Fewer Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe have gone to Israel since the Palestinian uprising began 10 months ago than in the previous period, according to figures released here by the Intergovernmental Committee for Migration.
Regina Boucault, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based committee, stressed that the figures cover only Jews from the Communist bloc and Middle Eastern countries, not emigrants from Western Europe and North America.
From January to June 1988, 900 Jewish refugees went to Israel, of whom 840 were from the Soviet Union and 60 from other countries.
The figures for all of 1987 were 3,403 Jews settling in Israel, 1,969 from the Soviet Union and 1,434 from elsewhere.
The committee also provided a breakdown of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe and Middle Eastern countries over the last 36 years.
Since 1952, 419,329 Jewish refugees have arrived in Israel, 169,953 from the Soviet Union and 249,376 from other countries.
Annual arrivals from the Soviet Union rarely exceeded 1,000 between 1952 and 1969. In most of those years, they were under 250.
But between 1970 and 1980, more than 150,000 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel, an average of about 15,000 a year.
Thereafter, the arrivals dropped to only several hundred a year. In 1987, however, the number rose to 1,969, because of regulations that took effect under Mikhail Gorbachev.
The flow of Jewish refugees leaving other Eastern European and Arab countries followed a different pattern. The peak years were between 1955 and 1970.
Since then, an average of 1,500 Jews a year have come to Israel from those countries, the Intergovernmental Committee reported.
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.
