Some 8,000 Soviet Jews Will Have Immigrated to Israel by Year-end

Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel via Vienna is expected to total slightly more than 8,000 this year according to statistics from American sources made available to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The figure does not include Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union whose destinations are countries other than Israel, notably Western Europe and North America.

According to the figures received by the JTA. Jewish emigrants from the USSR via Vienna who are going to Israel totalled 7,460 in the first 11 months of 1975. Based on the monthly average of 678 persons, the overall total for the year should be about 8,138. The relatively small number of Soviet Jews who pass through Rome en route to Israel were not included in the statistics.

No figures have been made available on the number of Jews leaving the USSR for countries other than Israel. This number has been growing steadily since the 1973 Yom Kippur War and is estimated to amount to about 40 percent of all Jews leaving the USSR via Vienna, according to American sources. At that rate, the total number of Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union this year would be in the neighborhood of 11,300.

Emigration statistics for 1975 showed that the greatest numbers of Jews leave the USSR in the cold weather months. Last January and February, the exit totals were 870 and 809. respectively. In November, 1975, the last month for which figures are available, the total was 870. The lowest monthly departure figures were last May and July when emigrants numbered 470 and 490 respectively. But last June the departures totalled 710.

Jewish immigration to Israel via Vienna was 14,000 in 1971 and 31,500 in 1972. In the latter year, only 500 Soviet Jews went to countries other than Israel. Emigration from the USSR reached a peak in 1973 when 33,500 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel and about 2,700 went else-where. In 1974, 24,360 Soviet Jews passed through Vienna, of whom about 17,000 went to Israel.