While the Jewish Agency for Israel is making preparations to handle as many as 100,000 immigrants a month in 1992, it does not expect an aliyah of that magnitude to materialize, despite volatile conditions in the republics of the former Soviet Union.
“No basic changes in the pattern of aliyah have been discerned, and so with monthly and seasonal variations, we expect a steady flow of around 10,000 olim per month during 1992, yielding between 120,000 and 150,000” for the year, Jewish Agency Chairman Simcha Dinitz told reporters at a year-end news conference Monday.
Dinitz was confident, however, that even at that conservative rate, an additional 600,000 Jews will have settled in Israel by the end of 1995, confirming his original forecast of 1 million olim since mass immigration began in 1989.
With one day in the month remaining, the Jewish Agency reported Monday that 9,509 Jews from the former Soviet Union had arrived in Israel during December.
That was fewer than a third of the 35,000 arrivals during the same month in 1990, but 17 percent more than the 8,098 in November.
As of Monday, aliyah for 1991 totaled 169,273 arrivals, of whom 143,705 were from the former Soviet Union and 9,754 from Ethiopia. That compares with a total of 181,759 Jews from the Soviet Union in 1990.
Dinitz said the Jewish Agency is completing its organizational redeployment in response to recent strategic and logistical changes in the now-independent republics of the former USSR.
“Israel has been fortunate in developing good relations with each of the individual republics and today maintains credible relations with many of their local governments,” he said.
16 DIRECT FLIGHTS WEEKLY
He announced that by the end of February, more than 16 direct flights weekly will be arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport from Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia; Kishinev, Moldova; Riga, Latvia; Kiev and Odessa, Ukraine; Minsk, Belarus; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
The aliyah infrastructure in those cities is being strengthened, and preparations are under way to open another terminal in Asiatic Russia.
Those come in addition to the five transit stations in Europe where emigres that arrive by land, air and sea transfer to flights for Israel. They are located in Budapest, Hungary; Bucharest, Romania; Warsaw, Poland; Helsinki, Finland; and Varna, Bulgaria.
The transit station in Varna, on the Black Sea, will eventually be closed.
“Direct flights remain the cheapest, fastest and safest route to Israel,” Dinitz said. “They can presently bring up to 20,000 olim per month.”
But “should the need arise,” he said, “the number of direct flights can be doubled, so that with the five transit stations, up to 100,000 olim can be flown to Israel in a month.”
The sea route is the least feasible, according to the Jewish Agency chairman, because it is the longest, least safe and costliest. But if the negative factors can be significantly reduced, sea routes will also be utilized, he said.
A Greek passenger and car ferry chartered by a Christian evangelical group landed nearly 500 immigrants from the Ukrainian port of Odessa last Friday in Haifa. They enjoyed nearly 10 times the baggage allowance of air travelers.
Dinitz said that while the Jewish Agency is cutting back on expenses at its various transit stations, it will still be equipped to provide a range of orientation and information services for olim, such as registration for Hebrew courses, employment services and housing.
“Israel’s ability to provide Soviet olim with satisfactory jobs, not necessarily in their professions, remains the litmus test of aliyah absorption,” Dinitz said.
He warned that unless Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir establishes “under his personal authority a state Employment Promotion Authority, pressures will grow upon foreign governments and by olim associations to allow Soviet olim to immigrate to other countries.”
In that connection, Dinitz disclosed that the German Embassy in Moscow has been compiling lists of Soviet scientists, engineers, doctors and other professionals who would be allowed entry into Germany for humanitarian reasons.
Other governments, including South Africa’s, are compiling similar lists, Dinitz said.
Since late 1989, more than 70,000 Soviet Jews have immigrated to other countries, including 60,000 to the United States.
On the sensitive issue of Ethiopian aliyah, Dinitz said continuing efforts are being made with the cooperation of the government in Addis Abba to reunite some 3,000 Jews remaining there with family members in Israel. He said the reunification would be completed within several months.
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