PAT THEORIES DON’T HOLD
But the Georgian Republic has only about 80,000 Jews compared to close to three million throughout the USSR, In the Baltic states alone there are 200,000 and it was anyone’s guess as to why the Georgians are being let out now, Dominitz said. He said it was possible that the Soviet authorities wanted to get rid of the least assimilable elements. Georgian Jews live in clans and jealously guard their way of life and Orthodox religious practices, he said.
Dominitz could not account for the seemingly catch-as-catch-can policy by which Soviet authorities issue visas. He said the theory that “troublemakers” are being let out does not hold because some of the most vocal advocates of Jewish emigration have been persecuted and remain in the Soviet Union while others who have campaigned just as fervently are now in Israel.
The Georgian Jews present special problems for Israeli absorption authorities. The journalists were taken on a tour of Kiryat Malachi where a large number of Georgian Jews have been settled under the auspices of the Chabad hasidim. Teachers and advisers have been sent to them on orders from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn.
But a visit to a factory in the township revealed that many Georgian Jews have difficulty adapting themselves to work discipline. In their native country they were mostly small shopkeepers. Here they report late to their shifts and often refuse to work in the afternoon or evening. The factory produces concrete telephone pylons and parts of pre-fabricated houses. But the Georgian workers do not make an effort to do their work properly, the journalists observed.
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