Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet Jewish activist and Prisoner of Zion, has announced the establishment of a new social-political party later in the year, making it eligible to compete in the 1996 elections. The party most likely would attract recent olim, or immigrants, from the former Soviet Union.
The name “Yisrael ba-Aliyah” has two implications in Hebrew — “Israel for immigration” and “Israel moving upward.”
Speaking Wednesday in Hebrew and Russian before a crowd of more than 200 olim activists in Tel Aviv, Sharansky said the main aim of the movement is to change the national priorities regarding immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora.
The movement “strives to transform Israel from being a place of refuge for Jews escaping persecution, to being an attractive country for the world’s Jewish Diasporas, in view of the quality of life and personal security which it offers its citizens,” Sharansky said at a news conference.
He said another priority is to “strengthen the ideas of `kibbutz galuyot,’ the ingathering of the Jews the world over to Israel, and make it the central theme of our national agenda.”
According to Sharansky, plenty of parties and movements are preoccupied with Israel’s political issues, particularly with security and peace.
He said his movement would concentrate instead on Israel’s social problems, all of which are related directly or indirectly to aliyah and to the olim.
The immediate goal is two-fold: to bring another million Jews from the former Soviet Union to Israel and to better absorb and use the “potential” of the existing aliyah, Sharansky said.
He estimated that only 10 percent of olim potential is currently being well used by Israel.
“Our main goal is integration, not separation,” he said. “Only the integration of the immigrant community can help solve the absorption problems, accelerate Israel’s development.”
This is Sharansky’s second attempt to establish a political party for olim. Last time, he backed away from the idea just before the 1992 general elections.
The Russian olim party DA, which ran without him, failed to win sufficient votes to put a representative in the Knesset.
More than 400,000 olim who emigrated from the former Soviet Union over the past few years will be eligible to vote in 1996. In addition, some of the more than 200,000 olim who came to Israel in the 70s have become disenchanted with the major political parties.
Experts estimate that a new olim party could win six to 10 Knesset seats and become a deciding force in Israeli politics.
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.
