Sapir Says USSR Agreed to Annual Emigration of More Than 35,000 but Never Agreed to the 60,000 Figur

Pinhas Sapir, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, said he learned during his recent tour of the United States that Soviet authorities had agreed to an annual Jewish emigration rate exceeding the record 35,000 of 1973 but never agreed to the reported figure of 60,000 or any other specific number. He said his information came from first hand sources in the U.S., including Sen. Jacob K, Javits (R, NY) who was directly involved in negotiations linking U.S.-Soviet trade with liberalized emigration practices.

Sapir, who spoke today to editorial staff members of the Jerusalem Post, said he expected 40.000 olim from the Soviet Union next year if the U.S. Congress passes the Trade Reform Act, He predicted that the majority of the newcomers would be from Soviet Georgia and Bukhara and the rest from Russia proper. Georgian and Bukharan Jews, generally poorer and less educated than those from European Russia, constitute the majority of emigres from the USSR in recent years.

Sapir said the phenomenon of Jews–including olim–leaving Israel to settle abroad was as old as the Zionist movement. and did not start with the recent wave of Jews from the Soviet Union. He said that during Israel’s first 22 years, before any large scale emigration from the Soviet. Union began, 170,000 Jews Ieft the country to settle abroad, and the current trend does not seem substantially larger.

Sapir also referred to the rising drop-out rate among Jews leaving the USSR who decide, while enroute to Israel, that they prefer to go elsewhere. Jewish sources in Vienna reported yesterday that 1100 out of 1700 Jews permitted to leave the Soviet Union during the month of November decided not to go to Israel after they reached Vienna and applied for visas to other countries.

Sapir warned, however, “If the Soviet Jews don’t go to Israel they won’t be allowed to leave the Soviet Union eventually.” He noted that Soviet Jews have already been barred from Belgium and West Berlin and he thought the U.S. it-self might eventually close its doors to them.

ALIYA FROM WEST MIGHT INCREASE.

Sapir expressed hope that aliya from Western countries in 1975 would exceed the 1974 total of 13,000 now that the housing problem has been eased, partly by government action and partly due to the effects of devaluation of the Israeli Pound. He said that devaluation had the effect of reducing the price of flats by 43 percent and that even when local prices rise, they would level off, in terms of U.S. dollars, to 25 percent below the pre-devaluation price.

Sapir conceded that the Israeli bureaucracy was a deterrent factor in aliya but said that not everything labeled “bureaucracy” was in fact the fault of the bureaucrats. He noted that a Young Israel group from the U.S. which sought to settle in Bet Shemesh was having difficulty finding housing because the apartment prices it listed in its original prospectus were far below the real prices. He said he hoped devaluation coupled with strenuous efforts by official bodies would save the project.

Sapir said his trips abroad in the future would be briefer than his most recent five-week tour of the U.S, and Europe. He also promised that Jewish Agency emissaries would no longer be appointed through political connections,