Immigration to Israel was up slightly in May, but a key Jewish Agency official is warning that aliyah will drop sharply if the Labor government does not change the way it absorbs immigrants.
Some 6,000 immigrants arrived in Israel last month, including 4,910 from the republics of the former Soviet Union. That was up from April, when 4,060 arrived from the republics, but below the 6,120 who came in March.
An additional 2,494 Jews from the republics arrived in the United States last month under the government’s refugee program, according to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in New York.
All in all, immigration to Israel is running slightly ahead of where it was at this time last year. A total of 25,430 Jews arrived here from the former Soviet Union in the first five months of the year, compared to 23,440 who arrived in the same period last year, according to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry in New York.
But aliyah is still considerably lower than it was 1990 and 1991.
Uri Gordon, head of the Jewish Agency’s immigration department, has come under sustained attack this year for the relative immigration slump and the difficulties the new arrivals are encountering in their efforts to integrate into Israeli society.
He lashed back last weekend in a lengthy interview published in a local Hebrew newspaper, Malabus, in which he laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Labor government. He said its exclusive emphasis on the peace process has led to virtual neglect of the immigrants’ needs.
‘DRASTIC’ GOVERNMENT ACTION NEEDED
The Jewish Agency, he pointed out, is responsible for bringing the immigrants to Israel, while the government has the obligation to settle them, mainly by providing jobs and housing.
He said the Jewish Agency’s mission is being jeopardized by the failure of the government to do its job. If “drastic action” is not taken to improve absorption, he warned, whatever momentum remains in the flow of immigrants will stop.
The immigrants from the former Soviet republics, Gordon said, are writing to their relatives and painting a bleak picture of Israel that discourages them from making a similar move.
The Labor Party, he charged, has failed to live up to its pledge to help the immigrants in return for their support in last June’s elections.
A systematic jobs plan, for instance, should have been created in recognition of how critical jobs are to successful absorption, he argued. Instead, the government waited for the economy to absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and spent its money on unemployment benefits.
Gordon also criticized the government for failing to educate and sensitize the Israeli public to the meaning of the massive aliyah. Without such education, he said, the public treats the immigrants as “enemies and competition for jobs and housing, instead of as a blessing that can help strengthen Israel.”
Absorption Minister Yair Tsaban, responding in the newspaper piece to Gordon’s charges, joined him in lamenting the low priority being assigned by the government to immigrant absorption and conceded he is waging a constant battle.
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.
