The Knesset’s immigration and absorption committee recommended today that Soviet Jews leaving the USSR with Israeli visas be flown directly to Israel as a solution of the drop-out problem–Jews choosing to settle in countries other than Israel. The committee proposed to Absorption Minister David Levy and World Zionist Organization Executive chairman Leon Dulzin that Vienna be by-passed as a transit center.
The drop-out rate, according to the committee, has been running at 50 percent and higher for the past two years. The committee believes that given the alternative of going to Israel or returning to the Soviet Union, the emigres will choose Israel. It urged the government to pressure the Soviet authorities to allow direct flights to Israel for Jews granted exit permits.
The committee said the drop-out problem did severe damage to Israel’s image and claimed that Moscow might use it against the emigration movement. The only effective way to deal with it is to close down the transit center in Vienna where Jews from the Soviet Union may opt to go to those Western countries that will receive them, the committee said.
It attributed the drop-out problem to historic factors, claiming that large numbers of Jews who leave the USSR have no Jewish identity and many deny being Jewish. Even those who do not deny being Jews lack motivation to come to Israel and are easily diverted by the material attractions of the West, according to the committee.
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