As Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the renegade Russian Parliament were locked in a turbulent standoff last month, a modest record was being set in 1993’s monthly aliyah figures from the former Soviet Union.
September saw the arrival in Israel of 6,207 new immigrants from Russia and the other former Soviet republics, bringing the total so far this year to 47,201.
The September figures only slightly exceed those of August (6,113) and of March (6,120), which was also a time of great friction between Yeltsin and Parliament.
Most of the emigrants from the former Soviet Union, however, have been leaving the outlying republics torn by ethnic and nationalistic strife.
In the meantime, 2,846 former Soviet Jews immigrated to the United States in September under the auspices of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
That brings the total 1993 immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union to the United States to 26,462, and for the fiscal year of October 1992 to September 1993 to 36,808.
Martin Wenick, HIAS executive vice president, said the annual American immigration quota of 40,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union was “basically filled,” as a couple of thousand former Soviet Jews entered the United States under the sponsorship of other groups.
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