Immigrant Families Stage Sit-in to Protest Location of Flats Assigned to Them

Five immigrant families from Soviet Georgia who arrived here last night, staged a sit-in at the Absorption Ministry offices at Lydda Airport to protest the location of the flats assigned to them. Ministry officials said the demonstration was incited by relatives of the new arrivals. The immigrants demanded flats in Lydda instead of in Ramleh, an adjacent previously Arab town. Officials tried to explain that Lydda and Ramleh were “twin-cities.” Meanwhile, Uri Narkis, executive director of the Jewish Agency’s immigration department, said that Russian-speaking personnel will be employed shortly in absorption centers throughout the country to expedite the processing of immigrants from the Soviet Union. He said about a third of the new immigrants from Russia are being channeled through absorption centers. New centers started to function recently at Beit Shemesh which has 40 apartments and in Pardes Hannah. New centers will open this summer at Maalot and Givat Ada with 60 and 90 flats respectively, Narkis said. Last night’s plane from Vienna brought another large group of Soviet Jews. One of the newcomers, Mrs. Batya Levin of Riga, said she and her husband were given exit visas when they insisted on testifying for the defense in last month’s trial of four Jews in Riga. Mrs. Levin said Soviet authorities tried to force her to testify for the prosecution but that she refused. She said she was subjected to daily interrogation for a year by the Soviet security services.