Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Tekoah on the Soviet Dropout Issue

December 1, 1976
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Yosef Tekoah, president of Ben Gurion University in Beersheba and Israel’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, reacted to former Foreign Minister Abba Eban on the problem of Soviet Jewish dropouts. Writing today in the Jerusalem Post, Tekoah was critical of the way the dropout problem was being handled and rejected Eban’s contention that however they may be deplored, Jewish tradition and humanitarian concerns demanded that dropouts be helped.

Eban had expressed his views in an article written exclusively for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Nov. 23 and subsequently re-published in the Jerusalem Post.

Tekoah wrote: “Israel and the entire Jewish people are deeply concerned about the freedom and welfare of Soviet Jews, whether they desire to leave for Israel, emigrate to other countries, or remain in the Soviet Union. That is not at issue. The problem is what should be the attitude to those who instead of asking for an exit permit to the U.S. or another Western country, leave the Soviet Union ostensibly for Israel, and then drop out on the way and end up elsewhere.

“The present service arrangements for drop-outs in Vienna, sponsored by HIAS and the Joint (Joint Distribution Committee), with the cooperation of the Israel government and the Jewish Agency, are such as to encourage, legitimize, and increase the flow of dropouts to America. From six percent three years ago, the proportion of dropouts has now reached 60 percent, and it is continuing to move upwards. The full implications of this situation must be examined.

ASSESSES SOVIET ATTITUDE

“The Soviet Union has never changed its fundamental attitude toward the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate. Under international pressure it has merely allowed a small number of Jews to leave for the Jewish State. Yet their number has been considerably greater than the trickle of non-Jewish Soviet citizens permitted to move to the

“Since the beginning of aliya from the USSR, I have warned repeatedly that the Soviet government would seize every opportunity to free itself from the necessity to permit Jewish emigration. It has already done so by alleging that the immigrants’ absorption difficulties in israel have resulted in a decrease in the number of requests to leave for Israel. This allegation is being made despite the fact that there are today at least 180,000 such requests that have been submitted to the Soviet government by Jewish citizens and have not yet been approved.

“With the increase in the number of dropouts, the Soviet authorities have begun to give publicity to this new development and to emphasize that Soviet Jews do not in fact want to go to Israel. Indeed, the Soviet authorities, when granting exit permits for Israel, have been openly giving preference to potential dropouts. The objective is clear. If Moscow can create the impression that Jews do not seek to emigrate to Israel but simply to leave the USSR, there will be no reason to treat their problem differently from the treatment meted out to requests for emigration by Russians, Ukrainians, or Lithuanians.

SAVE THE SOVIET JEWISH MASSES

“Every dropout who has left the USSR on a visa for Israel has taken the place of another Jew who longs to go to the Jewish State and is being denied this right because the quota of exit permits for Israel is limited and is being continuously diminished.

To ignore these facts and call for support of the dropouts instead of concentrating all efforts on the elimination of this dangerous phenomenon is to disregard the interests of Soviet Jewry. This cannot be explained away by invoking abstruse principles.

“We must not sacrifice the Jewish masses of the Soviet Union for the sake of a few who think nothing of improving their personal lot at the expense of so many others and thus serve as tools in the hands of the Soviet authorities who strive to undermine aliya. We in Israel can only hope that American Jewry’s judgement will be a judgement to save the Soviet Jewish masses.”

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement