From South America to South Israel

Under the slogan “From South America to South Israel” the Association of Latin Americans in Israel has started a campaign in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and the Absorption Ministry to bring 10,000 immigrants from Latin America in the next three years in addition to the normal aliya from that continent.

At a press conference here Mrs. Geula Havkin, chairman of the Association, said that certain conditions have developed which must be considered in planning the aliya. “We have witnessed a situation whereby only 2000 out of 5000 Jews who emigrated from Chile came to Israel. This caused us to reach certain conclusions aimed at achieving a better absorption pattern for immigrants from these countries.”

The new plan is based on special projects for Latin American immigrants in the southern parts of Israel. One project calls for the settlement of 100 families in industrial centers in the Raffah approaches. There are also plans to absorb immigrants in Latin American Kibbutzim in the south and in urban centers like Beersheba, Arad, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat and others.

Two Moscow Jewish activists, Prof. Molsei Gitterman and Victor Mandelsweig, both physicists, have been notified that they can leave the Soviet Union, the Student Straggle for Soviet Jewry reported today. Mandelsweig can leave on Friday and Gitterman on Saturday. Both have been the subject of a series of refusals and promises to get exit visas. Gitterman has been conducting a weekly physics seminar by phone with Bar Han University in Israel.

Thousands of years of Jewish art will be explored in a lecture course from Sept. 10-Dec. 3 offered by the Jewish Museum together with the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.