Soviet immigrants got a true taste of Israeli life on Sunday, when employees of the Absorption Ministry went on strike to demand higher wages and more job openings.
But the strike was limited to two hours and tailored to cause minimal interference with the processing of immigrants from the Soviet Union.
Only a handful of workers from the processing force at Ben-Gurion Airport joined their colleagues in a protest rally at ministry headquarters in Jerusalem.
The eight who remained on the job were enough to handle the two planeloads of immigrants that arrived Sunday morning from Moscow via Budapest.
“Although we complain about our poor wages, we are Jews and we must absorb aliyah,” said Avraham Schusterman, head of the absorption unit at the airport.
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