Barely one percent of the funds expended by the U.S. government for refugee assistance in 1972 went to the project for Soviet Jews emigrating to Israel, Secretary of State William P. Rogers reported Thursday to the Congress. Of the expenditures totaling $263,470,000 last year, Rogers said, only $2,890,000 was for the Soviet Jewry project. The bulk of the funds was used for Cuban refugees in the U.S., $139 million; Southeast Asian refugees, $77 million; the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) $23,200,000; and Sudan refugees $10,030,000.
Thus far in 1973, the U.S. has provided $31 million for Soviet Jewry out of the $50 million legislated by Congress for Soviet refugees of all backgrounds. “The movement of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel picked up momentum during 1972 when some 32,000 people made the journey” Rogers said in his “U.S. Foreign Policy Report for 1972.”
“The migration continued despite a Soviet edict requiring emigres to reimburse the State for any higher education they had received;” Rogers stated. “The fees were fixed at as much as $36,000 for some graduates. World Jewish leaders declined to pay this ransom as they termed it: some emigrants were unable to raise the necessary money but others were not required to pay it, and the total movement continued during the year at an accelerated rate.”
In reporting on U.S. Soviet relations, Rogers observed the American people cannot be “expected to remain indifferent to the way the Soviet government deals with such fundamental issues as human rights and free movement” but “nevertheless, in an interrelated and interdependent world, it is essential that such differences not be permitted to frustrate the broader interests of our two nations and of all mankind in peace and security.”
In a paragraph entitled “Soviet Jewry,” Rogers reported that the increased rate of emigration of Jews to Israel was “favorably received by the American people” but there was a “marked reaction to the imposition in Aug. 1972 of a special education tax on Soviet emigrants to capitalist countries. The U.S. government has made known to the Soviet leadership the intense concern in this country over the imposition of these educational taxes.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
