Yosef Almogi, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, reported yesterday that 60 percent of the Jews currently emigrating from the Soviet Union do not continue on to Israel after reaching Vienna. He also disclosed that immigration during the first quarter of 1976 was off one percent from the same period last year. (A similar statement was made today in Tel Aviv by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress. See P. 1 for related story.)
The 60 percent “drop-out” rate is regarded as serious. Last year the number of Soviet Jewish emigres who chose to go to countries other than Israel was about 40 percent. The late Pinhas Sapir, Almogi’s predecessor, had warned that if it topped 50 percent it could endanger the whole Soviet emigration movement because the Russian authorities would then find it difficult to justify the departure of Jews to other minorities in the USSR who want to leave. The Soviet rationale for permitting Jews to emigrate has been re-unification with families in Israel.
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