A prediction that 800 Soviet Jews will settle in the United States during 1972 was made by Gaynor I. Jacobson, executive vice-president of the United HIAS Service. Speaking today at the 72nd Rabbinical Assembly convention Jacobson said that 214 Russian Jews settled in the United States in 1971, and that HIAS currently has on file applications from 5000 American citizens seeking to reunite that many families from the Soviet Union with their families in this country.
“We know, he said, “that if the gates were to open, the majority of Jews wishing to leave the USSR would go to Israel. However, thousands would undoubtedly opt for settlement with their relatives in the United States and other Western countries.” Jacobson reported on a survey made of 63 Jewish families from the USSR, comprising 198 individuals, who settled in the New York Metropolitan area during 1969 and 1970. He said they were generally small families, with 51 percent of the adults in the 45-68 year age bracket, with very few young children, but with 43 in the college age group, 17 to 25.
Most of the group surveyed, he said, were semi-skilled, had strong Jewish identification, and although experiencing difficulties in adjustment “are accommodating themselves to their new lives with success. Not one family has returned to the Soviet Union.” The New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) has aided 54 of these 63 families, “averaging $1115 per family, and most of them have made a financial adjustment in a relatively short period.”
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