Halt in Soviet Emigration Discussed

The virtual holt of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union was the subject of urgent discussion at a meeting in the Prime Minister’ Office yesterday in preparation for the Brussels Conference on Soviet Jewry, scheduled to convene in Paris next October.

According to the latest figures, only 205 Jews left the USSR in May, the smallest number in 10 years, and of them, only 60 came to Israel.

A dispute has arisen meanwhile between Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization chairman Leon Dulzin and the Bank of Israel over figures the bank released yesterday on emigration from Israel. According to the bank’s annual report, the number of Jews leaving Israel in 1981 exceeded, for the first time, the number of immigrants arriving. There were 26,000 emigrants against 15,000 immigrants, the bank report said. The number of immigrants was the lowest since 1953.

The report attributed the fall-off in immigration to the growing number of Soviet Jewish emigres who chose to settle in countries other than Israel and the interruption of Jewish immigration from Iran after the overthrow of the Shah. The high emigration figure was blamed on the lack of job opportunities in Israel.

Dulzin charged today that the report was “irresponsible and without any foundation.” He told a committee of the Zionist Council that it was impossible to make an accurate estimate of emigration because there were different definitions of the term. But Labor MK Uzi Baram, chairman of the Knesset’s Immigration and Absorption Committee, said the reality was even worse than the Bank of Israel report indicated. He said 1981 was in fact the second year with a negative immigration balance.