Since the Shah of Iran was deposed and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power, 19,000 Iranian Jews have come to Israel, Jewish Agency chairman Leon Dulzin reported here.
Addressing a meeting of English-speaking new immigrants, he said that Iranian Jewish leaders had disregarded warnings of the potential danger they faced by remaining, thinking they were safe. But when the Shah fell, 35,000 managed to leave and 19,000 came to Israel, Dulzin said.
In addition, the Zionist leader stated, 180,000 of the 260,000 Jews who managed to leave the Soviet Union had come to Israel. He said that another 400,000 Soviet Jews had requested exit permits, but permits are now being granted by Soviet authorities only to those having “first degree” relatives in Israel.
Dulzin also reported that Israel had accepted and absorbed 95 percent of world Jewry who had nowhere else to go, including 800,000 Jews from Moslem countries. He declared that Zionism was fulfilling its role of providing a haven for Jews in Israel.
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