In a series of meetings with American Jewish leaders the past few days, Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, urged new efforts to solve what he termed the growing problem of noshrim (Soviet Jewish emigrants who opt to go to countries other then Israel).
“I did not bring with me any solution to this problem,” Dulzin said last night in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I came here to place this grave issue on the agenda of the Jewish organizations and urged them to think of ways to reduce the alarming proportion of noshrim.”
Dulzin talked with the JTA during a reception in his honor given by the WZO. He attended the reception after addressing a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations where he said he pointed out that more than 50 percent of Jews who emigrated from the Soviet Union this year decided not to go to Israel. He said he also discussed the problem of noshrim with the leaders of HIAS, the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Jewish Appeal and other organizations.
Dulzin said that other purposes of his visit here, his first since he was elected WZO chairman last February, include discussions with Jewish leaders of an Israeli government plan to help rehabilitate some 45,000 families in Israel who are living below the poverty line. He said the UJA has already agreed to participate in this undertaking.
The WZO leader said that since his arrival here last Thursday he has also been dealing with the distribution of four major administrative portfolios in the WZO–treasury, immigration and absorption, settlement and youth aliya. Dulzin will hold a press conference tomorrow and is due to return to Israel Saturday night.
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.
