A total of 13,176 new immigrants arrived in Israel during 1982, a 14 percent increase over the previous year. But most were from Western countries. The Soviet Union, the largest reservoir of potential olim remained virtually dry, the Knesset was told as it opened its summer session Monday with a debate on aliya.
The immigration figures were provided by Aharon Uzan, the Minister of Absorption. The paucity of aliya from the USSR was the subject of a separate report by Rafael Kotlowitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s immigration and absorption department.
Knesset members spoke of an aliya “crisis” because, despite the marginal increase from the West, overall figures were low relative to the Soviet immigration boom of the middle and late 1970s.
Kotlowitz reported that of the 114 Jews allowed to leave the Soviet Union last month, only II came to Israel. He said that was the lowest monthly figure since the mid-1960s when the Soviets first opened their gates a crack. “In effect, a month after the Jerusalem Conference on Soviet Jewry, we are now facing the total end of Soviet emigration,” Kotlowitz said.
DULZIN WARNS OF MEASURES AGAINST HIAS
Leon Dulzin, chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization Executives, continued to blame HIAS for the high neshira (drop-out) rate. HIAS aids Soviet Jewish emigres who opt to settle in countries other than Israel even though they leave Russia with Israeli visas, ostensibly to reunite with relatives in Israel. Dulzin said he would propose “tough measures against HIAS” when the Jewish Agency Assembly convenes here next month.
Uzan said his ministry was sponsoring a “door-to-door” aliya encouragement campaign in France He also said one of the chief deterrents to aliya — the high cost of housing in Israel — was being ameliorated. He said an immigrant could now buy an apartment on the private market with a mortgage loan covering up to 95 percent of the price.
But opposition MKs sharply criticized the government’s immigration policies. Dov Zakin of Mapam warned of possible wholesale resignations from the Knesset’s immigration and absorption committee to protest the ineffectiveness of Uzan’s ministry.
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