosen said.
He said he hoped the Soviet authorities would soon lift the emigration barriers, as promised, and that tens of thousands of Jews would be allowed to leave the USSR “hopefully for Israel.” Rosen acknowledged that there has been recently an increase in the number of Soviet Jews who decided to go to countries other than Israel after reaching Vienna. Reports last week by a Jewish Agency spokesman put them at 27 percent of the total number of Jews departing the Soviet Union.
Rosen did not dispute that figure. He said the problem of the immigration fall-off and of the departure of immigrants from Israel depended as much on the settled population as on the newcomers. He urged “a rise in public morale and education toward love of homeland and Zionism without condition.” Rosen said that since his ministry was established in 1968, 250,000 olim had arrived in Israel and 220,000 had remained there.
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.
