Pinhas Sapir predicted that there would be large-scale aliya from the West, especially the United States, but at the same time reported a decline in immigration of Soviet Jews, The chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives expressed these views in response to a series of questions submitted to him by the Seven Arts Feature Syndicate.
Sapir stated that emigration from the USSR had declined in 1974 and the figures for January and February of this year showed a further drop. The reasons for the drop, he noted, are that Soviet policy has become harsher toward prospective emigrants and the Soviet rejection of the trade pact with the U.S.
“We must now intensify the struggle,” he said. “We must consider new ways of undertaking a public and political effort that will involve the entire Jewish people” and every other person or group that “believes in freedom and justice,” Noting that 30 percent of Soviet emigrants do not go to Israel, Sapir warned that if the figure becomes too high the Soviet government would no longer view it as a “homecoming migration.”
On aliya from the West, Sapir, who recently returned from promoting this in the U.S., said it is a “vital historic need” both for Israel and Western Jewish communities. He said that in the U.S. the Jewish Agency emissaries would help “the local communities organize their own indigenous aliya efforts.”
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.
