The World Zionist Executive announced today that it was shutting down the Jewish Agency’s immigrant transit center in Vienna “for budgetary reasons.”
Rafael Kotlowitz, head of the Agency’s Immigration and Absorption Department, said there was no justification to pay high rent for the facility at a time when few Jews are leaving the Soviet Union and even fewer are continuing on to Israel. He said that of the 169 Jews who reached Vienna from the USSR this month, only 48 came to Israel.
From now on, the Jewish Agency will transfer immigrants to Israel on the day of their arrival in Vienna or, at most a day or two later. Immigrants who want to re-unite with first degree relatives in countries other than Israel, will be referred to the Joint Distribution Committee for assistance.
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