Jewish Agency sources today ridiculed recent claims by Soviet officials that they were getting a “continual stream” of applications from Jewish emigrants seeking to return to the USSR. According to the sources, only 86 of the 42,000 Soviet Jews who arrived in Israel during 1971-72 have gone back to Vienna, the-way-station on the emigration route. The sources claim that of the 86 returnees, only 28 actually applied for Soviet re-entry permits and only five received them. One of the five who returned to the Soviet Union has now applied again for a visa to go to Israel, the Jewish Agency sources said.
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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.