Louis Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, told American Jewish leaders today that while immigration from the Soviet Union was increasing, that from the United States was declining. Pincus addressed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations which is holding a special session here, its first in Israel.
The 38 leaders of American Jewish organizations were also addressed by Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir, Absorption Minister Natan Peled, and Moshe Kol, Minister of Tourism who discussed the country’s absorption and economic problems.
Pincus said immigrants from the USSR presently represented half of the total number of new settlers and said 40 percent of them were trained academicians. Expressing concern over the latest aliya figures from the U.S., he said only 5400 arrived between Jan.-Oct. 1972 compared to 7066 during the same period last year.
U.S. IMMIGRANT FAMILIES WELL ABSORBED
Asked about American olim who return, Pincus said he had no exact figures but was not alarmed by the rough estimates reaching him. He said most American immigrant families were well absorbed but that single olim were more prone to return home. He noted that 60 percent of the immigrants from the U.S. were single.
The visiting Americans contended that Israeli society was cool toward immigrants and said they had heard many complaints from U.S. immigrants that their neighbors did not talk to them. Pincus conceded that was true and said the Jewish Agency was fighting those attitudes. But he contended that a lot depended on the cooperation of U.S. Jewry in activities connected with immigrant absorption.
Peled conceded that 60 percent of all olim and an even higher percentage of the Russians have little contact with Israelis and tend to stick with their own people. He said greater efforts were needed in the field of social absorption. Sapir told the visitors that Israel’s inflationary problems stemmed from processes that could not be arrested. He said these were the needs for housing for immigrants and young couples, slum clearance, creation of new Jobs for immigrants, defense expenditures and the need to raise the living standards of the depressed classes.
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