1992 Was a Bleak Year for Aliyah Though It Ended on Brighter Note

1992 has not been a banner year for aliyah, though it is ending on a positive note.

Immigration to Israel rose 20 percent during the second half of the year, bringing the year’s total number of new immigrants to 75,000, including about 63,500 from the states that formerly comprised the former Soviet Union.

But even with the surge this fall, immigration was down by more than half from 1991, when 176,100 people made aliyah, according to figures provided by the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Immigration from the Soviet successor states fared even worse. The 1992 total from the region amounted to less than half the 1991 total of 147,839 and just a third of the 1990 total of 185,227.

All told, some 475,000 individuals have come on aliyah since the autumn of 1989, when the Soviet Union began to permit Jews to emigrate in much greater numbers than ever before.

While aliyah is only a fraction of what it was two years ago, the immigration rate is again on the upswing. Approximately 7,000 olim arrived in December, among them 6,300 immigrants from Russia and the other ex-Soviet republics. Less than half that number arrived last May, the worst month of this year for aliyah.

“Despite our predictions that aliyah would be way down in 1992, the numbers were still a bit disappointing,” Jewish Agency Chairman Simcha Dinitz admitted in an end-of-the-year interview.

But he added, “We expect the total to reach 110,000 in 1993.”

Dinitz said the Jewish Agency still expects that as many as 1 million more Jews, representing about 60 percent of the remaining Jewish population in the ex-Soviet republics, will make aliyah in the coming years.

Dinitz, who also chairs the World Zionist Organization, said the aliyah rate from the republics is determined by three factors: conditions in the republics themselves, the availability of alternate destinations and conditions for new immigrants in Israel.

“As of today, there are no signs of economic or political improvement” in the republics, he said. “If anything, there are growing signs of intolerance against foreigners, and Jews fall under that category.”

As for alternate destinations, “most countries aren’t opening their doors to Jews in large numbers,” he said.

As for conditions for immigrants in Israel, “the new government has not made any revolutionary changes,” Dinitz admitted, but he said that “the trend is in the right direction.

“There is a great feeling of anticipation among the Jews still in the former Soviet Union. They believe that things will improve, especially when it comes to employment opportunities,” he said.

Outreach, said Dinitz, is the key to increased immigration. “We will work toward easing the process of aliyah,” he said. “This could mean anything from more direct flights from outlying areas to improved vocational training for prospective olim.”

Dinitz said the Jewish Agency also plans to double its educational activities in the ex-Soviet republics during the next year.

He said he expects the number of students studying Hebrew in Jewish Agency-run ulpan programs to reach 20,000, with another 20,000 young people participating in Zionist youth activities.

This summer, about 10,000 youths are expected to participate in 40 summer camps in the republics, where the emphasis will be on learning Jewish history, the geography of Israel and Hebrew, he said.

While the Jewish Agency has placed a great deal of emphasis on Jews in the Soviet successor states, aliyah emissaries are active in Western countries as well, Dinitz said.

Aliyah from the United States and France rose 30 percent each, while the rate from Britain increased 20 percent.

“While the figures are encouraging,” Dinitz said, “I wouldn’t get overly excited.”

He pointed out that the aliyah totals were still only 1,300 from France and 2,600 from the United States, where, he said, “people are feeling threatened by anti-Semitism and the discouraging economy.”

Although the Jewish Agency chairman said he does not expect a significant increase in aliyah from the West in the foreseeable future, he did call on parents and Jewish youth organizations to send young people to Israel for the summer or a semester.

“Many of these young people lack a Jewish identity, and time spent in Israel can combat that,” he said. “In five years, I hope to see 100,000 youths from Western countries here in Israel participating in one program or another.

“Israel has so much to give them,” he said, “and they have so much to give the country.”