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Delegation Hopes to Go to USSR to Discuss Jewish Emigration to Israel

March 31, 1981
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The Russian Immigrants Association hopes to send a delegation to Moscow shortly, to discuss Jewish emigration to Israel.

Association president Yosef Tekoah, president of Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba and formerly Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, told a press conference here yesterday that the request for permission for a delegation of about four people, which he would probably lead, were being made through the Soviet Ambassador in Washington.

Tekoah said the delegation hoped to persuade the Soviet authorities to increase the number of exit visas being granted and to allow direct flights from Moscow to Israel to reduce the number of dropouts staying in Europe and going elsewhere rather than to Israel.

Only 80 immigrants arrived from the Soviet Union last month, while 85 percent of those leaving the Soviet Union stayed in Vienna awaiting passage elsewhere.

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