Fisher: Statements on Dropouts by Dulzin, Levinsky Are Not Helpful

Max Fisher, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency, declared Friday that he, as chairman, had not been informed of the meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive last Tuesday in Jerusalem at which Agency treasurer Akiva Levinsky proposed that the time allocated for Soviet Jewish emigrants to stay in Vienna should be limited to several hours only Levinsky said at the meeting that he hoped that limitation would make it unnecessary for HIAS to function in Vienna.

Fisher, speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by telephone from Miami, said that Levinsky’s statement, “in no way reflects the policy of the Agency Board of Governors,” adding that Levinsky could have been speaking only as an individual and not as Jewish Agency treasurer.

According to the report from Jerusalem, Jewish Agency Executive chairman Leon Dulzin sent a cable last Tuesday to Fisher, asking him to convene a meeting of American Jewish leaders who are serving on a special committee formed to seek to reduce the dropout rate of Soviet Jews — Jews who, once reaching Vienna, decide to continue on to countries other than Israel.

In his statement to the JTA, Fisher sold he expected to call a meeting of that committee very shortly but he added that statements of the nature of those made by Levinsky and Dulzin as to what the American Jewish community “should do about dropouts are divisive and not helpful to efforts to try to solve the problem.”

Fisher also said that the American Jewish community “has made strides on this problem” by reducing the cost of settlement of the Soviet Jews and that “one must understand that statements from Israel on an American Jewish community problem do not help the process.” He said again all parties concerned were trying to work out a policy to encourage Soviet Jewish migration to Israel. Fisher said he had sent a cable to Levinsky and Dulzin expressing those views.