Premier Yitzhak Shamir made an impassioned appeal for aliya Wednesday and urged world Jewish leaders not to put obstacles in the path of Jews leaving “countries of distress” and to help them reach Israel. He referred specifically to the “negative” phenomenon of “drop-outs” among Jews leaving the Soviet Union.
Shamir, addressing the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, said he was appalled by recent figures showing a continuing decline of the Jewish population outside Israel. He said assimilation, intermarriage and a low birth rate threaten the survival of the Jewish people.
“Indications are that within 15 years the Jewish community outside of Israel will decrease by about 1.5 million and one generation later we may be one or two million less,” Shamir said. He was apparently referring to a recent report of a committee on demographics appointed by the World Zionist Organization Executive. It indicated that the diaspora Jewish population will be 8 million in the year 2000, down from 9.5 million at the end of 1985, and may be as low as six million by 2025.
‘CANNOT TOLERATE A SECOND MAJOR CATASTROPHE’
Even if these projections are only partly correct, “they still cry out to heaven,” Shamir said. “This generation which saw the loss of a third of our people cannot tolerate a second major catastrophe in the struggle for Jewish survival.”
Shamir called on Jewish leaders to place aliya at the top of their agenda in order to avert Jewish “mass suicide.” He said Israel has improved the process of absorbing olim and the leaders of world Jewry should make it clear to their people that only Israel offered the possibility of a “full Jewish life” as well as many opportunities.
Discussing another development, Shamir said Israel would not improve relations with the Soviet Union unless it recognized “the right of the Jewish people to return to their homeland.” He said Israel was meanwhile aiming at direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv to fight the drop out phenomenon, “the movement of Jews from the USSR to countries other than Israel.”
He said that “was an unfortunate and negative development” and charged that Soviet Jews who go to Western countries were abusing their exit permits for Israel. Shamir also deplored the fact that hundreds of Iranian Jews are stranded in Europe “but refuse to immigrate to Israel although she calls them to build their homes here.”
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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.
